So I've read here and there that this remake lacks the camp of the original. And I look back over 20 years ago, watching The Evil Dead on a crummy rental VHS, in the dark of my teenage bedroom one night. The camp? The original Evil Dead was a terrifying experience, even with Bruce Campbell's over the top performance, the film was a scare-fest, a terrifying trip even nearly ten years after its release. The camp was in Evil Dead 2, an horror comedy remaking the original already, technically.
This remake finds many way to bow to the original, aside the obligatory visual quotes. The use of practical effects, notably, in an era of CGI- filled movies, is extremely refreshing. The gore feels painful, makes you cringe, churned my stomach. It successfully palliates a somewhat shallow characterization that makes it difficult to root for the characters (with the exception of Mia, who owes a lot to a really visceral performance by Jane Levy.)
And this is where Evil Dead 2013 took me by surprise. After roughly a first half of the movie taking Evil Dead fans by the hand towards hashed and rehashed territories, making them doubt that this was a good idea at all, the movie lets go of your hand and you're alone, in the middle of the woods, and it's dark and there's strange noises all about... and then limbs start flying.
I won't get into conjectures that the highly conventional and overly familiar first half was made that way with the sole purpose of placing the audience in their comfort zone, only to give more impact to the second half... but I would surely ask Fede Alvarez if I was to interview him.
Evil Dead 2013 is a treat for the fans of gore and horror, in any case. Another reminder that out of ten awful remakes, sometimes one rises to the top and delivers. Not for the faint of heart, for sure, but if you're a true horror fan, and even more, if you miss your old school, gruesome gore rides, this one is for you.
