The Evil That Men Re-Do

So, as I'm sure everyone reading this already knows by now, the red band trailer for the Evil Dead remake was released earlier this week to mostly rapturous response. I'm sure not every fan is on board with this still because Bruce Campbell isn't starring in it or whatever but whaddya gonna do? I was all for this even before the trailer so I just feel that much more stoked now.

As remakes go, it's galling when cheeseballs like Michael Bay cash in on a much-loved property like A Nightmare on Elm Street but with The Evil Dead, not only are the original players involved (which worked out well when Wes Craven oversaw the remakes of The Hills Have Eyes and The Last House on the Left) but there is, I believe, a good reason (other than crass commerce) to bring back The Evil Dead for a new generation.

As great and as classic as the original is, it hasn't aged so well. Movies of roughly the same vintage, like Halloween or Alien, still can play for a new audience and not suffer too much from being dated. You couldn't do the same with The Evil Dead, though. Of all the Evil Dead movies, it's the one that doesn't hold up so well. It has a charm to it still but it's more unintentionally corny now than it is scary.

The thing is, that's not how The Evil Dead played back in '83. Back then, it seemed like the ne plus ultra of splatter cinema. Or, as the end credits described it, "the ultimate experience in grueling horror." It was a movie that was intimidating in its reputation and that absolutely lived up to the hype. I don't know anyone who was around back when The Evil Dead was first released who didn't regard it as a legitmately scary movie. The sequels took a different route and were great in their own right but I think a return to a truly frightening take on The Evil Dead is a good thing.

It's just such a classic set-up, such a classic horror movie premise - kids in an isolated cabin who find themselves possessed one by one by demons until only a last survivor remains - why not bring it back for a new generation and try to make the best version of that tale possible? You know, as much as Cabin in the Woods was acclaimed by some, it really didn't do much for me.

I dug the menagerie of monsters in the last leg of the movie and chuckled at the apocalyptic conclusion but other than that, I wasn't all that taken with it. I liked it, but didn't love it.

My preferences in horror generally lie in favor of movies that play it straight-up - the real thing rather than a deconstruction. And, so far at least, the new Evil Dead is looking very much like The Real Thing.

Kiss Your Nerves Goodbye

With Sam Raimi's Evil Dead II quickly approaching its 25th (!) anniversary, I wonder how it's perceived by young horror fans just coming to it for the first time. Is it still cool or is it passé? I do think it's very hard for any movie to still be considered hip after twenty five years. To be considered classic, ok. Hip is a little harder to manage. But for fans my age and the generation just below me, Evil Dead II is essential. It's a movie that's intractably ingrained in those who encountered it either first-run in theaters or on its earliest VCR releases or cable showings. But now it's closing in on the quarter century mark and I just don't know if it carries the same cachet with the under 20-crowd. But hell, it's got to. If it doesn't, that's just plain wrong.

I will say one thing: there's no way that younger fans can appreciate just how different Evil Dead II was when it came out. My first viewing of it was at a midnight showing the weekend that it opened in my area. Going in, I assumed I was in for more of the sort of straight-up horror of the original. But when it turned out to be riotously funny, I was completely taken by surprise. None of the trailers or even any of the articles in the genre press had hinted at the shift in tone from the first film to the sequel. For some, the move toward comedy might've been cause to be pissed but the movie was so good, it would be churlish to fault it for not trying to duplicate the scares of the original. I've rarely laughed quite so hard at a film - and I'm someone who's predisposed to laughing their ass off.

From a movie buff's perspective, one of the biggest downfalls of our internet age is that it's almost impossible to be surprised by a film anymore. If Evil Dead II came out for the first time today, it'd be common knowledge many months in advance that it was a horror-comedy. Hell, you'd hear all about it from a mainstream source like Entertainment Weekly. But in '87, even coverage in the pages of genre bible Fangoria didn't tip anyone off to the fact that Raimi had gone for laughs this time around. But being wholly surprised by Evil Dead II was one of the things that I liked best about it.

Thinking back to Evil Dead II makes me miss the days when cult films were discovered by fans a little at a time, gathering pockets of support here and there and building their following over the course of not just weeks but over months and even years instead of how films are now branded out of the gate as cult items on the basis of just a festival screening or two (and sometimes before they're even into production!). You know, Knights of Badassdom might end up being a great film, I don't know, but I feel like there's no excitement in discovering it for myself because it's pre-sold as a ready-made cult movie. Too many films aimed at the geek crowd today feel so safe in their sensibilities, like they're playing to audiences who are already in on the joke. It's like an easy layup and in contrast, Raimi made a full-court press, taking a real gamble by screwing with fan's expectations (most filmmakers doing a sequel to a balls-to-the-wall horror film would not risk ridicule by featuring a zombie doing a full-on stop-motion ballet).

In the years since Evil Dead II, Raimi's hyperkinetic style has been adopted - if rarely equalled - by many other filmmakers, making it seem less unique than it once did, but yet the endless inventiveness of Evil Dead II still jumps off the screen. And the key to why Raimi's style works so well is that it only has the appearance of being unhinged. While Raimi sends his camera prowling, ricocheting, and slingshotting in every direction, underneath that gonzo style there's a serious attention to craft. Every angle, every edit is meticulously thought-out. Low budget genre filmmaking is famous for being done on the fly and under the gun but Evil Dead II is about getting it right and raising the bar.

