The Evil Dead (2012)

[wongfeihung62]

Just got back from watching it. It sucked big time.

[Guest Markgway]

I thought Cabin the Woods was up its own arse.

I'll maybe catch The Evil Dead once it hits DVD.

[daisho2004]

Its funny a lot of People actually love this film, I was just floored at how stupid it was!

[KUNG FU BOB]

How amazing was it??? Well, my son and I saw it on opening day, but I'm only just now finally bothering to post about it.

It started off promising... The woods and cabin looked perfect, and creepy. The acting and dialogue was surprisingly good and natural. It looked like 90% of the make-up FX were practical (not CGI), and they were very realistic. Unfortunately... Every time something "scary" happened the filmmakers zoomed in for the now oh-so-typical, too-closely framed, shaky-cam filmed, hyper-edited nonsense while the soundtrack music beats you over the head with "this-part's-intense-and-scary" music. The original knew when and how to use both a shot- a well composed, proper shot filled with atmosphere- and a musical cue to unnerve you. This new one, I literally felt like they were (in an embarrassingly obvious and laughable way) trying to dictate my every thought, every second of the film. There was no artistry to creating that feeling of isolation and terror of the unknown. It was just something loud and bloody filmed all crazy. Pause. Another something loud and bloody filmed all crazy. Repeat.

Sadly, I didn't find any of it scary. In the beginning it was pretty creepy. But that was just a whole lot of foreplay, and then they left me with just a laugh and a kiss on the cheek.

The film had several really good ideas, including the characters' reason for going to the cabin. So it was just that much more frustrating to be left with only a bunch of extreme gore, and little else.

Honestly, the least effective thing in the film for me was the look of the "Evil Dead" themselves. On the original, with equipment and supplies mostly bought from the grocery store, basically no budget, and a whole lot of love, imagination, and hard work, the special make-up FX people managed to make some truly frightening creatures. The Evil Dead-possessed people looked nightmarish and yet each still had their own singular look. In this new film... meh. For the most part they were just pale, veiny, dirty, and wearing contacts lenses.

Yes, I'm in my forties and I've seen a lot of horror films over the years. So you may think I'm just being jaded. But my (about to turn) nineteen year old son, who just saw and became a fan of the original EVIL DEAD films in the last few years, also felt the same way about the new EVIL DEAD. That it had huge potential, but was ultimately a completely disappointing misfire.

I know the whole "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" thing, and I should've known better than to get excited but... In my opinion the EVIL DEAD was the easiest film, most ripe with possibilities for a great remake/reboot/continuation. And after I saw the trailer, I really thought they were going to deliver something great. They didn't.

[odioustrident]

Honestly, the least effective thing in the film for me was the look of the "Evil Dead" themselves. On the original, with equipment and supplies mostly bought from the grocery store, basically no budget, and a whole lot of love, imagination, and hard work, the special make-up FX people managed to make some truly frightening creatures. The Evil Dead-possessed people looked nightmarish and yet each still had their own singular look. In this new film... meh. For the most part they were just pale, veiny, dirty, and wearing contacts lenses.

Exactly.. I love how many people on this forum know and appreciate good practical effects. The main reason I'm on the fence with this film is the final death scene!

[KUNG FU BOB]

Exactly.. I love how many people on this forum know and appreciate good practical effects. The main reason I'm on the fence with this film is the final death scene!

You know, I can't even remember what that was. That's really saying something about the impression it made on me, eh?

[inframan]

Maybe some good can come of this remake: Raimi considers Army of Darkness 2 : http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/65101/bruce-campbell-talks-evil-dead-4-or-army-darkness-2-or-something

[Takuma]

wow, was this a positive surprise!

Evil Dead (USA, 2013) [Cinema] – 3.5/5

An unexpected treat: a good remake. The new Evil Dead is an enjoyable bloodbath that amps up the gore factor to 11. Indeed, this is no doubt the goriest film ever passed with an R-rating. Better yet, the visceral bloodletting is almost fully hand-made, with minimal use of CGI. The storyline is a svariation of the original, but thankfully doesn’t replicate scenes too faithfully. There’s a good balance between modern horror and classic cabin horror, with some very stylish use of lighting and visual details. Jokes and postmodern bullshit are thankfully left out, with the only humor rising from the violence that becomes absurdly extreme. The middle third takes a small dive with repetitive scenes of self mutilation and rapid editing, and the film lacks the freshness and charm of the original, but as a whole it’s an effective stomach churning ride.

