By Geno McGahee
In 1981, a horror classic was born. THE EVIL DEAD, written and directed by Sam Raimi, was a terrifying experience with demons and demonic possession. It was atmospheric and well written. It got its point across and is still brought up with regularity by anyone that talk about horror films. It was only natural that this movie would be remade sooner or later. 2013 would be the year that a remake would be unleashed to the audience and it did well, but it is far from good.
The 2013 re-imagining or whatever it is that they’re calling it, is written and directed by Fede Alvarez and that is where the first of its many problems begin. The screenplay is just terrible. The writing is so forced and the character development (what there is of it) is terribly unnatural. This movie really reminded me of that terrible TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE remake. It had the same gray look that all of these modern remakes have for the most part.
The story is that Mia (Jane Levy) has a drug problem. Her group of friends is taking her to a remote cabin to ride out the addiction and beat it. Her brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez), is trying to mend fences with Mia and support her through this, but there is definite animosity between the two stemming from a dead mother. The rest of the characters are very interchangeable…although Lou Taylor Pucci was a stand out as “Eric” despite the terrible material that he had to deal with.
After a horrible CGI ghost rapes Mia, she gets infected and becomes some sort of crazy demon and then infects others and talks dirty, telling her own brother that she would suck his dick while telling one of her friends that she could smell her soul, obviously referring to her junk. They lock the demon Mia in the cellar, but the others have to be contended with, including one that cut off her own face and another that chopped off her arm. This movie doesn’t know how to impact the audience and relies on gore and there is plenty of gore, but not much more.
It comes down to a brother vs. sister showdown and thank God the book of the dead explained how to get rid of a demon. Somebody was thoughtful enough to put “don’t read this book” on one of the pages, but they didn’t listen and brought the demons out. Even though the book has the instructions to bring them back, it gives a way to send them back to hell. You can burn them alive, bury them, or dismember them.
David buries Mia and the demon is gone…but then he digs her up and constructs this defibrillator out of household items, reviving her. This was so absurd. Unfortunately, there is no happy ending and there is still a demon in the house and another one that really has no association with anyone there. It just shows up. David (spoiler) dies and Mia finds a chainsaw, loses a hand, and still uses the chainsaw, killing the final demon.
EVIL DEAD is a terrible movie with very little resemblance to the original. The writing is horrible and the way that the characters behave is totally unnatural. The character development is forced and painful. I had low expectations for this and it didn’t even live up to those.
Rating: 2/10