Evil Dead

It turns out that the producers of this film had considerably more to worry about than the potential of a class-action lawsuit from angry filmgoers concerning the film’s take-no-prisoners tagline dreamed up by its marketing department (inlaid over an image of a shambling female figure with her back to us is written “The Most Terrifying Film You Will Ever Experience” - and while I can appreciate the false bravado behind that approach, I can tell you, unequivocally, it isn’t even close to being true). No, of far greater immediate concern, it becomes clear, was how to make a down-and-dirty horror film that appeals to the old-school horror fans who loved Sam Raimi’s 1981 original, while also bringing in cohorts of teens new to the scene and appeasing them both.

Let us quickly cut to the chase, as it were: In this, it also doesn’t succeed. Raimi’s film, which saw five comely college students (led by Bruce Campbell, who was to be one of Raimi’s chief partners in crime over the years) spending a weekend in a woodsy cabin and unwittingly opening up a gate of hell by reading the inscription in an old book, was equal parts scary, silly, bloody and amusing. The gore was as over the top as Raimi’s penchant for unusual camera shots and angles (the sudden sweeping-over-the-ground Steadicam shot to indicate the oncoming presence of evil, became an instant classic), which helped create a rich stew of body parts, thrills and giggles.

For the remake, director Fede Alvarez working on his first feature, has tried to update the details of the flick while upping the gore ante, but has lost the essential thing that made Raimi’s effort so exhilarating. It doesn’t feel the least bit fun, or loose, or unexpectedly goofy. Alvarez, working from his own script (with helps from, among others, Diablo Cody), makes a few cursory updates to the victims’ situation (instead of a weekend romp, the five young men and women are there for a drug intervention for one of their friends), but loses the gist of almost everything else, including the sheer joy and creative spectacle of Raimi and original cinematographer Tim Philo finding ways to utilize cameras never before conjured up on celluloid.

Fine, it doesn’t work in contrast to the original. How, you might be asking, does it hold up on its own? Not terribly well, when all is said and done. The woman in need of her friends’ help, Mia (Jane Levy, Suburgatory), is happy to see her long-gone-away brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) has made the effort to leave his place in Chicago to support her. He brings with him his girlfriend (Elizabeth Blackmore), and along with high-school teacher Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and his nurse girlfriend Olivia (Jessica Lucas), old friends of Mia’s, the four have the best of intentions. But before too long Eric is idiotically reading Latin incantations aloud from the leather-bound Book of the Dead found in the cabin’s basement, and evoking the call to the demon, and his friends are being taken over by its malevolence. Before too long, it’s literally raining blood, and just about every object of potential danger in the house has been used to gouge, rip, impale and separate the five friends.

Indeed, another of Raimi’s inspiring maneuvers was to make novel and violent use of the household items in the cabin. Thus, in the early going, you could mentally catalog every remotely sharp or menacing object in the camera frame and properly gauge its eventual violent impact. Alvarez tries his hand at this: there are an unusual number of weapons in this particular cabin, everything from machetes and nail-guns to electric carving knives and ancient shotguns, and you can be sure that by the closing credits every single one of them will have been dutifully put to use.

Also in keeping with the original’s bloody gore quotient, this film stops at nothing to bring us truly revolting shots of hands being severed, heads being crushed, mouths spewing blood and, perhaps most unsettlingly, tongues being razored in half.

Frankly, it wouldn’t be an Evil Dead film if it didn’t bring the gore, and bring it hard, but it all feels like empty gestures to a nebulous end. There’s practically nothing and nobody to care for here, which makes all the killing and brutality that much more pointless. While we can appreciate the dearth of obvious CGI - most of the gore effects appear to be practical - boundless gore without any substance behind it is simply tedious.

All of which is a shame. For a few minutes near the beginning, you think Alvarez might be onto something: Conflating the harrows of drug addiction with the demon possession of the occult might be a tad obvious, but it could have made for some interesting psycho-drama had the film played its hand with a little less ferocity and senselessness. As it is, it feels as if we’ve only just met this crew before idiot Eric is disobeying every counter-command in the book to not read the incantation aloud, and bringing the wrath of hell down upon their heads.

Bereft of the gleeful counterculture, ragtag nature of Raimi’s original vision, this updated version just becomes a swamp of blood, guts and slack storytelling. More than 30 years ago, Raimi and a bunch of his friends entered into the woods of Tennessee and came out some time later giggling and covered in Karo syrup; all this version can do is give us a more realistic fake blood recipe.

Evil Dead 74 Cast: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore Director: Fede Alvarez Rating: R, for strong bloody violence and gore, some sexual content and language Running time: 91 minutes