'Evil Dead:' nothing to scream about

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Fede Alvarez’s remake of the 1981 horror classic “Evil Dead.” The film, like its predecessor, delivers precisely what it promises, no more, no less, and there’s something praise-worthy in the way it makes no bones about prolonging its most cringe-worthy moments well past any point of decency.

Try to find someone who doesn’t know this most generic of horror plots, and you’ll likely get laughed out of town. The five-friends-in-a-haunted-cabin-in-the-woods gimmick is old enough by now to start collecting social security. Alvarez, for his part, smartly embraces the cliché, cutting quickly to the friends-in-route with a panning view of the forest, shot upside down. There’s an allusion here to the opening of Kubrick’s “The Shining,” which demonstrates Alvarez’s knowledge of horror film lore.

No longer the five college students of the original, these young adults, David (hero), Eric (disgruntled sidekick), Mia (frumpy sister), Olivia (just along for the ride) and Natalie (slam piece with bad timing) have a little time to develop themselves before they fall into their pre-chosen archetypes. It’s a rare and admirable, though ultimately meaningless, stab at characterization.

Even so, it’s a nice gesture. Mia, played by the excellent Jane Levy, is not just a fun-wrecker of a sister, but instead a drug addict who’s been dragged to the cabin by her friends for an intervention. Still smarting from her mother’s recent death, she’s not exactly enthused when her long out-of-touch brother David (a weak Shiloh Fernandez) shows up to offer moral support. She’s not the only one.

It would seem that David’s been too caught up in his own life to pay much attention to his friends and they, particularly the bitter hipster Eric, let him know it. Prompted to fulfill his role as a good older brother, David becomes acting chief of a plan to detain Mia at the cabin until she’s squelched her drug addiction.

Things start going south when Mia, smelling rot, leads the team into the sanctum of the cabin where they discover, among hanging bird corpses, the barbed wire-bound Necronomicon, a sort of idiot’s guide to summoning demons. As if the all caps scrawling of not to touch the damned thing weren’t enough, the book is bound in human skin and bloodied beyond the point of legibility. But this doesn’t stop Eric from reading out loud the ill-fated lines that summon the hell-spawn. Of course, we all know what comes next.

Maybe if Alvarez hadn’t relied so much upon the stupid/stubborn-hero trope (“you all wait here while I go check it out”) the film’s ensuing hour of carnage would have been a bit more tolerable, the characters a little more pitiable. Because there are some finely disturbing moments in the beginning, the infamous “tree-rape” being one of the most commendable horror moments to date, shock value is enough to sustain attention, at least for a while. But the film stalls midway through and resorts to repeating age-old gimmicks: slamming doors, faces appearing in mirrors, huddled figures in the corner, while the rest of the friends find their ways in, and back out of, their graves.

There’s a prevailing sense that Alvarez is trying too hard to play to separate audiences: the one looking for a genuine horrific experience and the other that’s just looking for “Evil Dead” camp. In this sense, the film tries, and fails, to stretch beyond its roots while still clinging to them. It can’t be both a loving tribute to the gratuitous bloodbath of the original and an attempt to add depth where before there was just chaos — the former relies on absurdism, the latter on at least a semblance of realism.
 
Fans of the original “Evil Dead” will flock to this remake with open arms. They won’t be disappointed. There’s enough gore to satiate even the most sadistic of viewers, and plenty of references to the original: everything from the terrible dialogue (“I’ll eat your soul!”) to the iconic chainsaw, brought to life in an extremely well executed nail-biter of a closing scene.

This being said, for the most entertaining “Evil Dead” experience, I’d recommend watching the 2003 musical. It’s guaranteed to be the grooviest time you’ll ever have with zombies.