Wow. Did Sam Raimi?s seminal Bruce Campbell gore shlock original really come out circa 1981?and was it really that long ago? In the spirit of tongue-in-cheek but horrifically satisfying projects like Demons and The Beast Within, Raimi?s Evil Dead is often mentioned in the same breath as the other zombie-esque films from the likes of Romero like Dawn and Night, though Evil really has little to do with a zombie plague taking over the world as I see it (many argue these ?possessed? creatures depicted in Raimi?s original and now in Fede Alvarez?s remake are demonic zombies of sorts). Long before Raimi really had his name put on the map for his heralded Spider-Man trilogy, he made shocking-yet-somewhat-humorous horror such as Evil Dead and many fans of his truly believe that?s what launched the filmmaker ? not Spidey. I am not going to waste bandwidth discussing the pro?s and con?s of the phenomenon that has swept through Hollywood over at least the last decade which is remaking everything under the sun ? though in the past I would have rallied for the reasons why it?s been utterly ridiculous to consider doing so and shows a clear lack of originality in the motion picture industry ? but except to say these remakes will continue being churned out, for better or for worse, and we should just get used to it. For what it?s worth, I have found a handful of remakes to actually work ? The Fog, John Carpenter?s The Thing, The Hills Have Eyes, Dawn of the Dead, John Carpenter's Village of the Damned, Friday the 13th, The Haunting, Man on Fire, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, House on Haunted Hill ? and a plethora that didn?t ? The Amityville Horror, House of Wax, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hitcher, Nightmare on Elm Street, Rob Zombie?s Halloween ? and we have recently been treated to a remake of Raimi?s circa ?81 Evil Dead. How does it stack up?
The trailers for this were uber-promising. A group of idiotic kids are (again) somehow trapped inside a remote cabin (similar to Raimi?s film?s plot) a la Eli Roth?s Cabin Fever in the woods where some kind of supernatural force or presence seems to take each of them over, the result of one of these idiots reading from ?The Book of the Dead? that?s discovered there; the hyper-kinetic and downright jarring teasers and trailers for the film showcased a whole lot of excitement and promised gore galore, and I was admittingly immediately hooked. I somewhat recalled Raimi?s original, but I definitely need a refresher on it when I can track it down; but you know something? After watching Alvarez?s remake last night, I can honestly say this was a pretty shocking, over-the-top, blood-drenched horror fest that hasn?t come down the pike in a long, long time; in fact, I can?t recall a horror remake at least being this bloody and special effects-laden since the gory reworking of The Hills Have Eyes. What turned me off about the film the most ? and I said the exact same thing about the remake of Wes Craven?s Hills Have Eyes (which I own on DVD with the special Best Buy ?blood packet? slipcase that?s uber-cool) because of a certain scene in it ? was a sequence involving a dog of one of the characters that is ?affected? by whatever is in the woods and threatening these kids there?my wife and I are avid animal lovers and cannot stand to see mistreatment of them in the scenarios of these films (I realize the actual animals they use in these scenes aren?t really harmed, but I?m just making a point) and we just cannot understand why filmmakers have to inject these scenarios of animals being hurt, killed or injured?I mean, can?t the whole premise just be left out? I hated that sequence in which the Alaskan Huskies are slaughtered by knife in 30 Days of Night and always have to skip over that scene when I watch the Blu-ray; same for the aforementioned Hills Have Eyes in which one of the German Shepherds belonging to the stranded motorists wander off and are eaten brutally by one of the mutated creatures in the mountains. I can?t stand it, and when a similar scene involving a canine arrived in Evil Dead, I immediately went for my Blu-ray player?s remote and fast-forwarded the chapter.
Aside from that, this was a wild, gore-soaked, incredibly taut and tense horror thriller that had everything a film of this genre should have ? there are plenty of over-the-top, turn-your-head-in-disgust body dismemberment sequences in which characters not only lose their limbs but cut some of them off themselves in horrific ways, in addition to demonic possession overtones and lots of graphic, experlative language hurled by the ?possessed? a la Linda Blair?s character in The Exorcist. It was just a crazy horror flick. The story follows Raimi?s original pretty closely, but does away with a lot of the comedic undertone and campy injections that actors such as Bruce Campbell brought to it; in its place is flashy special effects work, shocking body horror and a more modern take on the demonic/occult theme. The opening sequence depicts a girl tied to a post in what appears to be an underground lair of some kind, with some kind of strange ritual being performed around her. Crying and whimpering, the girl begs her father, who enters the scene, to take her home and cut her off the post ? but warnings in another language by an old gypsy woman (Sian Davis) tell of a necessity to burn the girl to ?save her soul.? Reluctantly, the man pours gasoline all over his daughter, still tied to the post, when a possessing demon suddenly shows itself and hurls threats about what is going to happen to the girl?s soul at the father. The man lights her up, and thus begins the premise of this version of Evil Dead ? apparently, this witchcraft ritual of sorts took place in a bunker beneath an old log cabin in the woods someplace, now the property of young Mia (Jane Levy) and David (Shiloh Fernandez), siblings whose mother somehow got sick and died years ago. Ever since, Mia has been suffering with a drug addiction problem, so David and a group of friends take her out to this cabin to perform an intervening session with the hope of ending her problems once and for all. The plan is to keep Mia there no matter what ? even if she starts ?acting up? from withdrawal symptoms, they make a pact to make her stay in the cabin until she slowly comes down off her dependencies.
