"The Evil Dead, hell yeah I wanna see that!!!" Quoted from one
Big Real, said to his wife upon seeing this commercial for the first
time. His wife responds, "Uhh,...No." I in turn say, "HWHAT!?!"
(channeling my best Lil Jon impersonation.) "Well, It looks
disgusting." - End Conversation. Guess what,.... she was right. It was.
Disgusting. Disgusting and AWESOME!!!!
First off, the technicalities. The Evil Dead was released theatrically April 5th, 2013, followed by the DVD and blu-ray released on July 16th, 2013. Staring Jane Levy(Mia Allen), Shiloh Fernandez(David Allen), Lou Taylor Pucci(Eric) and Rupert Degas(Demons Voice) to name a few.
A remake of Sam Raimi's monumental cult classic, originally released in 1981 and staring the "One who shall be named" Bruce fraggle-rockin Campbell! Let's be clear on something here. I am thankful for a handful of things, my wife, my dog, my PS3 and Bruce fraggle-rockin
Campbell! He's awesome. Try to argue that point,... please,..just try.
You won't though. Why? Because he's AWESOME! When he was born the doctor
hugged Bruce Campbell's mother, thanked her, gave her $50.00 and never
charged her a cent. To be clear Mr. Campbell also had a hand in this
incarnation of The Evil Dead. He, along with Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert produced this movie, while Fede Alvarez was personally selected by Mr. Raimi to direct it. They even went as far as to use audio from the original.
I do find it interesting that in general, the film review communities
were extremely harsh on this movie. I've heard numerous times that,
"This movie SUCKS compared to the original!" and various other similar
complaints since its release. One thing to know about me is that I am a
horror film fanatic. Not the, dress up like Freddy Kruger/Jason Vorhees,
fanatic. I just take horror movies serious and appreciate them for what
they are or are trying to be. That said, I am also really hard on
horror movies. It's rare for me to be amazed or for matter horrified by a
horror movie. So after hearing all the bad, negative and down right
scathing reviews of The Evil Dead I got a little nervous. However once I
watched the film, I couldn't quite wrap my head around why so many
people hated it. I do agree that its not "as good" as the original. It
isn't. However, let's keep it real in saying that these two films should
not be compared to each other. It's not fair to either film. The
original had a $90,000.00 budget and was at best a C level, campy,
cheesy gorefest
that created a perfect storm of awesome. I hate to say it was luck but
it was. Luck and BRUCE CAMPBELL. It reminds me of the popularity of
Troll 2. The original Evil Dead by all standards should have been awful
but it wasn't, it was great. This recent version had a budget of
$17,000,000,000.00. That to say the least is a huge difference and is
noticeable,....as if it couldn't be.
It's not hard to tell that I am a fan of this movie. It was great. The acting was solid, the audio was good, setting and location were on point. I mean it was all done right.
My only complaint, is a consistent complaint that I have with all
horror films. Why does everyone in horror movies seem to have never
watched a scary movie? For me, it just comes off as pure laziness on a
film writers part. Having characters do things that no sane person would
even begin to consider doing. For example. Big Real is with 5 friends
on a vacation. Sounds fun Right? Over the course of 24 hours, 3 of them
are horribly killed in unexplainable "accidents". Scary? Could be. Would
Big Real stay? Hell, I don't know because I, Big Real, would have left 5
minutes after the first death! I'm not rich and cherish any vacation I
can manage to get but screw that mess,..I'm out! There is no convincing
me to stay. You'd be wasting your breath and might get throat punched
for the sheer stupidity of not only asking me to stay but being in
between my car and myself. Anyway, to continue, I will admit that there
is a lot of blood and gore. Really though there was no way around that
and there shouldn't be. That's why movies have ratings and commercials,
to help steer people who don't like that kind of stuff away from it.
Plain and simple I rated this movie 4 stars. It's not perfect and it's
lacking that over the top, unexplainable quality that movies I rate 5
stars have. So rent it, buy it , whatever it but do take the time to see
it.
