Evil Dead (2013)
Directed by Fede Alvarez
There was a moment at the Wondercon
Evil Dead panel wherein one of the lead actresses (I honestly couldn’t tell you
which, neither of them made much of an impression, though Lou Taylor Pucci
seems like a genuinely cool guy) was explaining how intense the filming process
was and describing an admittedly impressive scene where she’s buried alive with
a bag over her face. In the middle of explaining how difficult and exhausting
it was to shoot this scene, Bruce Campbel laughed in her general direction and
destroyed any credibility she may have had for everyone in the enormous arena.
This was my biggest concern with remaking Evil Dead in the first place; the
original film was basically a special effects showcase. The fact that the
leading man had an undeniable charisma and the ability to give every take his
absolute best to the point of nearly destroying his own body is merely a happy
coincidence. The remake is actually pretty decent, but without a strong lead,
it’s kind of just there. It doesn’t really fail necessarily, but it’s so close
to being an exceptional film that it’s ultimately disappointing to anyone who
imagined a gamechanger like I did.
The film’s biggest problem - and I
never thought I’d say this about any movie ever - is that the story gets in the
way of the action. It’s Evil Dead guys, it’s okay to choose style over
substance. The story that’s forced on us is an interesting jumping off point,
the main character is trying to kick a drug habit and so any kind of spooky
shenanigans she encounters are definitely gonna be written off by her pals as
either hallucinations or excuses made in an attempt to flee the scene. The
problem though, is that they focus on this story for way too damn long, and in
doing so they destroy any shits the audience might give about her by making her
out to be a horrible junkie bitch who guilt trips her friends and family
because of her own bullshit life choices. Whatever. I can deal with all that.
It just takes too fucking long for the shit to hit the fan, never a good way to
start a horror movie. Although ironically, the very beginning starts off with
an intense scene and kicks the movie off with a literal bang.
As far as the gore, expect this to
be the major selling point from the films proponents. They’re right though, it’s
impressive, and to quote another Wondercon panel moment, director Fede Alvarez
told the audience that he said “I don’t even wanna hear the word CGI on my set,”
which is an impressive goal these days. The movie is shot with all (or almost
all) practical effects, and it shows that an object that’s really there with
the actors during filming makes for much better interaction and thus a much
better overall film experience. When they remade The Thing (again, I should
add) it was so fucking horrible because of the unrealistic CGI. All that being
said, there’s nothing here you haven’t seen before, while each gore scene goes
the extra mile to be as crazy as possible, you’re ultimately never surprised by
anything you see.
The characters in this movie are constantly
making the dumbest, most clichéd choices imaginable. Going down in the
basement, falling for some demon trickery (she’s dead bro, it’s not really your
sister anymore), and so on. I swear, everyone in the theater was constantly
groaning and pointing out how stupid the characters were for falling for such
common clichés.
My final complaint is that Jane Levy’s
character Mia is never quite given the screen time needed to pull of the last
20 minutes of the film where she becomes the hero. I loved when it was just her
vs. the demon, I loved the final chainsaw kill, but I feel like it’s hard to
care about a character who went from being an insufferable bitch to being a
badly jonesing druggie to being a possessed demon chick to being dead to being
a newly reborn hero. In all that mess, her character is only likeable for a
very short time. Not to mention (again), she’s no Bruce. And then there’s the
ending. Just as Mia really gets going, starts fighting back and becoming all
badass, the movie just ends. There’s no POV demon chase scene or dimension
hopping or any of that cool shit, so it’s a little disappointing.
If I seem like I’m waffling on my
opinion here, well, I’m not quite sure how to feel about this movie.
Ultimately, if it had to be remade (and trust me, it was gonna happen
eventually) then I’m glad we got a decent movie instead of some studio
abomination. Alvarez and crew are to be praised for their oldschool DIY work
ethic, but maybe Diablo Cody should’ve stayed the fuck away from the script.
Maybe they should’ve casted an actress with more pizazz. Maybe they should’ve given
Mia more to do. Maybe they should’ve written a better ending. Maybe they should’ve
left the franchise alone.
It’s a copout, but I
give Evil Dead (2013) a perfectly symmetrical 2.5/5
No comments:
Post a Comment