Evil Dead

Let's get something out of the way right now: I love The Evil Dead. Note I said The Evil Dead, not Evil Dead II or Army of Darkness. Though I'm very fond of the series as a whole, the first entry remains the pinnacle for me. Unlike the sequels, its humour was largely unintentional; it was so violent, so horrific, so unrelenting, that it was kind of funny. Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell set out to make a horror flick that removed all the quiet moments and replaced them with more horror, without realising that those quiet moments exist to offset and intensify the scary stuff. Though it wasn't their intention, their film was so batshit crazy that the audience became desensitised to the terror, and were able to focus instead on Raimi's goofy charm and staggering technical proficiency. The audience jumped, and they cringed, and they dry retched, but it was always followed by a laugh. Or, for those more interested in the film-making process, a "Holy shit, how did he pull that off?" But I'll leave The Evil Dead there. Honestly, I could write a gigantic amount about how good that film is (and I intend to), but believe it or not, this is a review of the remake and that's probably what I should be discussing. I did approach this film with hesitation. The questions on everyone's mind when they see a remake or a reboot should always be, "Is the existence of this legitimised? Has a unique spin been put on it to make it a worthwhile experience?" In the case of Evil Dead, the answer is yes. See you next time.

Right off the bat, Evil Dead is aware of its audience. Though newcomers are possible, and likely, writer and director Fede Alvarez was smart enough to assume that the majority of his viewers are the fans. Oh, those fans. Desperate for more of their favourite stuff, but "FUCK YOU" if it's not 100% perfect: removed but respectful, original but referential, the same but totally different. Alvarez approached this the way a smart person should: he did it the way he wanted to. If you're on board, cool. If not, you can hate him and keep your original. From the get go, he makes it clear this is a different approach. Where the original and most of its peers feature a group of horny teens looking for a getaway that'll afford them a weekend of drinking, smoking and fucking, Evil Dead's cast are heading to the cabin to get one of their friends off heroin. We're introduced to them and their personalities in a few slightly lengthy "Horror Movie Exposition Time" scenes, which are thankfully offset with a bunch of subtle nods to the original and hints at what electrical devices will be misused later on. Mia, the recovering addict, complains of a sick smell inside the house. It's only when the dog (why does there have to be a dog?) scratches at the rug covering the basement hatch that the Scooby Gang decide to investigate. Downstairs, there hangs a truly ridiculous amount of skinned cats (perhaps the pound thought they were going to a good home?), a burnt post covered in dried blood and a book made of human skin, bound shut by barbed wire. In spite of the warnings that literally say "Don't fucking read this fucking book, you fucking moron", one of the Scooby Gang reads the book ("Uhh, he's an English teacher", is the movie's excuse), the spiritual power of something from Hell (there's one word in the book that not so subtly hints at what) is unleashed and possesses the group one by one to set in motion a series of violent rituals that will initiate its material manifestation.

I'm going to get the bad out of the way first. If it sounds like I'm being facetious, I am. Kind of. The movie seems consistently unsure of what it wants to be, thematically speaking. Though the initial premise is certainly an approach largely unseen in movies of this nature, Alvarez seems reluctant to do anything worthwhile with it. Mia's claims that something supernatural is with them is dismissed early on as side effects of her withdrawals, and you do start to entertain the notion that her struggle against the evil will be offset with her struggle against heroin, but eventually, everyone just behaves like horror movie characters and her addiction is all but forgotten. Though their incompetence is occasionally the set-up for a punchline from the film's comic relief ("Everything's gonna be fine? Nothing's fine. I don't know if you noticed this, but everything's been getting worse every second"), it's very by the numbers. Which is fine, it's intentionally operating within the vein of the horror films that came before it, but it begs the question why bother spending so much time establishing that original premise if it's just going to be abandoned?

