Review of Evil Dead (2013) by Sal L — 31 Oct 2013

Before people go after me for not warming up to this remake, let me just say that I understand completely understand why my generation seems to prefer this iteration over the original. For many, the Raimi version is just so absurd, so ridiculous, so over the top that people got lost fifteen minutes into it and changed the channel or the DVD disc. This is what worries me about the horror genre though. Directors and screenwriters today feel there needs to be this necessity for blatant realism in violence and an overabundance of that violence.

The absurd and ridiculous is what made the Raimi version so great. That is what made so many of the original horror classics (Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, Hellraiser, The Thing, etc.) so damn great. That is the very reason so many of us watch them to this very day.

These 'grittier' and 'darker' directions that new directors feel they need to take the material in do not make the story any better. For goodness sake, look at the tomatometer between the Raimi version and the new Alvarez version. People crave new stories that hash out new territory for us to explore and discover things that we never knew we feared. That is what makes a true horror tale into an elevated classic for generations to enjoy.

There is no new ideas brewing in Alvarez's Evil Dead. All he did was take Raimi's version and up the pints of blood, the violence and create a pseudo-Christian view of the fallen, vulnerable sinner who literally descends into hell and is the only one to make it out alive. I do not understand why so many young filmmakers feel the need to remake their favorite films when they grew up. It does not build on the genre in any way, shape or form. In fact it weakens the foundation upon which the greats like Craven, Carpenter, Polanski, Cronenberg and countless others built.

I hope that up and coming greats like Guillermo Del Toro, Frank Darabont and even Leigh Whannell keep innovation going on some sort of track because right now the horror genre is on a slippery slope if this is what we will continue to accept Fede Alvarez's "Evil Dead" as engaging and original entertainment.