The group stumbles upon a secret hatch door in the middle of the living room floor of the cabin, soaked in blood and which leads to an underground lair of some kind. An awful stench permeates the air when the hatch is opened ? but which Mia was mysteriously able to smell even before the hatch was opened and which she warned the group of but to no avail as they all thought it was part of her withdrawal ? and the group descends into this strange area. To their shock, they find all sorts of cats and animals burned and hanging upside down from the ceiling (which is actually the floor of the cabin?s living area above) in addition to what appears to be some kind of book wrapped in a strange encasing with thick wire around it. My first thought was this: Haven?t these imbeciles seen enough horror flicks ? or even watched The Mummy, for cryin? out loud ? to know that reading from or otherwise tampering with objects like this is never a good thing? Why couldn?t they just leave well enough alone? There was a reason that this book was wrapped up good and protected with wire, left hidden for no one to really find so easily. But of course, we wouldn?t have a film then, so let me continue with where you know this is headed: One truly moronic and curious type in the group manages to sneak off with this book, opening it with wire cutters to read the contents within. The book ends up being a mix of unknown language printings, depicting biblical plagues and demonic images, and English carvings made in what appears to be human blood with messages warning against reading from it. Of course, the idiot manages to decipher some imbedded code within one of the pages, and this unleashes a supernatural force that first affects Mia ? after having a breakdown of sorts in the cabin during a withdrawal moment, Mia steals the keys to one of the cars the group came up there in and takes off, eventually seeing visions of a blood-covered girl standing in the winding country road before her. She crashes the car into a swamp, and when she attempts to make her way out of the thick brush, she again sees this demonic female figure in the woods. Suddenly attacked by the branches and roots around her, Mia is ?possessed? by some force exuded by the figure which slithers across the ground and makes its way up into her screaming, tortured body.
The group of friends tracks Mia down and brings her back to the cabin, only to find her completely freaked out and paralyzed in fear, babbling about some woman in the woods. From there, Evil Dead goes for broke, as this possessed Mia ends up attacking the friends in her wildly supernatural state, eventually ?passing? the demonic force to each of them. The group eventually manages to lock her in the newly discovered cellar where the rituals apparently took place, where a laughing, grinning demon continues to influence each of the friends in various horrific ways; one of the friends, Olivia (Jessica Lucas), ends up transforming into a frightening demon-thing in the bathroom, where she ends up cutting open her face and ripping apart pieces of her jaw with broken slivers of mirror. She then viciously attacks the next friend that stumbles in, looking for her (the one who originally read from this demonic book ? you almost secretly want him to get his for getting them into this whole debacle) and coming face-to-face with the thing that used to be Olivia.
One by one, the remaining group is influenced by this demonic force taking each of them over, to the point it makes one of the girls, Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore), perform an impromptu amputation of her own arm after the demonic ?infection? from a bite she received crawled up from her wrist to her elbow; what?s worse, the poor terrified girl in the pleated off-white designer dress performs the amputation with what appears to be an electric meat slicer?this was some pretty gory stuff! However, Natalie is not out of the woods yet, as while she has cut the arm off to seemingly stop the ?evil dead? infection, it apparently didn?t quite work as she begins to ?transform? as they all do with strange, demonic eyes and bizarre head and body twitchings. She attacks the two survivors of the group left ? David and the one who read from the book?you know, our hero, who apparently didn?t die from Olivia?s previous attack ? with a nail gun, shooting the pointy objects over and over and over at them until one of them is completely covered in nails and has them jutting out of nearly every surface of his body. David manages to pick up a shotgun and blow Natalie?s other arm off her body, and her armless possessed and bloodied torso makes her way towards David before he blows her completely away. As I said, this was pretty gory, over-the-top horror that hasn?t been seen in quite some time in the genre.
