It’s been several months since I posted anything and I had
intended to review something epic for my comeback but I haven’t finished
reading the book or watching movie so that review will have to wait
Evil Dead - 2013
The most terrifying film you will ever experience.
(That is of course if you haven't already seen the original)
I’m not one of those people who is fundamentally opposed to
remakes. I have seen some that I thought
were good (“Dawn of the Dead” and “The Hills Have Eyes”) but most often I’m
sorely disappointed (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Friday the 13th”). As is the case with Rob Zombie’s “Halloween”
(and its sequel) there are some remakes that have no right or reason to exist
and are just poorly conceived either to cash in on a title’s name or as homage
to the original film. The “Evil Dead”
remake is one of these films but it’s difficult to figure which of these
categories it fits into. There was a
great deal of effort put into it with its in-jokes, homages, and set
design, but at the same time it has very little in common with the original
film and none of the same characters.
I went into this with no expectations and knowing very
little about it. In a word the “Evil
Dead” remake is TERRIBLE. To elaborate
if you were to take all the fun and unpolished charm of the original film this
is what you’d be left with. Even if you
were to take the Evil Dead title away, for a horror movie it’s just really
bland and very poorly paced. For the
first 30 minutes I was just waiting for something, anything, to happen. The characters aren’t interesting and how
they interact with one another isn’t enough to hold my attention.
The movie revolves around a brother, sister, and their
friends as they go to a secluded cabin in the woods in order for David’s sister,
Mia, to detox from her drug addiction.
In order to investigate a bad smell that “smells like death” they go
into the root cellar. While down there a
member of the group finds a book.
Despite the books warnings written in the margins he starts reciting words
found in the book until he succeeds in summoning something. During this part I thought to myself well
there’s not much to do in this cabin that doesn’t even look like it has a tv so
it makes sense that he might read a book he found in the basement, but it makes
no sense at all why he’d it read it to himself out loud!
From here on the movie is pretty cut and dry, someone gets
possessed and the surviving people have to defend themselves or isolate the
possessed person. I’d be more invested
in these characters and care what happens to them if any of them bothered to
have a personality or logic or common sense.
Here’s a statement I never thought I’d be making; “Evil
Dead” is dull, moves at a snail’s pace, has no atmosphere, and no character
development. The only thing it’s got
going for it is that it has great effects but as George Lucas and Michael Bay
have demonstrated in the past good effects don’t make good movies. It completely lacks any of the charm or wit
from the original film. 34/100