The original Evil Dead was the work of a talented amateur but by Evil Dead II, Raimi had become a master filmmaker, using every tool at his disposal. Evil Dead II was still a micro-budgeted film compared to anything out of Hollywood but it looks far more lavish than it does crude. Sure, it might be easy to spot a giant tear in the crotch of the Henrietta suit and other gaffes here and there but Evil Dead II is still an accomplished piece of work. And the evolution of Bruce Campbell as an actor can't be underestimated either. His performance in the original was just shy of being outright embarrassing but in Evil Dead II he suddenly possessed a comic flair along with leading man chops.

Raimi has stated many times over the years that horror was never his thing, that he didn't grow up as a fan, but ironically his films show much more affection and respect for the genre than those of many horror filmmakers today who constantly claim what hardcore fans they are. I mean, you look at the films of Rob Zombie and I don't care how many movies and directors he namechecks in interviews, this is a guy who misunderstands the genre so deeply that when he talks about being a fan, it should be regarded as a tongue-in-cheek assertion at best; at worst, a private joke.

Early on in his career, Peter Jackson was considered the heir apparent to Raimi, making his name with splatstick efforts that were clearly indebted to Raimi's example. But while I love Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles (not so much Dead-Alive - for some reason that film just never did it for me), I don't think they've held up quite as well as Evil Dead II has with its high style, rampant silliness, and sense of cinematic precision. It's more than timeless - it's groovy.

Evil Thoughts

After many, many years of keeping their rabid fan base guessing about whether an Evil Dead 4 or an Evil Dead remake (or both, or neither) would ever arrive, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell announced this week that a remake is in production. This isn't good news for those who had their hearts set on seeing Raimi inflict some punishment on Campbell once again but I, for one, feel relieved.

The idea of Campbell reprising his signature role in another Evil Dead film strikes me as a depressing prospect, one best avoided. Career-wise, Campbell doesn't need to play Ash again - he's part of a successful show as a cast member of USA's Burn Notice in addition to doing voice work for animated films like Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs and Cars 2. At this point it'd be a mistake for him to strap on the chainsaw again. I'm sure that some fans will keep clamoring for a sequel for as long as horror conventions are held but I'm hoping that ship has permanently sailed.

As for the remake, this is definitely a case where age, experience, and added resources could lead to an improved film. As a shining example of DIY resourcefulness, the original remains admirable but as a movie it isn't so thrilling anymore. Raimi already left it in the dust with Evil Dead 2 but that was, by design, a jollier, jokier take on the material. A new Evil Dead that's hellbent on scaring audiences rather than mixing gore and guffaws is something I want to see.

Writer/director Fede Alvarez is an untested commodity but I have faith that Raimi, Tapert, and Campbell have entrusted their film to the right guy. And the idea of Diablo Cody contributing to the script sounds fine to me. If nothing else, it's funny to think of an Oscar winning screenwriter penning an Evil Dead movie. I actually liked Cody's uneven but interesting Jennifer's Body so I do believe she has some credentials as a horror buff.

Once the classic - and even not-so-classic - horror films of the '70s and '80s began to be remade, it wasn't a question of whether The Evil Dead would be remade but when. But unlike the botch jobs that films like Halloween or A Nightmare on Elm Street endured, I think that the new Evil Dead has a better-than-average chance of actually surpassing the original.

The Cabin In The Woods

You might recognize the above piece of rural real estate as the Tennessee cabin in which director Sam Raimi and co. filmed The Evil Dead (and which was destroyed by fire shortly after shooting was completed). Like many fans in the US, I first learned about the existence of Raimi's debut film by way of Stephen King's rave review in the November 1982 issue of Twilight Zone magazine. While at the Cannes Film Festival in May of '82 promoting Creepshow, King attended a screening of The Evil Dead, had his mind blown by it, and then set out to spread the word.

While Raimi's film languished without US distribution, King championed it in his TZ review, calling it "a black rainbow of horror" and, more famously, "the most ferociously original horror film of 1982." I found it all the more tantalizing that the photos from the film that accompanied that article were in grainy black and white rather than in color. It only added to the film's mystique (as King related: "...The film has a weirdly convincing documentary look that no one has seen since George Romero's Night of the Living Dead"). At the time of King's review, The Evil Dead was a horror film so under the radar that even Fangoria hadn't covered it yet.

Once The Evil Dead did finally score a US release through New Line Cinema, there was no greater "gotta-see" movie for horror fans (sorry, Xtro!). Being only about thirteen at the time, I begged my mother to tell the box office attendant at our local multiplex that it was ok that I see it - even though no one under seventeen was allowed. My mom failed to make a convincing case on my behalf (looking back, I don't think she tried that hard) and I walked away from the theater that day, bitterly disappointed and unable to do anything other than take a long last look at the poster hanging in the theater window with King's ecstatic blurb splashed across it.

