Evil Dead (2013)

'Feast on this, motherfucker!'

Total Score: 16/23.

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Finally finished this piece! Sorry for the month of posting silence on the Evil Dead front. However, this aligns with the reality of the franchise. You see, we had decades with no films, until Fede Álvarez birthed this gut-streaked remake out of the graveyard soil.

As is sometimes the case with my reviews, this one’s mostly a synopsis. Apologies!

Also, warning, I’m gonna showcase some nasty images and clips. Beware.

This film begins, as you might expect, in a foggy forest. A young woman stumbles along, clearly terrified. Before you know it, strange men grab her (Ted Raimi cameo!) and she is bagged and dragged. When she awakens, she’s strung up before the Necronomicon. As it turns out, she’s less of a victim than we first assumed, having murdered her own mother. Her father, an obvious Knowby stand-in, is forced to burn the Deadite out of her. As the flames begin to lick at her legs, her pleading turns full Regan - and a shotgun puts an end to the thing that has taken over her soul. We’re off to a strong start.

Now we get to the core cast. There is nurse Olivia, teacher Eric, addict Mia, her brother David, and his girlfriend Natalie. There’s also a dog, Grandpa. Warning now - the dog dies :(

These five are hanging at the world’s creepiest cabin, owned by David and Mia’s family, in order to get Mia through a cold-turkey attempt at getting off of heroin. This is not the first attempt.

Around now we start getting all the classic horror tropes. A casual mention of a childhood lullaby. A nasty, unidentifiable smell. We learn that David and Mia’s mother died in an institution. Mia too, has been legally dead.

There is a quiet discussion of keeping Mia here against her will, if it comes to it. While I understand the sentiment - what this is really doing is allowing us to cheer on the oncoming slaughter of these group of well-meaning friends.

Returning to horror tropes, there’s a bloody trail into the basement. Downstairs is the Necronomicon, a bunch of dead animals on hooks, and a big ol’ shotgun. Mia, the only person with any sense, is big on the Fuck That Let’s Leave It Be side, and this self-preservation is why she will survive later.

We also spot Chekhov’s electric knife. The film is liberal in its foreshadowing.

Eric, being an obnoxious academic, gets to skimming the infamous skin-bound tome. As ever, the pictures within are stunningly cool. Quickly he slits his finger on it, and because that’s apparently not enough for him, he gets to reading an extract too. This summons the Forest, throwing us, and his friends, into the shitshow. Truly this is a fast paced beginning.

Mia is the first to deal with The Forest, seeing strange things in the woods. When her friends refuse to take her home, you don’t blame her at all for driving off into a vicious rainstorm. Of course, a strange vision interrupts her driving and she crashes into murky water. It is a struggle to swim to shore, but a monstrous thing in the mud sets her sprinting away. The Forest barrels after her. Fun fact - this shot was done with a cameraman on a zipwire! Anyway, Mia falls in a heap of thorns. Vines wrap her arm, then her throat, thick and thorny. Before her stands her own body, but full Deadite, and this other Mia vomits a long trail of vines than snake toward our wrapped-up heroine. They slide into her in what is both an obvious callback to the original film, and a powerful visual metaphor for possession. Thankfully this scene is not too drawn out or leering, though it’s still pretty fucking horrid.

Her friends find her and take her back to the cabin, but now she is a different beast. Her eyes are sunken, she shakes and whispers like a shellshocked soldier. Is it withdrawal, or something supernatural? In the mirror, her Deadite form stares back with yellow eyes. This is a surprisingly cheesy shot, if I’m honest, but it gets the point across.

In a hole under the shed, the dog is found obviously murdered. This is the fucking worst, so that’s all I’ll say. RIP. David, who finds the poor thing, forces his way into the bathroom where Mia is apparently showering. He finds her motionless under the water, which is boiling, giving her serious burns. She convulses and puke hangs out her half-open mouth. David finally gives in and drives her away. All the while, the incompetent Eric begins to fear he made a mistake.

Unfortunately, water has flooded the roads. It is a bleak return to the cabin for Mia and David. When they get back it is decided they’d better sedate her. This doesn’t do much, as she jerkily makes her way from her bed into the main room. A shotgun hangs in her hand.

David gets shot, but is basically fine. What is less fine is the front door bursting open, supernatural wind smashing the windows, and strange demonic voices streaming into the air. Mia leaps on Olivia, vomiting what looks like the pulp of three entire watermelons onto her face, before her victim tosses her into the basement.

‘MY GOD, WHAT HAPPENED TO HER EYES?’

Now we get to one of the most memorable scenes of the film. In the bathroom, Olivia searches desperately for more sedatives. Then, in the mirror, a face. Her own face, horribly mutilated. In the Necronomicon, we see a similar image. By the time Eric finds her in the bathroom, the sparking lightbulb reveals her slicing rapidly at her jaw. A sawing wet noise is heard. One cheek is in half, showing all of her teeth, the flesh slit clean away. A chunk of skin sends Eric slipping to the floor. The door slams by itself and then she is on him, pounding a needle just under his eye. He is forced to smash her skull into paste. The others find him in a state of despair and shock, and he admits to his mistake - reading that which should remain unread.

