Evil Dead (2013)

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.

This new entry in the franchise 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 an eventual 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, 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: ****

Within the Woods (1978)

As a fan of both B-movies and the horror genre, it's pretty much a given that I'm also a fan of the Evil Dead trilogy. I'm not one the super-devoted mega-fans that starts frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of the franchise's name, but I really do love those three movies. That affection is why I'm nervous about the release of the Evil Dead remake. Sure, the franchise's creators are working behind the scenes of the remake as producers, but I'm still afraid that something could possibly go wrong.

But with the remake hitting movie theaters near you today, I thought I'd go back to the beginning of the Evil Dead franchise, back before the original trilogy. I'm specifically referring to the short film called Within the Woods. Made in 1978 on a budget of $1,600, this 30-minute short film actually served as a "proof-of-concept" prototype to show potential investors and generate funding for the first Evil Dead movie.

Never legally released in any home video format and existing today as a bootleg that looks like it was copied from a tenth-generation VHS tape, Within the Woods is an important piece of horror history for no other reason than because it laid the groundwork for one of the genre's most influential trilogies. And while it's essentially a glorified demo reel, Within the Woods isn't that bad either.

The premise is similar, but not quite. As the movie begins, a pair of vacationing couples ― Bruce (Bruce Campbell) and Ellen (Ellen Sandweiss), and Scotty (Scott Spiegel) and Shelly (Mary Valenti) ― are settling into a remote cabin in the woods. While Scotty and Shelly argue over a game of Monopoly, Bruce and Ellen venture out into the woods for a picnic. Bruce actually knows quite a bit about the area, revealing that the cabin is close to an old Native American burial ground. The burial ground is supposedly cursed, and those who disturb it are doomed to suffer the wrath of the angry spirits that watch over the area.

He assures a spooked Shelly that there's nothing to worry about, that it's just some old story. Besides, all they'll be doing is eating hot dogs, not bothering anyone's eternal slumber. But as Bruce digs a fire pit, he accidentally uncovers one of those old graves. And as he is quick to discover, the curse is true and the spirits that he has awakened are hungry for blood.

You have to keep in mind that Within the Woods wasn't made for mass consumption. It was produced for dirt cheap as a means of convincing Michigan businessmen to invest some cash in a feature-length movie whose creators weren't certain would even be completed, let alone successful. Within the Woods isn't Sam Raimi and company saying "here's what we can do," but something more along the lines of "here's what we could do." The movie's really rough around the edges, but as a piece of horror movie history, it's worth seeing just to experience where the Evil Dead movies got off the ground.

And really, you can most certainly see Raimi laying the groundwork for the Evil Dead movies. The cinematography, the editing, and many of the gags and scares would end up being recycled to better effect in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. It's basically an Evil Dead movie made for the change Raimi found underneath his couch cushions. You can see that he had a ton of untapped potential at the time, and as a result, he gives us what would essentially be a "greatest hits" reel of the first two Evil Dead movies before they'd even been made.

As far as the acting goes, there honestly isn't much to say about it. Mary Valenti and Scott Spiegel don't really have much to do, but then again they don't really need to do anything either. Our two leads, though, are really good. Bruce Campbell is charming and charismatic as always, even if he wasn't quite ready for prime time yet. But I will say his performance as the possessed monster was awesome, so he had that going for him. And of all four actors, Ellen Sandweiss makes a great go of it. While she'd up her "beleaguered victim" game in The Evil Dead (before her character becomes a monster, anyway) her performance here is still really good. She's believable in the part and sells the distress well.

The worst part of the whole thing is that the version of the movie I saw came from an old VHS tape that looked so worn and degraded that it made everything murky and practically unwatchable. It wasn't hard to follow the basic gist of the movie, but a lot of details are lost. The really sad thing is that this is probably the best Within the Woods will ever look unless Raimi decides to give some DVD distributor the film negatives or a pristine copy of the movie so they can put together an official, legal release. I can't see that happening due to potential legal hang-ups (the music is all copyrighted and nobody ever paid to use it), so it probably goes without saying that Within the Woods isn't getting any prettier and it probably never will.

Judging Within the Woods on its own merits, then it's okay, I guess. It's not great, but it was never supposed to be. It's just a rough draft its authors would soon be working the kinks out of. But the movie's still really effective. If Raimi, Campbell, and Rob Tapert had shown me Within the Woods back then, I would have totally invested some money in their project. It's a damn fine short movie. I'm sure all the truly devoted Evil Dead fans have seen it by now, but if you have yet to check out Within the Woods, go to YouTube and hunt it down. Then go watch the Evil Dead movies, okay?

