by J Malcolm Stewart:
Generally speaking, there are three things that you should never do in life: Don’t eat the Yellow Snow, don’t step on Superman’s cape and don’t attempt to remake Classic Horror films.
Think Gus Van Sant’s Psycho remake. It was the film no one asked for and nobody really wanted to see. GVS’s Psycho was case of a film being prejudged in the audience’s mind as “not worthy” long before the first frame. As a stand alone film based on its merits, with audiences and critics it was DOA.
Horror films can reach sacred status in the minds of fans for odd reasons, but when they do, it’s almost impossible to change the mindset for those who worship them. Horror fans also have long memories. I’ve known people who insist that Boris Karloff’s performance in the 1932 version of The Mummy started the Method Acting technique. (Okay, those guys are a little weird) But, suffice to say, usually it’s a bad idea to enter into the arena when you know you’re going to get pummeled.
Then came the news last year that director Fede Alvarez (best known in the U.S. for his eye-catching short, Panic Attack!) was going to remake the 80’s cult super-classic, Evil Dead. For many, especially those of us old (yes, sadly, I do mean old) enough to remember the slash and gore Reagan years, it was tantamount to someone saying they were going to repaint the Mona Lisa. The ED series is almost universally admired by the hard core horror buffs and elevated the careers of Sam Rami and Bruce Campbell from two college buddies with a dream to mainstream Hollywood players.
Even twenty five years later, the ED films find their way into horror HOF top-ten listings with regularity. Even touching it could spell career suicide for Alvarez. But, given that he had Rami’s and Campbell’s input and blessing as producers, and an assist on the screenplay from closet horror heroine Diablo Cody (Juno, Jennifer’s Body) a glimmer a hope existed that this version of Evil Dead wouldn’t die an awful death with the fans before it even hit the screen.
Good people of America, it’s my pleasure to say the hype is real. Not only does Alvarez’s film have a glimmer, but a fire. A fire almost guaranteed to launch a new ED craze in the 21st Century.
The story will have a familiar ring for the initiated. Five friends head up to an isolated cabin and discover a mysterious book. This terrible Book of the Dead, when unleashed, brings a plague of death and possession down upon our heroes, leaving one survivor standing against the forces of evil.
But also, everything is different. Rather than the mindless weekend of hedonism of the first films, David (Shiloh Fernandez) and his four estranged friends, (Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore) have arranged the trip as an intervention for his troubled sister, Mia (Jane Levy in a breakout performance) as she tries to break an addiction to narcotics.
This backdrop of this film creates an emotional depth absent from the first series as David, the classic failed hero, tries to help his deeply troubled sister after years of absence. But don’t worry Fight Fans, when the Book of the Dead is found the bullets and other items start to fly, Evil Dead more than lives up to its ancestors reputation for blood, gore and jump-out-your-seat thrills.
Alvarez’s eye for gloom and doom is impeccable. Each death scene for the hapless twenty-sometimes is an all-time classic (You’ll never look at a nail gun or duct tape the same way again). For the long time lunatics, you’ll find yourself cheering along as the film touches base with each of the legendary scenes of the originals. Attacked the forest? Yup… Infected hand? You betcha… Chainsaw finale? Oh yeah…
But Alvarez’s homages are light and in the flow of the film, reverent but without being showy. He and his performers not only see Rami’s lunatic vision, but raise the bar, keeping you wonderfully in the dark about the nature of the onscreen evil and who will ultimately save the day.
And if you leave your seat before the final frame of the film, trust me, you’ll hate yourself along with never being able to show your face in public again.
Just as Josh Whedon’s The Cabin in the Woods proved two years ago, there are some people in the mainstream who get the appeal of the horror genre. Crafted with care and full of surprises, Evil Dead is headed for a future as a worthy successor to a noble bloodline.
Go with friends, talk back to the screen, scream like a five year old but see this film. And order the small Coke, because if you leave before the end, you will hate yourself.
J. Malcolm Stewart is a Northern California-based public relations/marketing professional. He holds degrees in Political Science and Comparative Religion, but can have a conversation someone without starting a small war. Long interested in suspense, thrillers and horror, he writes and reviews on the subject for websites far and wide. When he’s not writing, reviewing or reading, you can find J. Malcolm riding around Northern CA with something radioactive in his trunk.
Follow J. Malcolm on Twitter: @sabbathsoldier, and learn more about him at http://about.me/jaymal.
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