Deadite self-harm always works for me. I think it is one of the most terrifying horrors that they offer - taking over your body and treating it as a toy they can smash, burn, and slit to pieces. What a horrible fate. There is quite a lot of this in Evil Dead (2013) and that is partly why it is so memorable.

Speaking of, Mia starts manipulating Natalie. The devil drags her into the dark of the basement, and before you know it is looming over her, face bone white and sickly yellow. The demon chews on her hand, then licks a box cutter, slitting Mia’s tongue. As if this isn’t enough, there’s a forcible kiss that follows. Eurgh. Fortunately David frees Natalie from the cellar, but not before Mia makes it clear that perversion and violence reign now.

Eric tries to burn the Necronomicon. It’s a fucking waste of time. What he does learn is important though - there’s a Big Bad that will turn up if five souls are claimed, and there are three distinct ways to destroy the Deadites. You can dismember the bastards, toss ‘em in a grave, or burn them to a crisp. We’ll see all three.

Natalie squeezes black blobs of blood out of her bite-wound. They resemble tapioca pearls, which should give you a strong visual. The infection spreads fast, Ash style. The door slams behind her, and her entire arm gets pussy and yellow. Natalie locks in and starts cutting her arm off with the electric knife. It spurts a huge amount of blood and snaps horribly. It plops wetly off a few moments later after the lights fizzle out.

Unfortunately this did not get the job done. Natalie shoots a nailgun into her face, and then starts impaling the others. David gets a crowbar beating a la Jason Todd, and Eric gets his hand mutilated in a single horrific blow. A few smashes to the dome seal his fate, but give David time to blow Natalie’s hand off. The mutilated girl seems to return to her own mind, and chokes out a painful lament before dying.

David coats the house in gasoline. However, as we expected, the basement-lady gets to singing that childhood lullaby. Only one option remains. After a brief Chekhov’s chainsaw David gets digging, and then goes down into the basement to sedate the thing that used to be Mia. The scene that follows is a bit weak, as he gets slammed around the room. Eric, miraculously still alive, prevents him from getting killed, but it takes a lot out of him and his passing is wheezy and slurred.

Mia’s head is wrapped in a plastic bag, and the burial begins. The Deadite opens old wounds from within that bag, needling away at David. He keeps burying until he feels the job is done, then instantly unburies her and tries desperately to defibrillate. Mia’s face, now normal and calm, is unmoving. Just at the moment he gives up, turning away, she calls out to him. The siblings embrace, as apparently all is well.

Of course, it isn’t, because David gets stabbed in the neck by Deadite Eric, who’s wielding a pair of pliers. In his final moments, Mia’s brother shoots the gasoline canister and blows himself and his assailant to kingdom come.

Nice watermark. I claim no credit for this gif.

This is far from the end though. If anything, this is just the beginning. The sky bleeds, pouring out a red torrent onto Mia. Something muscled with lank black hair crawls out of the dirt, shrieking and twitching. Its very touch burns skin from Mia’s leg (fun fact, this FX is done through a kind of temporary tattoo).

We soon realise that this Thing resembles Mia. It slits her leg slowly with a knife, then cuts her arm too. Our Final Girl narrowly escapes, hiding under the car with the newly collected Chainsaw. She slams it into the creature’s foot. This isn’t taken well, as the Deadite overturns the car onto her hand, crushing it into a crunching soup. Mia is forced to wrench it off, skin and flesh sliding away under the metal. She slips and slides toward the dropped chainsaw as the blood rain thunders down. But then, she’s stood over this thing, soaked scarlet, one hand minced into paste, and, with a one liner, she slams the chainsaw into its head, slicing it largely in half. Ash Williams would be proud.

The ground swallows what remains, and the rain finally ceases. Mia takes a moment to breathe in as the light of dawn floods the clearing. For now, the Evil Dead have been vanquished.

Groovy.

Overall, this is a great film. I definitely remember loving it the first time I saw it, and while I didn’t have as much fun this time, it still holds up as a banger remake. The visuals, the concepts, the horror is all done expertly. Making The Evil Dead into a comedy-free no-holds-barred film was a great shout, and Álvarez absolutely nailed it. It is a worthy reboot and a cracking horror movie. The gore alone makes it stand out as a modern classic.

To finish things off, I’ll touch on the bonus content from my DVD! There’s not too much, I’m afraid, but even so, it’s always good to learn a little. Here’s what I found out:

• Álvarez focused on organic directing, working collectively. There was a lot of actor-director discussion in the making of this film, and it shows in the performances.

• His favourite scene is the burial, in which they actually partially buried Jane Levy (Mia).Very Sam Raimi of him.

• Speaking of Raimi, he and Fede apparently talked Evil Dead after his short Panic Attack went viral.

• Before shooting, Bruce Campbell lay down to the actors how challenging it can be to shoot a film like this. Lucky he did, because apparently it really was quite grueling!

• Álvarez says that for this franchise - ‘NOTHING IS TOO MUCH’ - and he’s right.

Who among you have seen this remake? What did you think? More importantly, what was your score?

As ever, thanks for reading,

Until next time,

H.E.

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