Final Rating: **½

Army of Darkness (1992)

If any genre has contributed more cult classics than any other, it's been horror. And while the genre often finds itself being disrespected by the world at large, it's brought us more than its fair share of memorable movies over the years. Three such films have been Sam Raimi's Evil Dead trilogy. While the movies aren't very famous outside their small yet devoted following, they're proof that you don't need a large budget to create a movie that's fun to watch. And after the first two independently-made Evil Deads, Raimi decided to bring the franchise to the big time with Army of Darkness, distributed by Universal Studios. While it sadly doesn't bear the name Evil Dead 3 (thanks to Universal wanting it to stand alone), it shows the culmination of the trilogy's evolution into horror-influenced slapstick comedy. And I think Army of Darkness is a better film for it. I don't think it would have gotten its own action figures and comic books if it hadn't.

We begin with a quickie recap of what's come before: Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend Linda (Bridget Fonda) go to a cabin in the middle of the woods, monsters show up thanks to the Necronomicon, Ash cuts his hand off and sticks a chainsaw on the stump, and ends up getting sucked into a mystically-created black hole as the opening credits begin. Ash emerges from the black hole in medieval England, weapons and transportation in tow. Why's he in England? Don't ask me, I didn't write the movie. An army of soldiers led by Lord Arthur (Marcus Gilbert) assume he's a spy for a rival kingdom, and lock him up with other captives despite the protests of one of Arthur's wisemen (Ian Ambercrombie).

Ash is chained up, and led to Lord Arthur's castle. When he arrives, he meets Duke Henry (Richard Grove) and gets hit in the head with a rock by Sheila (Embeth Davidtz), who is told that her brother was killed in battle by Ash. Ash is ordered to be executed by being thrown into "The Pit." He is, and is forced to fight two "deadites" (which we learn is the given name of the Evil Dead demons). The wiseman tosses Ash his chainsaw, and he gets a little busy. He escapes, and demands he be sent back to his own time. The wiseman sends Ash to find the Necronomicon, giving him three words to say ("klatuu, barata, nikto"). We'll need to remember that later.

Our hero arrives at a windmill, where he apparently plans on staying for the night. He smashes a mirror, assuming his reflection was a deadite, and six-inch versions of Ash jump from the shards. This scene defies summation, so I'll leave it up to you to watch. Regardless, one of the mini-Ashes jumps down Ash's throat, and an eye starts to grow out of his shoulder. The eye develops until an evil clone of Ash rips himself away from the Ash we know and love. Instead of fighting or arguing, Good Ash simply shoots Evil Ash (Bruce Campbell, again) in the face with his shotgun.

Evil Ash is hacked to pieces with a chainsaw and buried, and Ash heads on his way for the Necronmicon. You remember those three words? Well, Ash didn't. He arrives at a cemetery where the Necronomicon is kept, and the big dope forgets the third word. He simply mumbles it, and the army of the deadites arises, including a resurrected and super-ugly Evil Ash. Evil Ash forms an army of darkness, and the war begins. Will Ash get home? Or will he fail miserably? It all depends on if you're watching the theatrical cut or the director's cut: they have different endings.

Personally, I prefer the director's cut. Some scenes make more sense with the deleted scenes reinstated. However, both versions are great, despite a lack of horror. This film is a total comedy. While The Evil Dead is a full-on horror film, and Evil Dead 2 is a horror/comedy, this one ditches all that legit horror stuff for over-the-top comedy. And if you ask me, it's Bruce Campbell's best movie to date. You might as well forget all the other actors in the movie, because the entire film is Bruce Campbell. If it had been any other actor, it just wouldn't be the same. If anybody wants to know why Bruce is one of my favorite actors, I present this movie as proof. His acting is so hammy, it doesn't stop being awesome.

This movie has it all. Chainsaws, shotguns, evil clones, an army of skeletons, a hot medieval babe, and a '73 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale. What's not to love?

Final Rating: *****

Evil Dead II (1987)

Outside of Morristown, Tennessee, in the winter of 1979, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell would begin work on a film that would start them on a path to becoming B-movie icons: The Evil Dead. Shot over the course of several years on a shoestring budget, The Evil Dead wouldn't see any mainstream success, but it became a big success on the drive-in circuit and the burgeoning home video market. It was such a success, in fact, that the brains behind it saw fit to make a sequel, the appropriately titled Evil Dead II. One of the rare sequels that is genuinely better than its predecessor, Evil Dead II shows just what you can do with a low budget and a lot of passion.

We start with a recap of the original Evil Dead, though slightly retold. Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) head to the abandoned cabin, discover the Necronomicon, and unleash the fury. Poor Linda loses her head over the matter, leaving Ash alone to his own devices as he slowly goes insane. But we can't have one guy all by himself for ninety minutes, can we? It would get boring after a while. What we need is some victims, and we get them.

