¨No! You don't
understand. There was something in the woods... and I think it's in here with
us... now.¨
Hollywood has seemed to have run out of fresh ideas
when it comes to making horror films and year after year they keep on bringing
us either remakes of classic films or sequels. Evil Dead is perhaps one of the
best known cult horror films of the 80´s, and Sam Raimi has decided to produce
this remake of his original film. Other horror remakes are coming out this year
(like Carrie) so I don’t think this will be a trend that is going to disappear
anytime soon. Despite not being a horror fan I decided to watch this film
because of newcomer Fede Alvarez, who made a name for himself in my home
country of Uruguay with a music video titled Panic Attack where the capital
city is completely destroyed by huge robots. Alvarez managed to accomplish this
feat with a very low budget and he also directed some short films as well (El
Cojonudo) which garnered the attention of some Hollywood people. Discovering
Alvarez´s potential they decided to put him in charge of the direction of Evil
Dead, a film he himself claimed to have been influenced by as a child. I don’t
blame Alvarez for accepting this offer because anyone in his shoes would have
done the same thing and it will probably help him grow in this industry, and
perhaps in the future he will be able to produce his own personal projects. I
appreciate the fact that Hollywood is looking for some outside talents, and in
my opinion Alvarez doesn’t disappoint here. It´s impossible to remake a cult
film like this and make it better, but somehow he manages to be unique in the
midst of the predictability of the genre. He has proven to be very talented,
but my problem with this film is that I really despise this genre so it was
hard for me to criticize it fairly. I think these campy gory horror fests are
all pretty much similar to each other and the only thing that really changes
are the effects which over time become more realistic. This was just too gory
for my taste and I never felt scared, only disgusted which isn’t something I
look forward to in a movie. I´m not a fan of the Evil Dead franchise so I can’t
honestly say if it lives up to the expectations of the fans.
The film is closely tied to the original film in that
it involves a group of five friends who travel to a cabin in the middle of the
woods and discover some mysterious book which summons the dead. Mia (Jane Levy)
barely survived a drug overdose and her friends have decided to bring her to
her family´s old cabin in order for her to recover. Her friends, Eric (Lou
Taylor Pucci) and Olivia (Jessica Lucas), along with her brother David (Shiloh
Fernandez) and his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) promise to do what
it takes to keep her in the cabin no matter how bad her craving for drugs gets.
This isn’t the first time that Mia has suffered from a drug overdose, but her
friends are determined it will be the last. Once they arrive at the cabin they
smell a strange odor and find some dead animals in the cellar. Some kind of
ritual has taken place and that is where Eric finds this strange book. He makes
the big mistake of opening the book and reading out loud some strange passages.
As soon as he does this something evil comes out of the woods and attacks Mia.
That is where the horror begins to take place and all hell breaks loose. A
storm prevents them from leaving and they are on their own against these evil
forces.
Evil Dead is extremely gory, there is a lot of blood
but hardly any scares. It also has some funny moments like in the original
film, but it just didn’t work for me. A much better movie is Cabin in the Woods
which does some interesting things breaking the genre and taking it to new
places. This version is an interesting homage and some fans will probably enjoy
it, while others will hate it. In my opinion Alvarez´s touch in this film makes
it a little more tolerable, but I really don´t like these type of films unless
there is some originality. The performances were pretty strong for a gory film,
I enjoyed Jane Levy´s lead performance and Pucci also had some interesting and
funny scenes. These characters are as stupid as pretty much every character
we´ve seen in a horror movie. Who in their right mind would open a book like
this and read the passages out loud in the middle of the woods? It is all part
of the genre and we just have to play around with that fact. I really didn’t care
for these characters either; it was hard for me to empathize with anyone of
them. I never felt like I was being transported into the movie, but the effects
were pretty realistic and well done. If you are a fan of gore you might enjoy
this.
http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/
This movie actually kept a lot of elements from the original Evil Dead, which kind of surprised me. I would recommend seeing it if you liked the original.
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