Evil Dead- Page 2
Evil Dead
#26Evil Dead
Posted: 4/5/13 at 8:26am
I think that because the gore effects are so much more realistic and the tone more serious (as opposed to the campy original) people are tossing it in to the same camp as Hostel.
But I don't necessarily agree with that. Hostel is the epitome of "torture porn" in the sense that it (and other in its sub-genre) deal with man's brutality to fellow man.
Despite its change in tone however, Evil Dead is still very much a crazy, supernatural, demon-infested romp.
Btw, in regards to the sequel: AICN's Quint interviews Fede Alvarez and asks him what we can expect.
AICN
eatlasagna
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/6/04
Wynbish
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/27/12
#32Evil Dead
Posted: 4/5/13 at 3:37pm
I was on my phone before but I'm home now, so I can go more in depth.
I have several major problems with this film and those problems are basically problems I have with a lot of modern day horror films. These films seem to be almost "anti plot" and "anti character development". I've said it here before that even if you're going to a scary movie, you need more than loud music and a few scares to make you give a shlt about what you're watching. The characters in this film are given a total of maybe 2 minutes to tell the audience who they are, why they are there (and even then one character, the guy in the glasses, I still have no idea what his connection to the group is besides making them total the magic number 5) and why we should care for them. And the latter is never given any care at all except to tell us we should feel bad for the brother and sister since their Mom died and was crazy.
It's impossible to not compare this with the original film, so that's what I'll do. Everything that made THE EVIL DEAD a childhood favorite of mine was tossed out here to make room for an ungodly amount of blood and enough severed body parts that eventually it's just eye rolling. Once I realized early on that I've been suckered in to watching a "HOSTEL-esque" gross-out film, it lost all it's novelty and became a prolonged snooze fest. And that's another problem with "Kids in a secluded place" films. They've been done. Many many times. There's a basic formula to them.
1. Kids arrive to secluded cabin or haunted house
2. Kids play around for a minute before finding something
3. Something weird happens to one of them.
4. Least important character dies.
5. Kids wonder if they should stay or go.
6. Kids decide to try to leave.
7. Kids realize they can't.
8. Character of 2nd least importance dies.
9. And so on.
This is so formulaic that at this point in the genre you don't even need to SEE the film to know what's going to happen and pretty much in what order. So what's Alvarez's solution to this? Gore. Lots and lots of it. He has hidden his wretched script behind so much blood that it's laughable. And just when you think he can't get more blood in there...it rains blood. Seriously.
I'm so sick of watching movies where characters are treated like absolute morons. These idiots get to a cabin that's obviously been broken into, is covered in dirt, has dozens of dead cats hanging and rotting downstairs and they decide to stay. Let me say that again. THEY STAY. If you write characters this stupid, you can't be surprised when your audience starts rooting for them to get killed. There was even a point where whats-his-face's girlfriend says something and I was like "What? Who the hell is she??" since the character hadn't been seen for so long, I forgot she was even in the film.
This is sloppy filmmaking just to make a buck and I'm really pissed at Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi for allowing their franchise to be treated this way.
Wynbish
Broadway Legend Joined: 4/27/12
#33Evil Dead
Posted: 4/5/13 at 4:00pm
THEY STAY
Yeah, I'd be mentally done with it at that point. Why make the cabin in this one obviously scary and disturbing? It's been a couple of years since I've seen the first one (for some reason, I watch Army of Darkness the most), but that cabin seemed like an ordinary cabin, with a closed-off basement.
#35Evil Dead
Posted: 4/5/13 at 4:31pmOf course there would be no movie if they didn't stay. But there are MUCH better ways of handling that situation. If you want the audience to know what's in the basement, show us and keep that knowledge away from the characters. But once the characters know that something isn't right and they decide to stay, than you lose all sympathy for them.
#36Evil Dead
Posted: 4/8/13 at 12:16am
They say why they're staying. It was a big obvious reason why they stayed. They were putting his sister through withdrawal from drugs at their family cabin and made a pact that they WILL NOT LEAVE until she goes through it. Yes, the cats were disgusting, but they didn't want to lose the progress. I don't really see the big problem with that. By time she burns herself it's a little to late to leave with the road being flooded.
You ramble of "Cabin in the Woods" movies, but THAT'S WHAT EVIL DEAD IS! They aren't going throw a wrench in it and create this completely different film.
