Evil Dead
Opens Friday at Scotiabank and Dunbar
Evil Dead and the recently released Oz The Great and Powerful share something in common, and its not blood-red ruby slippers. Both films faced the same resistance and pressure by fans of the original films, wary of any tampering with the classics.
Sam Raimis 1981 Evil Dead was an instant hit, melding gore and humor in the close confines of a cabin in the woods, a location that would become a horror staple. ED loyalists will be happy to note that Fede Alvarezs version features changes from the first film (and its sequels) but that the update never quite feels present-day: no cellphones, thankfully, and Raimis 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, which finds its way into all his films, see to that.
After a truly creepy intro, Mia (Jane Levy) arrives at the familys decrepit cabin in the woods. She has brought her friends along for moral and physical support as she tries to get clean, again. She tried before, failed, and flatlined, so this time nursing student Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) arent letting her leave, no matter what. So when the scholarly Eric finds a book of the dead and unknowingly summons a demon to the cabin, the friends initially dismiss Mias terrifying symptoms as cold-turkey side effects. Its all in your head, advises Olivia.
Mias brother David (Red Riding Hoods Shiloh Fernandez) shows up, too, carting his none-too-bright girlfriend (Elizabeth Blackmore) along for the ride. Theres animosity among the friends, who felt abandoned when David left town, and between David and Mia, who feels her big brother burdened her with their crazy mother and then never showed up to say cheerio when mom was dying.
Promise me youll stay with me til the end, is Mias portentous plea to her brother.
We couldve turned Mia and Davids estranged sibling relationship into something more sinister or pitted the pals against each other, but there isnt time: Mias devilish antics spread like a bad cold among the other bunkmates, resulting in several gruesome deaths. But as there are only five characters and 91 minutes to fill, each demise is preceded by a sick act of self-mutilation to satisfy the plasma quota. CG adds a gory dimension that the original could not, and it blends well with old-school effects
The film is like a really, really sick Home Depot ad for nail guns, hammers, flashlights (ones that work!), shovels, wire, chainsaws, and, of course, various uses for duct tape.
The relentless tide of blood precludes any real sense of terror theres never any question as to who is doing all this stuff, after all so the tagline of the most terrifying movie you will ever experience is just about as sensational as the 1981 films claim that it was the ultimate experience in grueling terror.
But those viewers rolling their eyes in the darkness of the theatre and tsk-ing at the logic of our doomed heroes are watching the wrong movie. Yes, the quintet shouldve headed for home the second they found the dead menagerie in the basement. And no, when a book is wrapped in garbage bags and barbed wire, and then appears to be bound with skin, you should not open it, much less read aloud from it.
But killer kitsch is precisely the point here: the plasma is a little too red, and the kids are supposed to split up and make bad decisions. Adherence to the genre demands it.