The ending of Evil Dead, as always, gets too convoluted for its own good; it?s suggested that David drags Mia?s body out of the cellar and away from the now-burning cabin and follows a ritual that is supposed to ?reverse? this demonic curse and free the victim?s spirit from the possessing force ? so he digs a hole in the forest, nearby the burning cabin, and places her body in there with a plastic bag around her head?only to hear her begin to beg him not to bury or kill her. Of course, this is the possessing demon just playing a trick on David ? as demons and even Satan will always do to weaken us ? and he continues burying her body before the demon shows itself again and makes random threats about what it?s going to do to Mia?s soul. What confused me at this point is the way in which David digs her body back up and sticks two syringes tied to wires that go to a battery into her chest as a makeshift defibrillator, bringing Mia back to life?what?! First of all, could this really be done?and if it could, wouldn?t this negate the effects of the reverse ritual which gets rid of the demonic force? I suppose it didn?t matter, as the female demonic figure Mia saw earlier reappears, killing David and leaving a now un-possessed Mia to do battle with it. When the creature drops a truck that?s on its side onto Mia?s arm and the poor girl has to rip her own limb off to escape ? and I mean literally rip it off by tugging and tugging and tugging until the whole arm breaks off from the bone and fleshy flaps follow behind it in a rather gruesome dismemberment sequence ? things got a little too silly for me. Mia finishes off this demon creature by driving some kind of weapon into it and slicing it in half, creating a blood-soaked mess that has both screaming ladies absolutely drenched in the red stuff (all the while blood is raining from the sky above), eventually leading to the creature being ?sucked? into the earth below where it?s buried once more.
Now Mia is left with no family, no friends and no arm ? which was a kind of odd, off-putting ending to me; we see the evil book that started all this still intact and ready to be found by another unassuming idiot and read, but I would have preferred if Fede Alvarez gave us some better background on what this whole curse and demonic presence was about?a kind of origin story perhaps in the very beginning. Further, that well-known ?lullaby jingle? that had everyone hooked in the trailers (?Not another peeeep?time to go to SLEEP!?) ? and which was featured in Raimi?s original ? was nowhere to be found in the film, at all. Mia?s character doesn?t pop up from the cellar she?s being held in to render the quirky little line in her possessed state, as the trailers suggested, and I thought this was a bad decision.
VIDEO QUALITY ANALYSIS: HOW DID THE DISC LOOK?For standard DVD, Sony?s 2.39:1 anamorphic widescreen transfer of Evil Dead looked great in most places. With no indications of heavy noise or compression artifacts and sporting a sharp, clean, detailed look, the feature played in near-Blu-ray quality, even more surprising given the fact that this was a gore-filled horror story. I expected visuals to be a bit twitchy, noisy and relentlessly dark; to the contrary, the transfer exhibited clean visuals with hardly a twitch or flick of video noise anywhere.
Outdoor sequences in the forest and near the cabin were ripe with Blu-ray-like detail and clarity, and one would be hard pressed to guess if this was a standard release or one in high definition without being told; facial close-ups exhibited satisfying levels of fine detail, while black levels didn?t look too crushed or drenched in shadow. Overall, a nice presentation from Sony Pictures.
AUDIO QUALITY ANALYSIS: HOW DID THE DISC SOUND?The English Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on the Region 1 disc fared, perhaps, a tad bit better than the video ? this was a rousing, bass-heavy, brooding track from beginning to end, really giving the visuals an accompanying layer of sheer terror and suspense. Surround activity was off the charts here, with whooshes, rushes, whipping foley effects and more splattered all over the rear soundstage to play along with the action on screen; likewise for the LFE, which was pounding and wall-rattling during key kill sequences or ?stinger? moments meant to scare the daylights out of the audience. The track carried a satisfying heft and weight to it, with all elements in place that make a great surround experience ? encompassing effects, clear dialogue stems and an in-your-face presence.
FINAL THOUGHTS:
I gotta say?if it wasn?t for that aforementioned scene with the dog, this would probably be a buy for me at some point (perhaps for next Halloween season); as it stands, it was a good remake of Sam Raimi?s classic from the 80s, albeit without the great Bruce Campbell (both Raimi and Campbell were involved in this remake project though behind the scenes, Raimi producing along with some others). It definitely isn?t for the squeamish and there are some horrific body transformation/dismemberment sequences on display here that would give The Fly remake a run for its money (I am particularly bothered by this so-called ?body horror? sub genre), but it delivers on being a blood-soaked, modern-day horror flick without the use of ?elements? such as?.ummmm?.casting Paris Hilton (as they did in the awful House of Wax remake).
Definitely worth a rental if you?re up for something scary and jump-inducing; I just don?t know why they continue to insist on showing animals being hurt in all these films. I can?t stand it, personally. It adds nothing to the narrative and simply makes animal lovers uncomfortable?at least that?s how I see it (we couldn?t even sit through the euthanasia sequences of Marley and Me in the theaters without feeling overwhelmed and beaten up with grief and sorrow).
Let me know what you think if you have seen this!
Source: http://www.hometheatershack.com/forums/movies-tv-shows-hollywood/68705-evil-dead-2013-dvd-sony-pictures-home-entertainment-ghost-house-productions.html
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