I don't know anyone who was lining up for an Evil Dead remake, especially when the satirical Cabin in the Woods seemed to steal its thunder by blending splatter horror with a cynical, self-aware edge. Also, how do you replace Bruce Campbell, the iconic star who played series hero Ash?
Well, it's fair to say Evil Dead 2013 caught people off guard by being better than it had any right of being. They avoided the last question by simply not having Ash in the story. That may seem like sacrilege to horror fans, but considering the direction director Fede Alvarez and company go in, it's probably for the best (and I would have pitied the poor actor cast to hoist Campbell's chainsaw).
The biggest surprise is that the filmmakers took material that inspired a campy, goofy, B-grade comedy horror series and played it straight. Not only that, Alvarez and his team succeed for the most part. The remake probably won't end up as iconic or as embedded in pop culture as its forebears, but it ain't too shabby.
The setup is the same - attractive young adults go to an isolated cabin in the woods and accidentally unleash demons that possess and kill them - but some details are added to shake things up and actually give the story more of a character focus. Instead of just getting away for a fun trip, these kids are taking their friend Mia (Jane Levy) to an isolated spot so she can detox and kick her drug habit. Naturally, when she starts seeing weird things and being frightened by spooky visions in the forest, her friends and her brother dismiss them as ravings of an addict.
Like in the original, the kids find a creepy book in the basement, now known as the Naturom Demonto, but one thing I appreciate about the remake is the more prominent focus it gives to the Book of the Dead. The original series treated it as a McGuffin, the excuse to explain why demons showed up.
Here, the characters refer to it frequently to figure out what's happening and what they can try to do next. It's still bound in human flesh, but the kids find it wrapped in barbed wire, and creepy notes and translations are carved in the pages, describing different spells and practically screaming at the reader to burn the book.
The original served more as a showcase for Raimi's directorial prowess. The movie didn't take long to get to the monsters and spent most of its running time as an unrelenting phantasmagoria of shocks.
Alvarez seems more interested in the details of the story by contrast. He takes his time, building to the first possession, dropping hints and foreshadowing to the awful fates in store for the characters. I especially liked how the book is used to chart the progress of the initial possession and how further possessed are created, a process that was rather vague in the original and as needed by the whims of the script.
The remake also takes hallmark moments from the original and infuses them with new blood. This is not a carbon copy rehash. When Ash cut off his own hand, it was an EC-Comic Book like moment, played for laughs and badassery. Here, similar bits are played as panicked, frightful desperation.
The movie is as graphic and visceral as its inspiration. Blood, slime, puke, grime, ectoplasm, filth, the cast gets covered with it all and go through physical beatings that would make Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi wince.
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