Finally Speaking My Mind About "Evil Dead" (2013)

When the film hit in April, I went to a premiere screening of it. However, at that point I was taking a break from writing for a few months. So I never did a review for it. But I figured now, since it's been out a while and it hit home video, that I'd finally touch up on the subject of what is the remake of one of the biggest and most iconic horror films ever filmed.

The day of the premiere I had my close group of horror friends over, and we watched the original Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell trilogy and had a good ol' time. I don't think there's a chance of not having fun when you watch any or all of the original 3 films. Though 2 remains my favorite, they're all perfect in their own ways and for different reasons.

Before we left, I had to dress in fashion, so I got out my limited edition t-shirt of "Evil Dead 2" and headed to the event.

Watching the film, I remember feeling very tense and on edge, ready for anything to happen. I had a lot of hope going into the movie, and watching it was a thrill. I loved the way the possessed looked, they were creepy as hell! Definitely some scary makeup effects.

The violence and sheer brutality of the film had me guessing as to how it managed to get away with an R rating. Not to mention the gore! This has to be the goriest horror film I've seen in a cinema in a long time. Usually you don't get blood like that until the unrated version hits video.

Leaving the theater, the one part that stuck with me the most is the nail gun scene. That is the most terrifying scene in the film in my opinion, it is just non-stop, relentless terror. Then there's the bathroom scene with the syringe, which was the other part I kept thinking of. Once the scares started, they never really let up!

I felt something else leaving the theater as well; disappointment. Not because I disliked the film, but because aside from the 2 scenes I mentioned above (although I knew most of the bathroom scene already), all of the good parts of the film were already showed to us in the awesome red band trailers. So really, seeing the film was just filling in the gaps of what you weren't shown in the trailers. I remember thinking upon first viewing them, that if they let that much out in the commercials, what are they saving for us in the movie that they aren't showing us? And it was a letdown to find out that there really wasn't that much else to it. It would have been  much better had they not released all that footage and saved it, and I think it would have gotten even more positive reviews than it did.

There's two things that I really didn't like about the remake, and I'm not comparing it to the original when I say this, but I felt that the possessed were dulled down. I think for a remake you're supposed to go bigger and badder, and instead, they died way too easily. In the original film, you had to cut them up into pieces in order to stop them. Now in the is one, one of the possessed loses both her arms and dies. I don't like that. Being a balls-to-the-wall remake, they should have gone better and made the possessed even more resistant and unstoppable as opposed to making them easier to kill.

The other thing I disliked is the tree rape. I'm not sick or perverted, well, okay, maybe I am. But I'm not going to bash a film for having a bad rape scene, because saying there's such a thing as a good rape scene is a bit twisted. But, yet again, I felt that this was dulled down and lessened as well. Now that I've watched the film on my exclusive Target steelbook blu-ray 5 times since I bought it on it's release date, I realized that the branch that penetrates Mia is covered in thorns! This makes up for the scene being lackluster a bit, but it still could have been done better.

It wasn't really rape, it was just something that crawled insider her like a snake.

With these two major flaws, I know why that one critic said "A near perfect experience". It's very close to being a great film, it just doesn't deliver on all fronts like we were lead to believe it would. And something else that I thought that made the original superior was that, even though the remake had more of a story and character history to it than it's predecessor, there wasn't as many likable characters. If the film wasn't so short, it could have changed that by not feeling so rushed and allowing true character growth. Which is why so many of us crave for an unrated edition!

I know it seems as though I'm only mentioning things about the film that I don't like, but I actually loved the movie! As a stand alone film it's awesome, and it's a nice nod to the original and fits in with the series rather lovely. It's a modern day take on the original, and it's extreme. Overall I rate the film  3.5/5. And had there not been so many hiccups, I would have gladly given this film a 4. Remake or not, this is a real horror film, and we haven't had a movie like this that's mainstream in a long time.

As I mentioned above, this movie does have more story to it than the original 1981 film. It's not just some college kids going to hang out in a cabin, the 2013 version has a back story that's simple, yet relatable and fitting. One of the major things that I've heard people criticize the reboot for is that there's no character development which is false. And there's hardly any in the original, so to bash this one for being no different doesn't make a lot of sense.

People were really saying that horror is dead when they didn't like this remake, and they think they're being taken seriously when they say this. I'm convinced that some people only bash movies just because it gets them attention. To say a genre is dead over one film? Unheard of. And besides, most of the people who harshly criticize things and make idiotic statements are so used to giving out bad reviews that they don't even know a good film when they see it anymore.

For more on why and how horror isn't dead and never will be, read my critically appraised article for MoviePilot.com, that will about sum it up for you. Why some say Horror is Dead

Ultimately, this film is not the original. But guess what? It wasn't supposed to be! This is it's own film, and it's a really good one at that. Those who don't like it, and say that it ruined the integrity of the original need to pull their head out of their ass. Remakes don't tarnish originals, and if you don't like it, you don't like it.

Nobody's forcing it on you! Hell, I hated Rob Zombie's "Halloween" remake, does that mean the original isn't the same to watch anymore? Hell no, that's moronic!

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and cannot wait for the sequel! Let's just hope this time that they don't put too much in the trailers and spoil the best parts for us again.