Man, sometimes it sucks to be a kid!

Eventually, I caught up with the film on home video and my every expectation was met. If I had any bones to pick with it at the time, I don't remember. I do know I felt it was as scary and nerve-rattling as any modern horror classic I'd seen. Like, Texas Chainsaw good. That first viewing of The Evil Dead was a real white knuckle experience for me. I don't think anyone who discovered the series post-Evil Dead II (1987) can understand that at one time, The Evil Dead was widely considered to be terrifying.

Sure, the movie had its share of humor (mostly courtesy of the jocular performance of Richard DeManincor - performing under the stage name of Hal Delrich - as the boorish, beer-swilling Scotty) but the sheer relentlessness of The Evil Dead was the quality that stuck in viewer's minds. It was a movie that kept piling shock on top of shock in an avalanche of grotesque gags. At the time, few would've thought to equate Raimi's work with The Three Stooges or with anything overtly comic.

After Raimi's comic influences became more pronounced in the sequels and once Bruce Campbell's portrayal of Ash changed from that of someone who was pathetically slow to rise to action (in The Evil Dead, Ash stands by immobile while Scotty has to grab the ax from him and do the honors of dismembering Shelly) into an ass-kicking blowhard, the original was put in a different context.

For those who remember how raw and scary The Evil Dead once was, can it still hold up after nearly thirty years, sans the splatstick baggage of its sequels? I wondered about this in the wake of reading about Liongate's acquisition of Joss Whedon and Drew Goddard's meta-spin on the kids-in-a-cabin subgenre, The Cabin in the Woods.

I've got to say, it's been a long, long time since I've watched The Evil Dead. Even after buying one DVD release after another from Anchor Bay over the years, I never actually sat down and rewatched it. Some favorites I revisit often, others kind of fall by the wayside. Inevitably, there's a lot of movies in my collection (too many, actually) that I just never find the time to watch. But now, having finally given The Evil Dead a fresh spin, it bums me out to say that the movie does not hold up so well.

The early part of the film is especially painful with the interactions between the film's young actors often feeling awkward and unnatural. Their forced exchanges aren't helped at all by Raimi's distracting habit of panning back and forth from one speaker to the next (I wonder if there might have been some technical reason, perhaps audio-related, driving this decision). But even when the dark forces are finally unleashed about half an hour in, the scares are more hokey than they are harrowing (by the way, the infamous rape scene - as the woods violate Ellen Sandweiss as Cheryl - remains an unfortunate black mark on an otherwise good natured spook show). Maybe it's because I was young when I first saw the movie but I just hadn't remembered it as being so freaking...corny.

Tom Sullivan's makeup work still deserves a round of applause. It's rudimentary but effective - especially the make-up on the possessed Cheryl. Besty Baker's white-faced look once her character of Linda has turned into a Deadite packs less of a punch but it still has a satisfying evil clown-type demeanor. Why Sullivan never took off in the FX industry or as a movie maker in general, I don't know, but his work in The Evil Dead remains one of the film's strongest assets.

Back in the day, The Evil Dead was a splatter fan's dream. Characters were maimed every which way (although even as a kid I always thought it was a frustrating tease that Ash never actually used the chainsaw on a Deadite) and Raimi's camera never flinched. At every turn he was going for the gory gusto. Not only did Raimi have Ash decapitate the possessed Linda with the swipe of a shovel but then he had her still-writhing body spewing blood in Ash's face from the open neck. I loved that dedication to gruesome excess at the time but watching The Evil Dead now, I found that I was more impressed by the surreal moment where Ash touches a mirror on the wall to find that it's turned into a pool of water than I was by the movie's many splatter highlights. The gore has just not dated well.

Or rather, the presentation hasn't dated well. There's nothing here that has the punch that classic splatter scenes of similar vintage like the chestbuster in Alien (1979), the arrow through the neck in Friday the 13th (1980), or the exploding head in Scanners (1981) still do.

And in retrospect, I also think incorporating so much stop-motion footage was not such a hot idea. At the time I think Raimi probably felt it was the only way he could deliver a show-stopping climax but now watching the Necronomicon wagging its clay tongue, well...you have to admire the effort more than the execution. Which is kind of how I feel about The Evil Dead as a whole now.

Throughout The Evil Dead, Raimi's natural talent for visuals is apparent. His camerawork is innovative and it's clear that Raimi was trying to bring a lot of ambition to a simple story but for most of the film's running time it seems like he's working around his cast rather than with them and shoehorning moments in rather than have them flow naturally. Tellingly, it's not until Campbell has to fight alone against his possessed friends and the invisible forces around him that Raimi really begins to find his groove.

Every time the prospect of an Evil Dead remake comes up, fans practically riot but I don't think it's such a lousy idea - at least, not anymore I don't. Raimi brilliantly semi-remade his own movie with Evil Dead II (which I have also rewatched recently and found that it really has held up over time) but when he did he deliberately didn't go for hardcore scares. I'd love to see a more seasoned and skilled Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell presiding over an Evil Dead remake that delivers what the first film did at the time but doesn't deliver now - the ultimate experience in grueling terror.