Okay, so, Evil
Dead. The new one. I'm just
gonna get this out of the way: I'm one of the many people for whom
the original The Evil Dead
is a landmark film. The Evil Dead
trilogy served as a sort of gateway drug to horror for me, starting
with Army of Darkness,
then moving to Evil Dead II
and finally, Evil Dead
(i.e., moving incrementally from straight comedy to straight horror).
It's
pretty much the same story as the original, but this time with the
(kind of brilliant) inclusion of the idea that the main character
(not Ash, which is so the right choice) is going through
withdrawal, which allows the possessions and the violence to take on
a thematic resonance that was never really in the original movie.
More about that later, though.
First
and foremost, the thing that drives me a little crazy watching the
movie is, I wish the shot selection felt a little more precise. None
of the shots are bad and I wasn't confused (which, really, in and of
itself is sort of an accomplishment to be applauded), but I feel
like, especially when dealing with violence, the more you can do in a
single shot, the easier it is for the viewer to forget that they're
watching a movie and get sucked into the story (which, by the way,
see It Follows if you haven't; it's total proof of that
concept, and it's SO GOOD!!!). So you start with that opening shot of
the girl wandering through the woods. And it's a gorgeous shot. But
then, you cut to maybe eight different angles of the girl walking
when really, you need the wide shot of her walking and close-up of
her hand dripping blood; in those two shots, you get all the
information and all the mood building that you need, but I get the
feeling that they wanted to use all of the coverage they had. Which,
it's totally unfair for me to assign motive to people I've never met,
it could be that they were trying to disorient the audience with all
of that cutting, but I'm just saying it feels to me
like maybe they could have shown a little more restraint in the
editing room and they would have had a stronger sequence.
And
that's kind of a consistent...not problem, really; it's more of a
taste thing. I should maybe mention that I'm a huge fan of the Alan
J. Pakula, Hal Ashby school of filmmaking: you compose your shot to
tell as much of the story as possible as effectively as possible and
then you cut when the scene demands it. And, whatever, that's just
me, but in Evil Dead, it kind of feels like they covered
everything as thoroughly as possible and figured it out in editing.
Obviously, that's not literally true; it's a coherent and often
elaborate movie which just doesn't really happen if you don't know
what you're doing, but there is sort of this syndrome where it feels
like you're getting one piece of information in each shot and then
cutting to the next shot for one more piece of information, etc.
I'm
also not crazy about the opening sequence from a storytelling
standpoint, where we're introduced to the random possessed girl. I do
get why it makes sense to have it there: it announces the tone of the
movie (grisly, squirm inducing fun that's also, simultaneously, kind
of sad) so that the rest of the movie is a little more emotionally
palatable. If we just spent twenty-five minutes getting to know these
characters and then they start getting killed in horrible ways, the
movie would be really depressing. Somehow, opening with something
that brutal and over the top softens the blow later. But shouldn't
horror be depressing?1
It's art as a way of processing death and disaster and I'm not sure
that letting the audience walk away from the experience emotionally
unscathed should necessarily be a priority of the artist. “But,”
you could argue, “it's Evil Dead;
seriously?” To which I would have to say, “touche.”
Okay,
so Christ, I've written so much on the opening sequence; let's get
into the movie. The biggest issue, I think, with Evil Dead
is that we really, really
don't get to know these characters. Which is probably why I'm having
a hard time recalling details about any of them to write this. We
learn what their relationships to one another are and, in a few
cases, what their jobs are and that's...that's not really enough. Not
that the original had a hell of a lot more character development
(maybe even less, actually), but the original wasn't trying
to, is the thing. The new Evil
Dead has the hook that this
whole thing is about getting clean. The point is that this version of
Evil Dead tries to
build characters that we care about because the crux of the movie
isn't inventive filmmaking and relentless scares, like it was in the
original, but the idea that these people care about one and other and
no one can quite get their shit together to tell each other that. But
if I don't care about them, then I'm not sure how much I can care
about that emotional hurdle.
The
biggest issue for me, character wise (aside from not knowing why,
exactly, Eric thought it was a good idea to read the words from the
book out loud; a couple of lines of back story about his character
could totally sell why he'd be so fixated, but as it is, it just
seems like kind of a strange choice on his part; I mean, his friend
is withdrawing from something really addictive in the next room and
clearly, people had gone to a lot of effort to hide this book, so why
is he pouring so much energy into it? Actually, reading that sentence
back, I may have just answered my own question, so fuck me.), is the
character of Natalie, David's girlfriend, who has, what, maybe three
or four lines? I'm not trying to be dismissive; I might be
exaggerating, but not by a lot. Which makes sense in the context of
the story; she's sort of the interloper who doesn't have a place in
the group dynamic, but it also makes it feel like the only reason she
was written into the script was to bump the character count up to
five. Which makes the kitchen self-amputation scene feel a little bit
sadistic and gratuitous; watching someone I really
don't know cut off her own arm with a turkey carver is...I'm not sure
what I'm supposed to get out of that besides some really intense gore
and a callback to Evil Dead II.
There's something weirdly icky about watching someone I don't have an
emotional connection to go through something that horrible and
disgusting.
And,
okay, last major criticism: the pacing is, for me, a little bit too
relentless. You don't quite have the same lulls that you do in the
original, so the suspense/eww factor becomes a little numbing. For
me.
I
do have few more specific nits to pick, but I think I've covered the
broad strokes pretty well. So what works: holy shit, the makeup
effects. I can't believe this movie got an R rating; the split tongue
alone would definitely get a low budget indie an NC-17; the use of
CGI is sparing and smart; the aforementioned theme of addiction is
really interesting; the Abomination sequence is great; the movie
looks gorgeous; and the actors are clearly working their asses off,
as is everyone else, and the performances are good enough to carry
you (or at least, me) through some clunky dialogue and underdeveloped
characters.
So
let's get into the addiction thing. This more or less saves the movie
for me: adding a heavy theme like that allows it to be more than just
a collection of horrific set-pieces; it makes the whole thing about
what we do to ourselves and others in the name of getting a substance
and then in the name of getting clean. You often have to leave all of
your friends behind when you leave a substance behind to avoid
potential triggers, so, you know, killing off the people that care
about you as you go through this intense journey kinda works
thematically.
And
the Abomination sequence is just flat-out great. For me, that last
twenty minutes is when the movie really kicks into high gear. You're
clear of everything that happened in the original movie, so the
remake is over2,
and once it starts raining blood, all bets are off. Plus, you know,
confronting yourself as a demon totally plays back into that
addiction/sobriety thing! So, you know, cool! Maybe just a little
heavy-handed, but cool!
Look,
I don't think Evil Dead
is a bad movie, but I do think it could have been better than it was
with more confident direction and about five more minutes of
character development. And that's not exactly a knock on Fede
Alvarez (the director); I mean it is, but look, as a first feature,
it's pretty damn impressive and I'm sure he'll only get better and
more confident as a director. But the gore. Oh my god, the gore!
1
And from the “I'm a fucking hypocrite” file, I should just go
ahead and admit that I love the Hatchet
movies, Tremors,
Sleepaway Camp,
Severance,
Re-Animator,
etc. - I'm a big fan of fun
horror, but I'm not as big a fan of any of those movies as I am of,
say, Don't Look Now
or Kill List.
2Yeah,
I know it's actually technically not a remake because of that
post-credits thing, but it's a remake.