At a random airport, Annie Knowby (Sarah Berry) gets off a plane carrying some missing pages from the Necronomicon, and she's picked up by Ed (Richard Donner). I think Ed might be her boyfriend, but they never really say. But it doesn't matter much, since he'll be a puddle of goo by the end of the movie. Anyway, they're heading to Annie's father's cabin, where he was translating the Necronomicon. You guessed it, Ash is gonna have some company. On the way, they meet Jake (Danny Hicks) and Bobbie Jo (Kassie Wesley), who are the biggest rednecks this side of Deliverance. The only difference, and a good one at that, is Jake and Bobbie Jo don't sodomize anybody. The bridge is out thanks to the evil dead demolition crew, so for the super-low price of a hundred bucks, Jake and Bobbie Jo agree to guide Annie and Ed to the cabin.

Meanwhile, things aren't going too well for Ash. Linda's severed head bites his hand, so he snaps and introduces Linda to the business end of a chainsaw. Unfortunately, the bite wound gets infected, and his hand becomes the tool of the devil. It starts beating Ash over the head with plates and beer bottles, then starts reaching for a meat cleaver. This doesn't sit too well with our hero, so he pins his hand to the floor with a knife and hacks the killer hand off at the wrist with his trusty chainsaw. And you know what he uses to take care of the wound? A dirty rag and duct tape. This is why the Evil Dead movies are so awesome, because Ash is hardcore.

Annie and the crew arrive at the cabin, see the bloody chainsaw, and notice that the Knowbys are missing. They put two and two together, and beat the snot out of Ash before throwing him into the basement. That's not good, because they discover that Mrs. Knowby was possessed by the monsters, and Mr. Knowby killed her and buried her in the basement. And wouldn't you know it, she pops up out of the ground and she's hungry for a fresh soul. Ash escapes from the basement, and the fun begins.

Evil Dead II is one of my all-time favorite movies. Why? How many other movies has a guy cut his hand off and attach a chainsaw to the stump? The movie's a great mix of horror and humor, and it's backed up by good acting (or in some scenes, so bad it's good) and a great script, as well as inventive camera angles and great effects (courtesy KNB EFX Group). If you ask me, Evil Dead II is light-years better than its predecessor. If you haven't seen it yet, why not?

Final Rating: ****

The Evil Dead (1981)

Of all the ways to describe movies out there in Hollywood, perhaps the most broad phrase is the "cult film." Cult films vary in genre and style, but they all have one common factor: a devoted following in spite of questionable mainstream notoriety. From movies as legendary as the Star Wars franchise to more underground movies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and all movies in between, the cult movie is a type that can't truly be nailed down to just one style.

However, the overwhelming majority of them can be found in the horror genre. There are hundreds of horror movies that can be considered cult films, but one of the most unique is the debut film of director Sam Raimi and B-movie icon Bruce Campbell, The Evil Dead. Light on both plot and budget, the movie more than makes up with it with a frenetic energy that cements its reputation as a cult classic.

In the autumn of 1979, Ash (Bruce Campbell) and four friends head to an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods outside Morristown, Tennessee. They go looking around the basement and discover a tape recorder, a huge knife that looks like it's made out of bones, and a hella-ugly book titled the "Necronomicon ex Mortis." They decide to play whatever's on the tape recorder, and it's the Book On Tape version of the Necronomicon. Curiosity didn't just kill the cat; it smacked it around, raped it with a tree, and skinned it alive. Why? It turns out the book is full of demon resurrection passages, and on that note, we cue the mayhem. The axe-swinging, shotgun-blasting, milk-puking mayhem. 

The Evil Dead is one of those movies that's really cheaply made and has cheesy acting, but it's gained a reputation as one of the definitive cult classics. What makes the biggest statement is that it became a classic despite the incredibly simple plot and cheap nature, and it launched the careers of Sam Raimi (who would eventually direct the Spider-Man movies) and Bruce Campbell, who would go on to become a B-movie legend.

As I said before, the acting isn't Oscar-caliber, but it's good for what it is. Considering the five actors are all amateurs, their lack of experience is excusable. Bruce Campbell is great in his first of three movies as the dim-witted Ash, and Betsy Baker, Rich Demanincor (credited as "Hal Delrich"), and Theresa Tilly (credited as "Sarah York") hand in watchable performances as Linda, Scotty, and Shelly, respectively. However, Ellen Sandweiss (who plays Ash's sister Cheryl) is just awful. Almost every time she's on screen, I hit the mute button on my TV, or fast-forward through the scene. No lie. Maybe there's a reason her acting career didn't exactly take off afterwards.

Luckily for the viewer, the movie as a whole is not as bad as Sandweiss's acting. It's not great, but it's good. Joe LoDuca's score is tense and haunting, and Tom Sullivan's make-up effects are brilliantly disgusting. Sam Raimi's direction is also tight, and the different angles we view the action from makes the movie even more frightening that it really is. Overall, I'll say the film is worth a watch. If you like low-budget splatter movies, you'll love it. Even if you don't like that particular genre, you might still like it.

Final Rating: ***½