[hanshotfirst]

Well, it's gory. Arriving as the latest in the seemingly endless spate of remakes, Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, and Bruce Campbell themselves are on board as producer for the newest, hereafter called Evil Dead 4. For those familiar with the original, the storyline remains largely the same: a group of friends gather at a secluded cabin in the woods, though this time, instead of trying to party it down, they're attempting to a help a friend through detox. But one of them discovers a mysterious book in the basement, inked in blood and bound in flesh, and unleashes some very angry and vengeful demonic spirits, leading to a hell of a bloodbath.

Raimi's original film isn't the most substantiate film. It's storyline is paper thin, its characters are underwritten (Raimi himself is amusingly game in the DVD commentary, poking fun at many of the film's flaws), and it's obviously made on the cheap. But what it did have in spades, fleshed out even further in its mega-cult sequels, was a personality. Raimi's endless manic camera work and Bruce Campbell's endearing square-jawed hero Ash Williams have made the films choice cult-favorite for decades. Raimi managed to pitch the near-impossible high-wire act of blending dark humor with visceral horror, creating a film with a sense of identity to with its notoriety. Once you looked past the initial shock value, Evil Dead was a weird piece of art, its many striking visuals delivered by a director who, however young, however green, however unruly, was distinctive. First time-director Fede Alvaraez is clearly a horror fan as well, and there's no denying the new Evil Dead's a fanboy film, full of loads of splatter and gore, and it's an intense ride.

But even at its most violent, Raimi's films felt like some sort of weird modern pop-art. Like Dario Argento at his best, even the most gory shots were executed with a sort of artistic flair. Even today, the film, however dated and crude, tingles with a raw energy, manic imagination, and black humor. Alvarez takes a different route, going for a post-millennium endurance test-style horror film. That's not a bad thing, and Evil Dead 4 is reasonably entertaining as a balls-to-the-walls thrill ride. But it lacks the panache of Raimi's original, and more importantly, it's iconic lead (though those who stay through the credits will be treated to a delightful five-second cameo from Campbell himself). Indeed, part of the problem with the film is that it seems to switch protagonists around it's three-quarter mark. But that's just symptomatic of a larger issue: every character in the film is a dumb as rocks, and unfortunately, that joke seems to be lost on the filmmakers. As the charcters wander around cellars in spite of seeing dead bodies and refuses to turn on the lights as they approach their friends in the dark, you kind of want to hit them.

Alvarez piles on the gore in mountains, but but while there are many cringe-worthy, including a number of salacious closeups on the damage that can be done to the human body, but while it'll elicit many groans from the audience, it never encourages the audience to care enough to be involved beyond wondering about the makeup effects rather than caring about any of the film's characters. The film maintains an intense tone throughout, for many horror fans, there's bound to be a certain glee in the film's relentlessness. But the world looks different now, and there's just no recapturing the uniquely raw tone of the original that Raimi deftly mixed with jet black humor. The shocks now feel like they're trying too hard shock rather than just playing their hand-the infamous tree-rape restaged as a weird tentacle hentai-esque, for instance. Ultimately, the attempts at viscera lead to exhaustion, as the film descends into buckets of gore and raining literal blood. For genre fans, this might be some sort of perverse fun. But apart from a handful of striking images-Mia standing in front of a flaming cabin, the film's money shot of a head being spit in two with a chainsaw, but without Raimi's panache, the audience might eventually start to feel numb.

In the end, the flaws in the original film are simultaneously what make it work. By sanding off its edge, by being conscious of itself, Evil Dead 4 is to some extent undone by its eagerness to please. The original wasn't a classic at the time, just a gleefully creative work by a direction anxious to scare. Raimi's electrifying camera work and crazed sense of style weren't out to do anything other than play things straight, it had no shoes to fill. Raimi seemed to throw everything at the wall and make most of it stick, connecting his many images together into a bizarre but somehow distinctive whole. The new film seems too controlled, too conscious of the past, too interested in living up to expectation. Everything feels so calculated that the inensity feels manufactured rather than visceral. This gives the film its own charms, and many horror fans will likely take to its no-holds barred mayhem. It's a certain kind of fun, but quite the distinctive kind that makes the original film such a unique thrill ride. Raimi, Campbell, Tapert, and Alvarez have all done their best, but you get the sense that we've all sort of grown up a bit, and maybe this should've tried to stand by itself rather than throw its hat in the right with the much-loved series. It isn't as good as it could be, but it isn't terrible either. In the end, where Raimi managed to balance between two extremes, Alvarez sort of falls into the middle and negates them, tilting instead on the side of splattery thrill ride. It's fine, but will it inspire the cult fervor the original did and be remember 25 years down the road? Probably not. But for cheer and scream multiplex horror, it does its job well enough.