EVIL DEAD (2013)

Studio:       TriStar Pictures
Director:    Fede Alvarez
Writer:       Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues
Producer:  Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell
Stars:     Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore

Review Score: 

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Summary:

Five friends unwittingly unleash an evil force during an intervention weekend at a remote cabin in the woods. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Covered in blood, a girl wanders through the woods. A man captures her from behind and puts a sack over her head. The girl comes to and realizes that she is tied to a post. A woman recites incantations. Skinned cats hang from the ceiling. The girl’s father takes the sack off her head. She pleads for her life, but her father covers her in accelerant while apologizing. The girl then turns into a demon and her father sets her ablaze.

David and his girlfriend Natalie arrive at a secluded cabin in the woods. David’s friends Olivia and Eric are waiting for them. Behind the cabin, David greets his sister Mia. The five friends are assembled for an intervention weekend where Mia plans to quit drugs cold turkey. Mia ceremonially dumps her dope down a well.

David discovers that the family cabin has been broken into. He also learns from the others that Mia previously died briefly after a drug overdose. Olivia gives Mia a sedative when she begins to suffer from withdrawal. Mia claims that she is overwhelmed by a sickening smell. David’s dog Grandpa paws at a rug. When the rug is moved, the group finds a blood trail leading to a door in the floor. Underneath the floor, the friends discover the pyre site from the opening scene. The smell is coming from the dead cats. Eric finds a strange book.

Eric uses a pencil and paper to reveal words scratched out from the book’s pages. Ignoring the warning in the book, he then says the words aloud, “Kunda Astratta Montosse Canda.” When the words are said, a force overtakes Mia as she walks in the woods. She falls to the ground and throws up. Mia then has a vision of a demon that looks similar to her. She tells the others that she has to leave, but they believe that her fear is a condition of her withdrawal. She steals car keys, sneaks out a window, and drives away.

Driving in heavy rain, Mia sees the demon again and crashes into the swamp water. She escapes the car, but becomes tangled in the tendrils of a tree. The demon coughs up a snakelike creature that winds its way up Mia’s leg and then inside of her. David and Olivia find Mia collapsed and bring her back to the cabin. After ignoring Mia’s repeated pleas to leave again, David cleans up the dead cats in the basement.

David finds his dog Grandpa dead near a bloody hammer on the floor of the shed. Presuming Mia is responsible, David tries to confront her while she showers, but the bathroom door is locked. In a trance, Mia turns the water temperature to maximum heat and scalds her skin. David breaks in and rushes his injured sister to the other car. He tries taking her to a hospital but discovers that the road is flooded. Eric begins to connect what is happening with illustrations from the book.

While the other four friends discuss what to do, Mia enters the living room with a shotgun and fires into her brother’s shoulder. The front door bursts open and a demonic voice is heard before Mia says, “you’re all going to die tonight,” and collapses. Olivia lunges for the shotgun, but Mia overtakes her and gushes blood from her mouth all over Olivia. Eric is able to trap Mia in the basement and shut the door in the floor. He tells the others that he believes what is happening to Mia is related to what they found in the basement.

Olivia is possessed next. Eric finds her cutting off her own cheek. She then attacks Eric and he is forced to beat her to death with a broken piece of the toilet. While David treats Eric’s wounds, Natalie confronts Mia. Natalie is pulled into the basement and bitten by Mia before David rescues her. David then nails the trapdoor shut and seals it with chains.

Eric discovers that the book he found cannot be burned. He tells David what he has learned from the book, including the three ways to kill Mia and the demon: a live burial, bodily dismemberment, and purification by fire. Meanwhile, Natalie’s bite wound begins infecting her arm. Natalie grabs an electric carving knife and amputates her own arm. David attempts to treat her. He then argues with Eric about having to kill his sister in order to destroy the demon.

Natalie becomes possessed and attacks the two men with a nail gun. Before she can finish beating David to death, Eric distracts Natalie by recovering the nail gun. Natalie turns her attention to Eric and severely slices his hand. David grabs a shotgun and shoots off Natalie’s other arm. Natalie dies.

David douses the cabin in gasoline, but is unable to kill his sister by lighting the fire. Instead, he plans to bury her alive and then bring her back to life with a makeshift defibrillator he built from a car battery. David goes to the basement and fights Mia. She attempts to drown him in floodwaters, but Eric stops her. Eric then seemingly dies.

