Evil Dead
Rated R
Evil Dead producers Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell made it clear to the media leading up to the remake of their cult horror movie classic that Evil Dead would be a new vision of horror for a new generation. To bring this new vision to life, they turned to Uruguayan director Fede Alvarez, who wasn’t even 3-years-old when the original The Evil Dead premiered in Detroit. As it turned out, new blood (pun intended) did this franchise very good.
As a diehard fan of the original, I was at first resistant to the idea of a remake. Even when they’re good, it’s difficult to judge remakes on their own merits. I’ll do my best to refrain from comparing Alvarez’s film to Raimi’s classic here, but I fear that will be inevitable. Please, bear with me.
The story is simple. A group of young people ventures to a desolate cabin, a la the 1981 film, where they find a mysterious book and unwittingly unleash a night of unholy terror upon themselves. This time around, though, our protagonists’ decision to isolate themselves in Bumfuck, Nowhere, is not without purpose. Mia (Jane Levy) has been struggling with heroin addiction and detoxing from drugs, and her friends, led by her largely absentee brother David (Shiloh Fernandez), sequester themselves in the remote locale to stand by her as she tries to kick the habit cold turkey.
The cabin used to be Mia and David’s family’s retreat but fell into disrepair over the years from lack of use. But in the time the siblings have been away, others have used the dwelling for their own nefarious ends, and the woods surrounding the cabin have become infested with ancient demons. Things go from creepy to absolutely terrifying when Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) goes poking around in an ancient tome that he has no business messing around with.
Evil Dead is exactly six minutes longer in runtime than its predecessor, but seems to get less things accomplished plot-wise. Alvarez, who also co-wrote the screenplay spends more time on characterization than delving into the mythos behind the evil that lurks in the woods. The film is still tight because he sticks by his choice, but feels emptier than the original somehow without a clear understanding of what’s going on.
I promised that I wouldn’t compare it to The Evil Dead, and I’m sorry. But I swear I’ll leave it at that. While Evil Dead clearly takes cues from the original, it really is its own monster—a savage, unrelenting and frightening monster the likes of which has been lacking from horror movies for the past God knows how many years. In some respects, it is Evil Dead for a generation of horror fans weaned on the flaccid torture porn of the Saw and Hostel franchises. Horrible things happen to these characters—especially Eric, who becomes sort of a human pincushion by film’s end. Nails are driven through bones, people chop off their own arms…it’s nasty, gnarly stuff, free of the campy grotesqueness of the original (I swear I’ll stop now).
That being said, this is as visceral a film experience as you’re likely to have this year (and probably next year for that matter). Alvarez manages to capture the extreme gore and violence with such an artful eye it’s almost beautiful. Pale, muted colors paint a grim and foreboding picture of the forest surrounding the cabin, and wonderfully crafted creature makeup creates nightmarish demons that still appear to have a human soul.
For horror fans, this is a must-see in the theater. It’ll make you think back to a time when horror movies made you squeamish and cackle with terror, and not just because they pulled that bullshit you-think-it’s-the-psycho-killer-but-it’s-actually-a-cat sort of way. You’ll jump because there’s a flesh-hungry demon lurking behind the bathtub shredding off its own face with a shard of broken glass. Tread carefully into those woods, my friends, and don’t go alone.
Texas Chainsaw 3D
Rated R
In the first weeks of any new year, people are clamoring to set the tone for the 12 months to follow. Texas Chainsaw 3D is the first widely released studio film of 2013, so maybe Hollywood wants us to expect plenty of gore this year. The creepy supernatural horror flick Mama is up later in January, and April will see the release of the Evil Dead remake, which is produced by the makers of the original film Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and the incomparable Bruce Campbell. If the red band trailer shown before Texas Chainsaw 3D is any indication, Evil Dead might be one of the most terrifying and bloody films in recent memory. But for now we’re stuck with this quasi-sequel of Tobe Hooper’s 1974 art-house classic.
Texas Chainsaw 3D isn’t a remake. They already made a decent but forgettable Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake in 2003 starring Jessica Biel. This time around, director John Luessenhop takes us back to the film’s grimy roots… At least, he does in the first couple of minutes before giving the franchise something of a pretty, Twilight-esque makeover.
We start out with a montage recap of the 1974 classic, beautifully remastered for 3D. Footage from the original film pops back to life, yet still retaining that grainy hand-held 8mm feel and giving you a reminder of how shocking this movie must have been to audiences who weren’t accustomed to seeing so much splatter on screen.
As a blood-soaked Sally Hardesty is carted away from the chainsaw-wielding madman, Leatherface, in the back of a pickup truck, Texas Chainsaw 3D begins to suppose what happened after. An honest cop (Sheriff Hooper nicely played by Thom Barry) is called out to the scene. Leatherface’s family, the Sawyers, holed up in their dilapidated farm house, shotguns in hand. The sheriff has things under control until an angry mob from the nearby town burst onto the scene. There’s a firefight, and the Sawyer house is burnt to the ground, presumably killing everyone inside.
But you know that’s not the case. Heather Miller (Alexandra Daddario) was just a baby at the time, and two members of the mob unable to conceive a child of their own pluck her from the arms of her dying mother. Heather grows up unaware of her bizarre back story until the death of her grandmother leaves her an unexpected inheritance–a huge house in Texas and everything that goes along with it, including someone residing in the basement… Any guesses as to whom that might be?
Texas Chainsaw 3D follows in the franchise tradition of being brutal and bloody. Most of the gore is accomplished through traditional special effects techniques, which is nice since computerized splatter effects often suck (as do the rare instances in this film). The kills are excruciatingly painful–mallets to the head, tenterhooks to the spine and of course chewed up with a chainsaw–and there’s plenty of them too. Luessenhop isn’t afraid to pile on the gore and shove it in your face. He’s also not shy about paying frequent homage to the original movie–the dead armadillo on the side of the road, the Volkswagen van and even the original Leatherface, Gunnar Hansen, makes an appearance.
The elements are there, but there’s nothing new or interesting done with them. Also, though Luessenhop clearly has reverence for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, he didn’t seem to be playing close attention. His film bears the same slick, antiseptic look of any bad, modern horror film, replete with an absurdly sexy cast, unnecessary relationship nonsense and by-the-numbers “gotcha!” scares.
Perhaps it’s wrong to compare Texas Chainsaw 3D to the original film instead of judging it on its own merits. Unfortunately, there aren’t many merits here to judge it on. I suppose that’s the danger of simply rehashing great ideas from the past without coming up with new ones of your own. Look at it this way, as far as movies go, 2013 has nowhere to go but up.
