{"id":6651,"date":"2024-10-23T13:24:02","date_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:24:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6651"},"modified":"2024-10-23T13:24:02","modified_gmt":"2024-10-23T17:24:02","slug":"evil-dead-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/23\/evil-dead-2013\/","title":{"rendered":"Evil Dead (2013)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Evil Dead <\/strong>(2013)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong bloody violence and gore, some sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Fede Alvarez\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Fede Alvarez, Diablo Cody and Rodo Sayagues\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Roque Banos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Aaron Morton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 5, 2013 (US)\u00a0 \u00a0 Cast: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $54.2M (US)\/$97.5M (World)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s generally safe to assume that a horror movie remake will suck. Look at the long list of casualties over the years: Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, Prom Night, Halloween II, Friday the 13th<\/sup>, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Last House on the Left, The Amityville Horror, Fright Night, When a Stranger Calls, The Stepfather, The Fog \u2026.. the list goes on.\u00a0 In deference to the few good ones, I did like The Fly, The Hills Have Eyes, The Omen and The Blob.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m pleased to announce that I will be adding Evil Dead<\/strong> to that very short list. This movie ROCKS HARD! It\u2019s the long-awaited (or long-dreaded) remake of the 1981 low budget classic that put writer-director Sam Raimi (the Spider-Man movies) on the map. Actually, it\u2019s not so much a remake as it is a re-imagining. One could even argue that it\u2019s a quasi-sequel. Any way you look at it, the one thing that we can all agree on is that it\u2019s the best horror movie in recent years.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s more than that. It\u2019s a pure, all-out, blood-soaked, full tilt boogie gorefest! How long has it been since a mainstream horror movie did that? When\u2019s the last time one of these directors used gallons and gallons of stage blood? And I\u2019m not talking about any of that CGI crap; I\u2019m talking about old school gore effects! This movie is graphic, extremely graphic! To that I say thank you very much, Mr. Director. That would be one Fede Alvarez making his feature film debut. He was personally selected by Raimi to direct this remake. It would appear that his confidence has been greatly rewarded. Evil Dead<\/strong> isn\u2019t quite as good as the original, but I never expected it would be. There is one change I\u2019m not too wild about. But it\u2019s still one hell of a movie for the most part.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Evil Dead<\/strong> does follow the same basic story as the original by placing five young people in a rundown cabin in the woods where they find themselves fighting evil demons. As you have undoubtedly heard, the character of Ash does NOT figure into this movie. I think that was a wise decision on the part of the filmmakers as no actor other than Bruce Campbell could ever play this part. Campbell was, is and always will be Ash. Period.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In this version, the protagonist is recovering heroin addict Mia (Levy, Suburgatory) whose friends have brought her to the cabin to help kick her habit for good. Present are her older brother David (Fernandez, Red Riding Hood), his girlfriend Natalie (Blackmore) and their friends Eric (Pucci, The Music Never Stopped) and Olivia (Lucas, Cloverfield). Kicking any drug cold turkey is never easy and it isn\u2019t long before Mia starts freaking out. She claims she smells something awful in the cabin. She\u2019s proven right when they discover decaying animal carcasses in the basement. That\u2019s where a father burned his possessed daughter to death in front of a bunch of redneck religious nuts in the opening scenes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0They also find the Necronomicon<\/em> (aka the Book of the Dead) in the basement. Naturally, one of her friends reads some of it aloud and reawakens the evil demons that immediately take possession of Mia. Now we\u2019re getting to the aforementioned change I\u2019m not crazy about. Alvarez does recreate the infamous \u201ctree rape\u201d scene, but he changes it up by showing the demon that possesses Mia. It has manifested itself in the form of the young girl who was burned to death at the beginning. In the original, we never actually see the demons. Instead, Raimi shows his characters becoming possessed by way of some wild camera work. The camera speedily approaches the characters as the demons take possession of their bodies. This works better because there\u2019s nothing scarier than that which is not shown. The imagination can be scarier than anything depicted on film. Anyway, all bloody hell breaks loose once the demons are unleashed. And I use the term \u201cbloody\u201d literally!<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s nice to see a movie that exceeds expectations for a change. I\u2019ve been hearing all kinds of great advance buzz about Evil Dead<\/strong>. I liked the trailers that I saw for it (especially the red band trailer). I went in expecting a good movie. What I got was a great movie. Again, it doesn\u2019t quite reach the same level of excellence as the original, but so what? I\u2019m satisfied on that rare occasion when a remake doesn\u2019t totally suck. I love that Alvarez didn\u2019t even attempt to remake the character of Ash. It would have been the biggest exercise in futility since Liza Minnelli married David Gest.<\/p>\n

\u00a0So how does our new protagonist measure up? Pretty good, I would say. Mia starts out as the victim, but becomes a fairly bad ass demon fighter by the climax. Levy does a very good job in the role which brings me to another difference between the original and the remake. In this Evil Dead<\/strong>, the characters aren\u2019t merely one-dimensional victims-to-be. Alvarez attempts to add context to the plot by introducing background information concerning Mia and David\u2019s mentally ill mother. It helps the audience understand the strained relationship between the siblings as well as David attributing Mia\u2019s claims of a demonic presence to mental illness passed down to her by her mother. I don\u2019t think he needed to do that, but since it doesn\u2019t hurt the movie, it\u2019s fine.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Fans of the Evil Dead series will recognize and appreciate all the references to the original movies. Alvarez even manages to work the possessed right hand bit from Evil Dead II into the proceedings. The old special effects in Evil Dead<\/strong> really work to the movie\u2019s advantage. It has a lot of blood, gore, severed limbs and other gruesome stuff. I sincerely hope that this signals the long-awaited return of pure, all-out, blood-soaked splatter flicks. Perchance to dream, right?\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Evil Dead (2013)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 TriStar\/Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, strong bloody violence and gore, some sexual content)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Fede Alvarez\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Fede Alvarez, Diablo Cody and Rodo Sayagues\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Roque Banos\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Aaron Morton\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: April 5, 2013 (US)\u00a0 \u00a0 Cast: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6871,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,8,15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it","category-sequels-remakes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Evil-Dead-2013-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6651"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6873,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6651\/revisions\/6873"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6871"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}