Evil Dead 2013 - Well that was Gross, but horrfiying?

This is movie that has made a gratuitous amount of noise this year. Safe to say, many people were looking forward to it. What I am I talking about? The Evil Dead remake. Disclaimer: I assume most of the readers have seen the original movies.

Here’s some source information, if for some strange reason you don’t know what I am talking about.

IMBD: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1288558/?ref_=sr_1

Rotten Tomatoes: http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_evil_dead_2013/

Genre(s): gore-porn, suspense

Before I begin the actual review, I’d like to give some history. Evil Dead (2013) is a remake of the original movie sharing the same title. The gap between these movies is quite large, thirty-two years to be exact. The horror genre has changed quite a bit since the 80’s, mostly in a downwards direction. This is the movie that made Bruce Campbell a cult classic hero. The old one, well let’s be honest, was campy; like really campy. However, there is an undertone of humor in the original. It took itself seriously, but didn’t go over the edge with it. The Claymation and special were fantastic. A decent horror movie to say the least.

Story/Plot:

Teenagers go to family owned cabin. Prior to their arrival the audience is shown the demon already possessing another girl. With the help of some very odd people her father kept the demon from coming back. For this demon to come into our world, certain rituals must be completed. Once one of the main characters reads the magic words, each teen is possessed and has to be killed by the surviving main characters.  

The movie can basically be divided in half. The first half focuses on character development: the inner conflict between members of group, relationships strained by past mistakes. The second half is all about demon possession and each member of the group getting killed. Normally, this seems fine, however, not always. The movie spends too much time trying to build compelling characters. A damaged brother-sister relationship, estranged friends and drug addiction are too much to cover in a film that’s only one hour and thirty one minutes long.  

Obviously, this problem bleeds into the second half of the movie. One of the most compelling aspects of horror is suspense. Keeping your viewer on the edge, even if they know what is going to happen. The Paranormal series did this rather well. Since the first thirty-some minutes focused on building characters, the really cool bits got rushed. There is hardly anytime between possessions and the particular horrors that accompanied them. There was no suspense at all. Everything escalates really fast, to the point where the movie feels rushed. In addition there were some hard to believe moments. For example, when Eric saves David from a possessed Mia it’s way too ridiculous. That dude should have been dead.

Characters:

·         Mia = recovering drug addict, estranged sister of David.

·         David = estranged brother to Mia and the rest of the group.

·         Eric = school teacher and estranged/former friend of David.

·         Olivia = part of the normal crew, friend of Mia.

·         Natalie = girlfriend of David.

The characters in this movie don’t let it down. I could tell these people cared about each other and seemed genuinely horrified when their friends got possessed. None of them exhibited the typical horror movie stupidity, though there were some moments when David really pissed me. I mean Sweet Mother of Mary, there’s a point where you just pull the trigger; but I digress.

The real problem is trying to establish characters before evil stuff starts happening. A good horror movie will develop characters during the evil stuff. The extreme situations will provide the audience a window into that character’s soul. The Thing, from 1982, does this really well. The ground work for compelling characters was in this movie, but there wasn’t enough time. Mia’s mother dying in a mental hospital, and David’s estrangement with the rest of the group were both excellent building blocks. However, none this makes any difference when the demon starts wrecking stuff. I didn’t care when any of them got killed or about the one who survived.

Special Effects:

This is Evil Dead’s selling point. Notice I called this film gore-porn in the genre section and that’s exactly what it is. The makers of this film wanted to gross the audience out. They have succeeded. I felt queasy the entire time and gore doesn’t bother me very much. People get their arms chopped off, faces scrapped off, stabbed, beaten, thrown up on, punctured with nails, and to top it all off there’s even self-mutilation. The finishing move that the lone survivor exacts on the demon was rather fantastic (yes, it involves a chain saw). The costume designs for the possessed members looked great. It reminded me a lot of Hellraiser. The gore effects were peachy and disgusting which is exactly what they were going for.  The tree rape scene was very well done and definitely out does the first one, but only in that scene.

Concept:

The basic rundown is our group of teenagers goes to a family owned cabin to help one their own recover from drug addiction. Some crazy witchcraft happens in the basement of the family cabin prior to the teenagers’ arrival. A book called the Necronomicon (the name taken from H.P. Lovecraft novels) can summon the resident demon. Is this very original? No. As far as horror movies are concerned, it’s been done before.

Possibly the biggest failing of this movie is it’s not scary. Is it visually disturbing and makes people with weak stomachs vomit. Yet, I was left wanting. This movie didn’t even bother with jump scares. They just expected the gore to carry me through. Honestly, I don’t know if I can really call Evil Dead (2013) a horror movie. Even bad slasher films try to scare me. Nothing is scary in this movie, even when the teens are possessed. My conclusion is the film makers weren’t trying to make the scariest movie since Satan. They brought the 1981 film into a modern context for a modern audience. It’s full of call backs to the original. They reinvent the situation in an interesting way. So I’ll give credit where it is due. For a remake, this isn’t bad. Sadly, they could have done way better. Go see this movie once. If you like, good for you. If you don't, never watch it again.

Score: 6/10