Having said that, here's the other thing: Mia's story makes us care about her. Even though it's superficially delivered, with barely serviceable acting, her struggle with addiction coupled with the estrangement she shares with her brother regarding their recently passed mother deals with themes we can identify and cannot help but sympathise with. Which can make for some gut-wrenchingly effective horror, if the overall goal of your horror movie isn't to deliver over-the-top, sensationalist violence to characters you're not really supposed to care about; if the overall goal of your horror movie isn't to be Evil Dead. So hot on the heels of a scene in which a possessed, one-armed woman with a face full of nails has her other arm blown up by a sawn-off shotgun in an explosion of red goop is a scene in which a brother can't set his possessed sister on fire because she starts reciting the lullaby their mother sang to them before she died. It's just cruel, and it tarnishes the fun of the rest of the movie.

But holy shit, is the rest of the movie fun. And violent. Holy shit, is this movie violent. I mentioned earlier how impressive The Evil Dead was technically speaking. For a movie so obviously made by a bunch of twenty-something amateurs fresh out of college, it's got some fuck off good camera work and special effects. It makes you feel like you could do this yourself. While Evil Dead is obviously miles ahead of its predecessor visually speaking, and Alvarez is a more competent director than Raimi was at that time, he's approached the overall production with a similar attitude, namely by making the movie without the use of CGI. Everything you see in this movie was achieved through prosthetics, props and simple movie magic (they're called illusions, Michael). I can't stress the importance and impressiveness of that enough. Having effects that are achieved practically leads to camera shots that force you to look at them; a stark contrast to cutting away or shaking the camera as a cheap diversion tactic. Combine that with a director that knows how to frame a shot, and you've got a winning formula. Where other movies would cut away and squirt some red goop an animator threw together in five minutes once a character has revved up the chainsaw, Alvarez frames a beautiful wide shot and forces you to watch one character push the chainsaw through their victim face first while the rest of their body flails in the wind. I can think of only one occasion where the audience doesn't witness an act of violence, and even then, it's supplemented with another gorgeously framed shot. This is without a doubt the most violent movie I've seen in recent years, and definitely one of the most violent movies I've seen ever. If nothing else, Evil Dead can stand proudly beside Peter Jackson's Dead Alive. 70,000 gallons of fake blood was used in Evil Dead. 50,000 gallons of fake blood was used in the final act. It literally rains blood.

Watching this film, I was reminded a lot of Dario Argento's Deep Red. Stick with me, here. In Deep Red, Argento set up a series of murder set-pieces all based around pain that the audience could identify with. A character is killed by being thrown head-first onto various surface corners. Another is boiled alive. These are injuries we have experienced ourselves, magnified to extreme levels. Evil Dead employs a similar approach. Though the violence is extremely over-the-top, and characters withstand way more than any normal human being could, the tools with which the violence is inflicted hits quite close to home. Needles, electric knives, box cutters, glass, nails, teeth; all and more are used to devastating effect. Believe it or not, this makes it more fun to watch. We're faced with pain we know, jacked up to a psychotic level, so that we may laugh at it. A character cuts through her arm with an electric knife to stop the infection spreading through her hand. "I feel better now..." she says softly as the tendon she missed snaps, her arm falls to the floor with a wet slap and we laugh nervously with our friends and curl out of the foetal position.

Here's where Evil Dead truly succeeds though: it doesn't really care if you're a fan or not. Sure, the references to its predecessors are there: the "force" camera, the Oldsmobile, the tool shed, the boom stick, even a pictorial reference to our favourite pissed off hand is there if your eyes are sharp enough. But at its core, this is Fede Alvarez's film and he's out to subvert your expectations as much as possible. The Deadites return, but rather than chant "We're gonna get you, not another peep" in between bouts of maniacal laughter, they slice their tongue open with a box cutter and stick the two halves down a hapless victim's throat. The tree rape returns, but in a way that feels more, dare I say, personal. It carries a significant weight with it, and unlike the original, the victim doesn't magically forget what happened to her ("There was something in the woods, David, and I think it's in here...with us...now"). Perhaps the best example comes in the film's final act, that reminded me a lot of The Cabin in the Woods, but I'm not going to spoil it. I saw an interview with Fede Alvarez recently and he talked about David Cronenberg's approach to remaking The Fly. "I decided not to give a fuck about the original. That was the only way to honour it." Well said, and well done.