Reed Alexander's Horror Review of 'Evil Dead' (2013)

Boy, am I SO FUCKING GLAD I had to wait for NINE FUCKING YEARS for this to come out on a streaming service I actually have.

Grumbling aside, it was well worth the wait. This was surprisingly good for a reboot. And since we're comparing Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead (2013), I have to say, 2013 is better. I'll die on this hill, fucking fight me. Listen, I LOVED 1981. It's one of my all-time favorite films but it was SO fucking hokey, they remade it as a comedy with Evil Dead 2 (1987). I spent most of my first viewing of 1981 riffing it. It's not just kinda bad, it's so bad it's good. I guarantee when Raimi was making 1981, he wanted something more like 2013 and just couldn't pull it off with his budget. The fact that we eventually got here, that someone saw 2013 in 1981, is something Raimi can be proud of. This is all him. He got us here.

And this was pretty true to the original. They just added a couple tweaks. The book is never identified as the Necronomicon. It never really has to be, we all know what it is. An old hillbilly witch is the reason it's in the cabin, not some scholar studying it. The cast doesn't go to the cabin for a vacation, they're there for a retreat while their friend gets sober. But these are just little things that kinda improve the plot in little ways. Because the female lead is a former junkie trying to get clean, it sorta helps the plot along when she starts getting weird. No one really trusts her and everyone thinks she's basically just tripping out while detoxing. It sorta makes perfect sense.

And I gotta tell ya, man this movie is gorry. It's fucking messy as hell and that only builds up the atmosphere. This whole movie is one long gritty blood bath. They must have broken the Dead Alive (1992) record of fake blood used. And the practical FX are something you just don't see anymore. They're fantastic. Of course the setting is classic. A rundown cabin in the woods. And they really lay it on thick with the atmosphere. Everything is swampy, decaying, and dark.

The acting wasn't so bad, either. I'd call it good for horror. Of course it's unavoidably a little hammy. There's just no none hammy way to scream about ripping your soul to shreds. The more dramatic you make it, the hammier it gets. I think the only exception to this rule is Doug Bradly, and even then it was still kinda hammy.

Yeah, I really liked this, and if you're not some stuck-up purist fawning over some bullshit nostalgia for a movie that actually wasn't very good, you'll like this too. I recommend it for all Horror Heads.

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SPOILERS!!!

Did we really need to resurrect the tree rape scene? That might have appealed to a newly post-pubescent little me, but as an adult it's just dumb and unnecessarily triggery for people who might have otherwise loved the movie. It's just triggering for triggering sake. That shit does not impress me. And it was completely unnecessary. It did nothing to move the plot along. It could have happened literally any other way.

I'm also disappointed that there was no crawling hand scene. It was right fucking there! One character cuts off her arm, because it's gone evil, and then nothing fucking happens. C'mon! That could have been a whole fucking thing. Just them trying to fight a crawling hand. And I don't think it would necessarily be silly. A crawling hand really worked in Splinter (2008), there's no reason they couldn't have done that here.

And then there's a teaser with Bruce Campbell at the end. Groovy.

But yeah, this was actually really good. I was very impressed by what they were able to do with a movie that already had a remake once back in 1987. I really think everyone should put their nostalgia aside and watch this. It's fucking worth it.