Evil Dead (English : 2013 : 1h30m)
[Based on 1981 Evil Dead - Remake or sequel : read on]
Directed by Fede Alvarez (hails from Uruguay)
Produced by Sam Raimi (Creator of Evil Dead), Bruce Campbell (Hero of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead Series (character name Ash), Robert Tapert (Producer of Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series)
Writer : Rodo Sayagues
Music : Roque Banos (Spanish Music director)
Cinematography : Aaron Morton
Concept Art : Santiago Vecino (Uruguayan)
Banner : Ghost House Pictures
Starring : Jane Levy & Shiloh Fernandez, their 3 friends, sharp lame cutter, chainsaw, nail gun, crow bar, machete, an evil and its favorite book.
Just as in the fairy tales starting line "Once upon a time", its mandatory for a bunch of teens to get lost in the woods in a "Slasher-Horror" movie. Evil Dead is no exception, where 5 young people come together to spend some time in an abandoned “cabin in the woods”. The cabin belongs to the parents of Mia and David, and their other 3 friends have come to help Mia to cope up with her drug addiction. Mia just can't adopt the environment, which the rest find as her hallucination. But quickly they find themselves in the basement before a mysterious book with a bizarre cover on it. After a brief "teenage" debate, they decide to leave the book behind, but our curious Eric takes it to his room and opens it. Same time, Mia's hysteria reaches newer heights. Eric by this time has read the lines from the book which should not be read (clue : marked quite clearly in uppercase English with red ink which Eric failed to decipher) [and if you had paid attention you could see Harry Potter behind the windows yelling that those are his lines]. Mia panics and drives away, just to see creepy images calling out her name, the distractions resulting in an accident. All by herself in the dark creepy forest, she runs until the moment the evil decides to be mischievous with her. David & co find her, but she signals immediately that "there is something with them in the cabin". Ignoring her statement, the 4 try to keep cool but soon they have to confront the "unknown" by destroying themselves physically as minutes pass by. We know that its evil, but what its capable of is what Evil Dead is all about.
Finally the Blu-ray is out, with all the bonus material. The wait was long, but the movie was quite satisfactory. Firstly, however you read it, it’s still Rated (quite) R - for gore and language. It’s not the normal 'Friday-night-pop-corn-sofa' movie. Everyone seems to cut their arms in one way or the other - luckily they had only 2 - just imagine if an octopus was casted, the gore would have instantly multiplied by 8 !
Fede Alvarez had understood what are the expectations. Along with the writer his major task is to satisfy the "Daddies" (who were kids when Evil Dead hit the screen for the first time) as well the teen kids today. In that they have largely succeeded. As I had mentioned before (Superman Review), Remakes / Adaptation comes with a price. They have kept the concept and characters intact, but changed the look thru their presentation. It’s quite appealing. [Another example of a remake that worked is Billa Vs Don - In Billa they kept everything as it is, just their presentation - concentration on costumes - did the magic, whereas SRK over shadowed Amitab's Don, which back fired very badly]
Talking about Remake - I personally felt that the 2013 version cannot be considered as a Remake. It’s between a remake and a sequel (say Evil Dead 4). The characters and few classic scenes were re-invented, but the total exercise is something new. They also tried to make it look logical (where they failed miserably) and added some story-content to it (which goes unnoticed once the slashing begin). They gave an entirely different (wonderful) climax. I really liked the climax - the grounds on which it was made was kind of anything but lame. But the evil looked a badly combed pre-teen who just escaped from the clutches of her advisory father and is now hunting anyone who advices her !
The major highlight of the movie are the special effects / make up. Less CGI was used, and they followed the techniques used by Sam Raimi in 1981 while filming the original. It’s amazing to see some "horrible" slicing, I will not go in detail (not for spoilers, but it’s quite disturbing) - knowing that the bathroom and basement slicing are not CGI, Fede Alvarez really needs some appreciations. Music, camera work, stunts, creepy environment are noteworthy.
The major problem with the movie are the development of the character. It’s like narrating a picture-story - here you see him and there she is - kind of thing. Except Jane who acted as Mia, the rest utter few lines just for the sake of it. There is a particular scene where Jane gets quite close to David (Shiloh), and while talking she rolls her eyes to the corners as though re-checking as well as projecting the fear - she manages to do that with one eye as the other is covered by her hair. They did try to be intelligent, but failed to note that no intelligence is necessary for Evil Dead. You say Evil Dead, then Skeletons army is so believable. They have also put an enormous amount of blood in the movie and of course a lot of "seat-tearing-with-nails" movements.
Comparison : 2013 Evil dead did match with the original with some exceptions. The slapstick comedy is missing, but you do find it here and there. The original did not take neither the movie nor the audience seriously - But the new version went all the way to be serious which turns to be quite heavy. As in the original, all the "evil" scenes are extended. Usually, in a Horror movie, you do not tend to see the "ghost" at all. You are just been scared with the sound of tins rolling. Its Evil Dead that re-wrote that with their out-of-the-box make-up effects and showed all nasty things done by the evil. [Exorcist did that in a more haunting manner, which Evil Dead did pay respect to]. And then there is less running around and screaming in the new version, which was quite cool in the original. The most famous scene - say Evil Dead, the first thing comes to your mind is the "penetration" scene. The new version does manage to boost it up with more shocking visuals. Another scene is the evil POV of the forest. There is much more, but I allow you to discover it thru the commentaries by 2 film makers, generations apart.
Evil Dead : Blood Bath