I honestly really liked the way they did it and the twist ending SPOILERS
Her coming back was a little hokey and at the start I thought she was still possessed, but once you get the point where your "Ash" of the movie was burned alive I was completely okay with it.
SPOILERS OVER
#37Evil Dead
Posted: 4/8/13 at 12:41am
Yes, they say they're staying to get her through her drug problem. But it's still ridiculous when they see the state of the cabin and what's in it, it's still INSANE that they stay.
And why not create an entirely new film? You say I ramble, but what's the point of rebooting something if you're not going to try to improve on it in some way? I'm glad you liked it, I did not. But I'm not going to try to belittle someone else's opinion because I disagree with them.
#38Evil Dead
Posted: 4/8/13 at 12:53am
It's not really. It's a staple of their childhood. It was run down, and just because YOU think it was insane for them to stay doesn't mean everyone would agree with you in the situation.
You won't belittle an opinion? You just did.
This is sloppy filmmaking just to make a buck and I'm really pissed at Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi for allowing their franchise to be treated this way.
They thought it was a good movie. Neither of them NEEDED to remake/ a sequel to Evil Dead. Sam is not running short of upcoming projects that he needed to trot out his old cult classic. He felt it was a good go at the story.
Why not create a new movie? Why didn't Evil Dead 2 create a new movie? Every installment into the series is essentially a remake. Evil Dead is never about improving on itself, it's about changing things. If it's bad, it's bad, if it's good then it's good.
This one took the basic outline of Evil Dead & changed motivations and how things turned out.
#39Evil Dead
Posted: 4/8/13 at 8:24am
I have to agree with Jordan on this one. I think 99% of rationale people would leave that cabin immediately once they saw what was in the basement. I could see them sticking around if the basement was creepy...but dozens of dead cats hanging from the ceiling? Sorry about your drug prob sis but I'm out.
blaxx
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/28/05
#40Evil Dead
Posted: 4/12/13 at 1:31am
I think you guys were generous - WTF did I watch?! Character development much?
Was no one else offended by the fact that the whole cast played like they had emotionally processed that they were in a horror movie to begin with and they should just play along?
No one was truly horrified by any discovery they made, they all took it as obvious.
I know suspension of disbelief, but this was a STRETCH. I missed the stupid clueless victims that are over-the-top scared. These ones came of as "meh, oh well...this is what we are here for anyway".
Even the bits that are there to advance the plot are acted as a chore. "Oh, is that the book that brings the demon back to life? Ughh, ok...I guess I'll read it, even though (yawn) it says here not to. Otherwise, we'll just be here forever and I have an audtion for a commercial after this."
I really felt that either the characters or the actors were so over being in a horror film, that they lazily walked around until they finally got killed. I can't believe they weren't smoking and eating a cheeseburger while waiting.
#41Evil Dead
Posted: 4/13/13 at 10:42pm
I liked the remake in general, didn't love it, but I liked it, mostly for the carnage during the middle. I do agree though that the scene in the basement was far too extreme to justify them staying at the cabin - I get why they were there but there was no reason to believe that whomever did the nasty stuff down there wouldn't, you know, come back.
But I like shamelessly gross stuff in horror movies and this was the only movie in recent memory I can think of that embraced that so gleefully. It didn't have the somber realism of the 'Hostel' type movies (that I generally don't like.) While it certainly wasn't as campy as the two 'Evil Dead' sequels, there was still a filmmaking silliness to it.
What lost me, mostly, though was the leaden pace of the last third of the movie. It felt like they plowed through the movie they wanted to make and then realized it was only an hour long and needed to add a third act to get it to feature length.
One thing I will say about horror remakes in general: part of the reason we didn't think the original characters weren't total morons for staying in the cabin is we really didn't know what 'The Evil Dead' was specifically about. We didn't know reading a book or hearing Latin incantations would get the plot rolling. In a remake, though, we obviously do know what's going to happen and then when the movie puts SO bright a spotlight on the triggers, it does make it feel a bit more mechanical and the characters seem a little more stupid for getting caught by it.
eatlasagna
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/6/04
#42Evil Dead
Posted: 4/13/13 at 11:42pm
saw it yesterday but I enjoyed it and am glad I saw it...I kinda get all the hate for the movie... but whatever...
oh and I appreciated the fact that pretty much there was no CG used... it was mostly practical effects... you just don't see that in big budget theatrically released horror movies these days... that's usually saved for the independent b-movies
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