Much derided on its initial release, I remember a lot of hate being sent ‘Evil Dead’ (2013)’s way. With the general consensus being that it wasn’t as ‘edgey’ as the original, wasn’t as memorable as the original and didn’t do enough to really modernise the original story. Some critics even went as far as to try and question the point of its existence, with this being released just towards the dying gasps of the ‘torture porn’ era of horror cinema.
But watching this again now with 10 years hindsight, I’m actually really quite impressed at just how solid this picture really is.
While it is true that the film does follow *some* of the key beats of the original, it deviates pretty quickly into its own beast, and while there are plenty of Easter eggs and callbacks to the original series scattered throughout, this isn’t a film that’s beholden to the originals, which I think really works in its favour (and probably contributed to so many people disliking it because ‘reference/in joke = good movie’ to some folks apparently…
For those of you not familiar with the plot, the film follows a group of friends who’ve decided to take their struggling friend Mia into the woods as part of a detox/cold turkey session in order to overcome heroin addiction.
While there she’s met by her long estranged brother and it’s revealed the pair have a fractious past. Anyway, after a little bit of tension, one of the friends finds a blood splattered hatch in the living room and on heading down into the cellar they find disgusting scenes of what looks like a demonic ritual of some kind.
One of the friends finds a book bound in skin, he translates some of the book and reads it out loud, yadda yadda yadda, dedites from the bowels of hell emerge and slowly kill off the cabin folk, yadda yadda yadda ‘I’ll swallow your soul’.
The first time I caught this one (around 2017), I was kind of non plussed…it was a fine enough film, but I didn’t think it really went far enough in showing just how hideously demented and graphic modern dedites could be. I didn’t much care for the dedite redesign or the washed out colourless aesthetic and the end was a bit of a buzz kill after 90 minutes of chaos, ending on a whisper, rather than a bang.
On rewatching it tonight however, while I do still have some reservations. I have to say that I really quite enjoyed this one!
I think my biggest gripes here are still pretty much that the Deadites don’t look nearly as gnarley as they did in the first 2 films, and it would have been nice to see something a little bit more abstract in design than just ‘pale with contact lenses in and sometimes a little bludgeoned’
Equally; I do still feel like the ending is a bit of a fizzle out rather than a grand closing. And I do wish there was a bit more colour range here than the washed out murkiness we ultimately got.
That being said, what we do have here is another rock solid entry in the ‘Evil Dead’ franchise, that pretty much manages to succeed in every other level.
The scripts zippy, solidly paced, with characters who are just about deep enough to make me care what happens with them, its tonally more in line with the original than say; ‘Evild Dead 2’ or ‘Ash vs the Evil Dead’ and while this thing is oppressively bleak in places. It still manages to contrast that utter darkness with some pitch black comedy creating a wonderful multi layer experience.
The pacing is near perfect, the act structuring is solid with clean and subtle transitions, the dialogue is mostly rock solid and barring some moments where the characters IQ seems to artificially drop through the floor in order to keep the narrative going. This is just a really solid work that had absolutely improved with age.
While I’m not the biggest fan of the ‘murkey’ era of horror. The period where saturation seemed to be the enemy of most horror filmmakers who instead wanted there works washed out, brown or gray and very little else. Here? I have to say there’s a really solid creative vision behind this thing, it’s heavily stylized, and…given its a studio grade picture, the cine and direction at worst, meet the standard and at best it thoroughly impressive.
Shots are solidly composed, there’s plenty of experimentation on hand and the effects shots here are easily some of the best the 2010s had to offer with some genuinely wince inducing scenes that are guaranteed to cause a flinch here and there.
The edits solidly paced, normally I think a film could generally stand to lose 10 minutes at minimum. But this felt just about right to me. Long enough to leave me wanting more, with only the slightest bit of fat on the thing to help provide some much needed breathing space.
The performances are phenomenal with the cast *largely* able to successfully jump between their human and Deadite personas, though a couple of them do end up drifting into ‘zombie/cenobite’ territory which…was a bit of a shame, part of the charm of these films is seeing the deadites purposefully freak people out for their own Amusement…But only ‘Mia’s’ deadite incarnation seems to really do that…
Add in some fabulous scoring, a striking and oppressive orchestral mix that perfectly suits the tone of this film and honestly? Colour me quite impressed!
While I can’t say that ‘Evil Dead (2013)’ is as culturally significant as the original ‘Evil Dead’ trilogy. I feel quite certain that this one had been unfairly judged in the years since its release. I think its a bit of a sleeper classic in all honesty. It’s got a razor sharp script, striking visuals a rock solid cast and a great score. While it may note *quite* measure up to some of the other entries in this series. I almost certainly would recommend it, and I can absolutely see me checking this film out again in the very near future!
TYTD Reviews 