The Horror Booth

As I have done with most new horror coming out, I haven’t paid much attention to trailers, previews and hype. In this case, it was a situation where I was pretty excited, despite the fact that yet again, one of my all time favourites gets the remake treatment.

It was hard to not be so eager when news of this flick broke out. I mean, what’s not to like? All of the people involved in the making of it are extremely passionate about the film and obviously the original source material as well. The special effects were announced to the world proudly to have been made in the most practical manner possible in this day in age of over-the-top CGI bullshit, so certainly, most red blooded horror fans like myself had to feel enthusiastic.

Evil Dead delivered a fresh take on the story. No heroic and charismatic Ash character in this one, but the young cast of characters lived up to their roles as well as could be expected; especially the leading heroine/villain, in the film’s latter section in particular, was fantastic.

It was neat that they kept certain elements from the original in there with a good example being the P. O. V. camera of the demon racing through the woods. A certain famous weapon also makes an appearance, and the cabin itself was superbly presented in all its rotting, tiny sized on the outside, extra room on the inside, glory. The setting and cinematography was top notch. The set pieces and demented decor was also pleasing to the eye of a jaded horror lover.

I have read comments from others who felt the prologue of this film was wholly unnecessary. I disagree. It was one of the highlights of the film and was fairly unsettling and a perfect way to set the viewer up for what was to come. Sure, it was most likely a scene added to explain things a little bit for the adhd audience in  today’s movie theatres but at least they did a good job and didn’t skimp on the good stuff. I also had no problem with the plot elements added that were totally different from the original. Friends trying to help a friend with an extreme intervention for her junky habits, was a pretty solid setup for a horror flick. Yes there were holes here and there, but didn’t the original suffer some plot shit, too?

The gore gags and special effects lived up to the hype. Some of it was genuinely cringe-worthy. It’s awesome that they were able to pull everything off with the gore and violence that they were able to on an R rating here.

If you are a big fan of the Evil Dead franchise, you’ll want to hang around until the very end of the credits rolling. It’s nothing earth-shattering but it made me smile nonetheless.

Evil Dead didn’t make me gush about it when I left the theatre. But I also can’t fathom how anybody that has grown up loving the original movie and loving horror in general, couldn’t find lots to like here with this one. We could use more horror movies released in theatres these days that are made with the love, care, budget utility (no matter how large the budget was, they used it well), and flat out dark and mean tone throughout that this remake has. Sure some of the dialogue was clichéd, played out, or whatever; especially a couple of the ones liners used but surprisingly there wasn’t too much of that going on, at least not as much of it as I would expect.
So, yes… I dug it. I’ll rewatch it, and maybe one day I’ll love it. For now, I’ll just be happy that it is still possible, no matter how rarely it happens, to see straight up, good horror on the big screen. Bring more, I say.

-J. P.