First things first: you might have heard about a remake that came out this weekend called Evil Dead. It’s a reimagining/reboot/remake of The Evil Dead, the first film of one of the greatest cult trilogies of all time. Despite the enormous amount of pressure and skepticism surrounding the new film, director Fede Alvarez has succeeded wildly, no doubt in part due to the mentoring he received from original director and star Sam Rami and Bruce Campbell.
The Evil Dead remake succeeds because rather than trying to retell the story beat-by-beat, it aims to recapture the spirit of the original film.
The original Evil Dead succeeded because of its unique vision. Despite a budget of only $375,000 (about $900,000 today), The Evil Dead featured gruesome, relentless practical effects that were a shot in the arm to a genre that preferred to show rather than tell.
The new horror classics of the 70s were films like The Exorcist, Jaws, The Amityville Horror, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Rosemary’s Baby and The Hills Have Eyes (which gets a shout-out in The Evil Dead). These films relied much more on atmosphere. Monsters were implied, rarely shown, and even then, only at the culmination of the third act.
Not so with The Evil Dead. Riding a new wave of horror, The Evil Dead unleashed some of its most horrific now-classic scenes in the first act (like the tree scene). All the ambiance and stage-setting was crammed into the first 15 minutes. Once the first kid goes Deadite, the gore flows in buckets and you see everything. Forget the pea-soup of The Exorcist.
The Evil Dead changed the horror genre. Can the remake possibly live up to the original?
Let’s be real: a lot could’ve gone wrong with this new film. They had a budget nearly 15x larger than the original, and CGI is the way to go in horror films these days. A sampling of three recent popular horror films: V/H/S, Mama and The Last Exorcism Part II all relied heavily on CGI effects. Even some of the recent new-horror classics like The Ring and The Grudge (and all the Japanese-horror imports, for that matter) rely on CGI effects in large part for their monsters.
Further, horror films of recent vintage have also rediscovered the tell-don’t-show principle. Maybe they recovered it from Shyamalan (who got it from Hitchcock). Films like the Paranormal Activity franchise and Mama demonstrate a clear desire to scare by implication. You don’t see the monster, at least not until the end. Even the so-called torture-porn films like Hostel and Saw (the first two-ish) saved a lot of the actual gore for the third act.
The principle’s a good idea, as far as it goes: usually our imaginations scare us much more than an image on a screen can (though The Ring and Mama are two notable exceptions).
If the new Evil Dead wanted to make a mark on the current horror genre, it had to take on these resurgent conventions. And it does.
The new Evil Dead is relentless. Though it actually manages to establish a bit better backstory and characters than the original did, it doesn’t waste any more time in exposition than its predecessor. And once the gore starts flying, the film is relentless.
No cheap startle-scares here. It’s just pure unbridled horror. Every scene is drawn out. You see everything. If the camera does cut away, it’s only to show you something worse, and it’s going to come back.
Every effect is practical. I might have caught one CGI effect, and I wouldn’t swear to it. Evil Dead shows filmmakers just how much is possible with good old fashioned blood, sweat and tears.
Gallons of blood. A very nervous sweat. And tears of horror.
And if you’re a fan of the original like I am, Alvarez packs in scads of homages to the original series. But none of them intrude into the film (like, oh All Saints Day or the latest A Good Day to Die Hard). They’re woven expertly into the fabric of the world. (Except for Bruce Campbell’s stamp of approval after the credits. But trust me, you won’t mind it.)
The Evil Dead remake/reboot/I-don’t-care-I-just-love-it succeeds because rather than trying to reshoot the original film on a bigger budget, it recaptures the no-holds-barred innovation of the original franchise. I have no idea where the sequels are going to go – if they’re going to go camp like the originals or dial up the horror, but I trust Alvarez. He’s more than earned it.
