Five youths sojourn to a cabin in the woods and become cosmically screwed by the apoplectic demon forces that be for the duration of 90 minutes.
This is ostensibly the plot of Fede Alvarez’s (directing his first feature film) remake/reinvention of Sam Raimi’s (“Oz the Great and Powerful”) 1981 low-budget cult classic “The Evil Dead.” The new film attempts something that has been done as of late with horror remakes: reinvent the wheel and make a cash grab from nostalgic fans of original films.
Thankfully, the latter statement is not true, with the original trio of Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert producing the film, alleviating “Evil Dead” fans fears of a truly abysmal remake. Although, for branding purposes, Alvarez has simply dropped “The” and called his film “Evil Dead.”
Mia (Jane Levy, “Suburgatory”), in an effort to go cold turkey from an opiate addiction, goes up to a recently purchased cabin in the woods with three of her friends, Olivia (Jessica Lucas, “Cloverfield”) , Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore, “Legend of the Seeker”) and Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci, “The Informers”).
To save face and support his sister in her endeavor to quit drugs, Mia’s brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez, “Red Riding Hood”) rides up to the cabin to stand at her side.
“Evil Dead” is intent on creating its own history and mythology with the Necronomicon, a book made of human skin and covered in barbed wire, the mystical macguffin that releases the demonic presence hiding in the woods. In the original, it was an audio recording that initiated the events. Here Pucci’s Eric simply reads the text, basically ignoring the infamous metaphor of curiosity killing the cat. Meanwhile, there’s a basement filled with decaying carcasses dangling from the ceiling, where the Necronomicon is found, wordlessly screaming at the kids not to touch the book.
The film’s body lies in its low budget camp horror cinema origins, but the film’s ambition is to create a movie that will exists alongside other great films in the horror genre. In regard to its ambition, it succeeds.
Levy’s dichotomy between the Mia possessed by her unctuous visage from the forest and her human counterpoint owes some debt to Linda Blair’s performance in “The Exorcist.” It’s a very memorable portrayal that goes-for-broke in an impressive fashion. Especially, when the blood monsoon arrives, Levy’s Mia adopts the mantle of Bruce Campbell’s Ash quite well.
Much credit must be given to the cinematographer Aaron Morton, whose shots are brilliantly lit in a kind of everglade haze that gives both the cabin, and the woods which they quietly lie in, a very primordial aesthetic that gives “Evil Dead” an alluring depth.
The central interest lies in the dynamic between Pucci’s Eric, Fernandez’s David and Levy’s Mia. Both Levy and Pucci perform convincingly with humor, but Fernandez’s performance cycles between wooden and an imitation of someone being convincingly scared out of their mind.
Furthermore, thank heavens for Roque Baños’ score, writing a deliciously grandiose and hellish soundscape to compliment the grotesque opera (beware the air siren!), returning horror film music to the tradition of Bernard Herrmann, Jerry Goldsmith’s “The Omen” and John Williams’ “The Fury.”
Considering “Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn” was itself a remake, it should be interesting to see how Alvarez, should he continue, works on a sequel without a path explicitly set out. Alvarez’s “Evil Dead” is abrasive and vivaciously so. Sometimes it stumbles, but it hits all the marks.
Chainsaw. Check. Boomstick. Check. The Oldsmobile. Check. Knockout finale. Check. It should be equally as curious a notion to see if he carries the franchise in a more earnest direction or steers it into a more comic trajectory as the original series progressed.
For now, though, it might not be such a terrible sortie if the dead rise once again.
dkahen-kashi@theeagleonline.com
