Most people will probably recognize Sam Raimi as the man behind the Spider-Man movie franchise (before it was rebooted last year, anyway) and as the director of Oz the Great and Powerful. But the horror aficionados among us will forever associate him with the Evil Dead trilogy. The movies not only launched the careers of Raimi and Bruce Campbell, but they've inspired comic books, video games, an off-Broadway musical, and a ton of merchandise. But beyond all that, fans have been clamoring for Raimi and Campbell to make a fourth movie in the saga. And now, twenty years after Army of Darkness ended the trilogy, a new Evil Dead movie has arrived in theaters. It's not a Raimi-directed Evil Dead 4 as many had hoped, but instead, a remake produced by the original franchise's creators. The remake's been getting great reviews since its world premiere at the South by Southwest festival last month, and for good reason. I'm proud to say that the remake is absolutely fantastic.
There's no Ash to be found this time around. Instead, the movie introduces us to Mia (Jane Levy), a heroin addict struggling with sobriety. Vowing to kick the drugs cold turkey, she's headed out to her family's isolated cabin out in the middle of nowhere so she can detox. Along for the ride are her friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Olivia (Jessica Lucas), her estranged brother David (Shiloh Fernandez), and David's girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore). It's a struggle at first, as Mia's withdrawal symptoms cause her to lash out against her friends and weaken her already strained relationships.
But as they often do in movies like this, things go downhill very quickly. The investigation of a rancid smell leads to the discovery of a multitude of dead, seemingly sacrificed cats in the basement, along with a book bound in human flesh and wrapped in barbed wire. The book and the bizarre incantations inside it quickly capture Eric's interest. Despite the handwritten warnings scribbled on its pages to avoid the book at all costs, Eric reads aloud some of the book's passages. And in doing this, he awakens a horrifying entity from its slumber deep within the woods. It possesses Mia before sparking a night of violence, carnage, and brutality from which it seems none of the five within that cabin will survive.
I don't have the same problem with remakes that some people do. I couldn't care less if a movie is a remake, just whether it's a good movie or a bad movie. But I'll confess that I was a little worried about Evil Dead. Much like the Friday the 13th remake that came out back in 2009, Evil Dead represents a franchise I enjoy a lot being overhauled for a new audience that might not be familiar with what came before. I was leery about it despite Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell being attached as producers, because I've seen one too many bad remakes over the years. But Evil Dead did not let me down in the slightest. It doesn't have the same no-budget, rough around the edges feeling of Raimi's original movie, but it's still some of the most fun I've had watching a horror movie in a long time.
The movie was directed by Fede Alvarez, a filmmaker whose only prior output was a handful of short films (none of which I've heard of, let alone seen) in his native Uruguay. Evil Dead is his feature-length directorial debut, and he does an astounding job. I've seen a few reviews over the last couple of days that have dismissed Evil Dead as being a shallow gorefest akin to Eli Roth's Hostel movies. These people have a point, as the movie jumps into "splatter film" territory wholeheartedly. And although the blood, guts, and severed limbs are the true stars of the movie, I thought Alvarez tried building a bit of tension in there too. The movie inspires simultaneous feelings of dread and disgust; you're scared of what might happen next and shocked and grossed out when it does.
And Alvarez refuses to let up. Even the low-key moments meant to give the audience a breather don't really provide much relaxation. There's always something hiding in the darkness, waiting to pop out and rip one of the characters into itty-bitty pieces. Even as blood literally rains down from every possible angle and the violence threatens to become cacophonous, Alvarez wants us to be afraid of what happens next. And I can't speak for anybody else, but for me, it worked.
The movie stumbles, however, when you take a good long look at the script. Written by Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues (with a little uncredited tinkering by Juno writer Diablo Cody), the script is the movie's weakest link. The characters are poorly constructed, and few scenes are milked for any sort of drama. We're told that Mia and David are supposed to have a very strained relationship due largely to David leaving Mia to tend to their dying, mentally-ill mother alone, the stress of which worsened her drug habit. This has also made David unpopular with the others in the cabin, but this all stops being relevant once we hit "the gore, the merrier" territory. They could have, at the very least, played off Mia's possession as her withdrawals having made her psychotic for a bit longer. Yeah, we'd have to get to the demonic stuff sooner or later, but it would have been interesting to see where that angle could have gone.
Maybe I just went in expecting something deeper than what Alvarez and Sayagues were willing to give. But they seemed so willing to go beyond the movie's simple concept and just dropped it. Maybe it all got left out during the editing process and will end up on the DVD in a few months, I don't know. I just would have liked seeing how things could have ended up.
At least we have Alvarez's direction to support the movie, along with some great performances from the cast. Unfortunately, they aren't all good. Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore don't contribute much to the movie in terms of acting ability, with Blackmore being so unremarkable that I actually forgot she was in the movie at all until her big possession scene. (Then again, it doesn't help anything that the character pretty much disappears altogether for twenty minutes in the middle of the movie.) But it does get better, trust me. Shiloh Fernandez provides a solid performance and gets a few moments to really shine, but there are two actors that I wanted to highlight.
One is Lou Taylor Pucci, who I enjoyed a lot. Though his character is the one that caused the whole mess, he remains level-headed enough to realize that something has to be done to ensure the group's survival even if it isn't pretty. Pucci approaches this with an ever-growing sense of panic and worry that I found believable. He essentially plays a voice of reason that's been put through a ringer, and I bought everything he was selling.
He's surpassed, though, by Jane Levy, who I thought was nothing short of fantastic. She's sympathetic enough at the start of the movie, but she really kicks it into high gear once her character gets possessed. Levy is actually pretty frightening as she alternates between mere creepiness and a snarling demeanor similar to an angry, feral animal. One could make the argument that the movie itself isn't all that scary per se, but Levy herself was strong enough to scare the pants off me.
Evil Dead is one of those franchise revivals that makes you feel like you've visiting old friends you haven't seen in many years. There's no Ash, and Sam Raimi's not the director, but I still found the movie to be a very worthy successor to the name. The many shout-outs and subtle (and occasionally not so subtle) references to Raimi's trilogy are a lot of fun and help establish something of a rapport with the die-hard fans, but it goes in its own direction enough that it feels like its own beast as well. And what a beast it is, too. Evil Dead is not a movie that is simply seen. It is a movie that is endured. It's not for those who are easily grossed out; I'm sure the NC-17 cut of the movie will cause a spike in sales for barf bags. But it doesn't feel as mean or spiteful as other gore-heavy horror movies. It's livelier, and energetic and fast-paced enough that it never grows tiresome to watch even in light of a non-stop gore typhoon. Evil Dead is definitely one of those remakes that can be proudly held up next to the original, and is most certainly worth watching. That is, if you can handle a massive deluge of violence and fake blood.
Final Rating: ***½
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