6 replies on “Evil Dead: How to Remake a Classic”
Hey bro, loved the review. I’d also like to hear/read how the film made you feel through certain squirmy scenes. 🙂 I think you’re right to point out the “show” vs. “tell” relationship playing out in modern horror and that this one wholly embraces the former-to it’s credit. I’m a little so-so on the attempts at backstory and teleology (5 souls needed thingy) because I generally succomb to myths of eternal return and prefer to enjoy creative explanations rather than new backstory. At the same time, while this is a new telling Alvarez managed deftly to weave homages to the original without making his version camp. After half an hour we know this is a horror film and not a gore-comedy. So I can enjoy this one like a Reformist Seder – all the necessaries with the amenities of modern taste… like box-cutters. Anyway, great review. Love it. (and a gentle hint that it’s Shyamalan, not Shamalayn). Cheers!
Oh man. I was VERY squirmy. We were in a very empty theater, so we were free to be vocal. I DID enjoy that the film avoided sexuality, though there was still plenty of exploitation of flesh, so to speak.
I wonder about the teleology. I assume given that weird prologue we’re going to learn more in the sequel. This is the first film I can think of that left so much intentionally for a sequel. Usually a first film tries to be self-contained.
LOVE the Reformed Seder analogy 😀 And thanks for the spell-check. I corrected it above. I almost looked it up, then thought I had it.
What did you think of setting the film in the context of addiction? Especially given the ‘possession’, I enjoyed it. I like when a horror film uses the horror as explicit metaphor (is that a thing?)
I too appreciated that they skipped the sexuality (minus the forest attack… sorta) in favor of a more culturally relevant fear: lack of control/lack of belief which I think was appropriately portrayed through addiction. That was a useful turn and one that did not seem as efforted as I would have expected based on how so many films get it wrong. I think they could have gotten it wrong if they would have belabored it, but it served more as an entry into darkness rather than the cause, or an aside. So that works for me. I have a few small gripes about the film, but nothing to derail it for me. The most troubling thing for me was that the cabin was the family’s and even though they hadn’t been there for years these people who use the book think it’s safe to stash such a dangerous object there… without re-locking the door?! That’s kinda what I mean about backstory. I think you’re right about the sequel giving us more explanation-which it would have to do to satisfy (no one gets off on the same porn twice… besides Michael Bay fans). Sorry, was that over the line? 🙂 But now the house is nearly burned down and the book is outside. Ok. A couple more gripes: The main character is made to sketch out the Necronomicon (given a different name in this movie) and it has the familiar face on it, but when they discover it, there is no face. And all the drawings in the book are original and taken more from a European-Satanist tradition than from a Sumerian-Babylonian one. I guess that’s fine, but if so I want to know why there must be 5 people then. At some point Alvarez, Raimi and Campbell were just like, “screw it, get on with the gore.” I’m ok with that, but it could have been mo’ betta’. 🙂
I’m telling you. I think they have it all saved up for the sequel. And to be fair, even though they CALLED the originals Babylonian demons, I don’t think they actually had much to do with Babylon/Sumeria. Did they?
Anyway, like you said, Bring on the gore. 😀
I think you’re probably right about the pay off being in the sequel. In the professor’s voice recording he mentioned that they were Sumerian, but they didn’t seem to have much to do with Sumeria as far as I’m aware (except for the reptilian motif and flying, etc.-but more specifically, the picture). But I don’t fault them for that originally, and I can see why they’d change it now. I just like canon to be canon, ya know?
I saw The Evil Dead by accident, through the “what’s this about…” and then couldn’t turn away method. I won’t be seeing the new one – even the commercials freaked me out. I’m getting acclimated to TWD brand of gore, but I’m definitely not ready for unrelenting blood and guts. But I’m glad you liked it! I enjoy your movie reviews and I get a kick out of hearing you get excited about a good movie. I love movies and books and just stories in general, and I get revved up like that about the ones I like. I can’t wait for the new Star Trek – I will be so disappointed if it’s not good. I guess that’s off topic but I was just thinking what your review will look like for that one. And WWZ.