David changes Mia’s clothes, puts a bag over her head, and begins to bury her outside. The demon awakens and taunts David, but he completes the burial. After she dies, David digs up Mia’s body and uses the defibrillator on her. Mia is revived.

While Mia waits outside, David returns to the cabin for car keys. A reanimated Eric attacks him inside. David closes the front door to keep his sister out and then uses the shotgun to fire at a gasoline can, which destroys the cabin.

Outside, the sky begins to rain blood. Mia’s demonic doppelganger rises from the ground. During their fight, Mia recovers a chainsaw from the tool shed. The demon pins Mia by overturning the Jeep on her. Mia is forced to rip off her left hand in order to tear free from the vehicle and recover the chainsaw. After doing so, Mia then saws the demon in half and watches it sink back into the ground. The bloody rain stops and the book is seen closing. After the credits, Bruce Campbell appears and says, “groovy.”

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Review:

“Evil Dead” franchise fans are a fiercely dedicated group.  With more than twenty years having passed since Ash last appeared on the silver screen (Has it really been that long?  I remember seeing “Army of Darkness” in a theater more than once upon its release…), those hunger pangs have left deadites feverishly salivating for more Book of the Dead-related action.

Prior to release, hype for director Fede Alvarez’s remake was as eagerly devoured as rumors of a fourth installment in the “official” series.  Whether or not the remake lives up to that hype comes down to exactly what one wants to see from an “Evil Dead” reboot.

Stripped of its connection to the much-revered horror classic, the new “Evil Dead” would have a hard time standing on its own legs.  The movie is littered with fan service nods as subtle as a Michigan State sweatshirt and as overt as an arm stump handling a chainsaw.  And with CGI kept to a minimum, practical effects deliver plentiful gore not just by the bucket load, but also by entire rainstorms.  And that is about it.

Which is not to say that “Evil Dead” is a phoned in remake.  Alvarez has enthusiasm for the source material, except his version of the original chapter puts an emphasis on visual horror over taking the mythology in a direction that could be considered new or bold.  The passion is evident in the sight gags and makeup effects.  The film absolutely relishes every drop of blood.  It is everything else in the movie that ends up ringing hollow and underwhelming.

The setup is the most unique part of the plotline.  For once, a quintet of college kids assembles at a remote cabin in the woods for a purpose other than a weekend of partying.  David and his girlfriend Natalie have come together with friends Eric and Olivia to stage an intervention for David’s junkie sister Mia.  What better place for an addict to scream through withdrawal pains than in a secluded forest?  Shortly thereafter, an evil book is discovered, forbidden words are spoken aloud, and demonic forces arrive to rip apart the friends one at a time.

No one can deny the impressive work pulled off by the effects department.  Not only does the gore push the limits of an R-rating to breaking, but it brings with it phantom pains of empathy that will have audiences sucking air through their teeth while watching the characters suffer mightily.  Drenched in plasma, actors often look like Carrie on prom night.  When it literally starts raining blood, you know that “Evil Dead” is smiling wide at the opportunity to bathe the screen in red.

Being that the film embraces its splattery side so wholeheartedly, it is undercutting that the script features so many unnecessary pauses.  Visceral horror is the best thing going for “Evil Dead.”  Rather than a relentless onslaught of in-your-face terror though, the story breaks up each severed limb and torn off face with moments that regroup the cast or explain how an event relates to a page from the book.  This stop and go pace makes the film slow down at times when going full throttle would make for a much more heart stopping experience.

As satisfying as the practical effects are in delivering the horror, they only go so far in forgiving the remake’s lack of depth.  “Evil Dead” leans heavily on a number of overused tropes from a frightening reflection in a medicine cabinet mirror to the well-timed failure of flashlight batteries.  And certain characters serve no purpose other than to be dismembered in a script whose own purpose is merely to service the gore.

Consider the “Evil Dead” remake without reflecting fondly on Bruce Campbell’s smarmy dialogue or Sam Raimi’s inventive camera tricks.  Devoid of the touchstone to an established franchise, this “Evil Dead” is really just a cabin in the woods teen slasher, with little to be remembered apart from a bloody sight gag or two.  In a world without Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead,” it would be difficult to imagine the remake standing the same test of time as the original.

NOTE: There is a brief post-credits scene.

Review Score:  50

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