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gwydionOkay, I'm going to write more on things that were wrong with the evil Dead Remake, so spoilers ahoy! I'm not kidding. I give away some big plot twists and most of the ending. I can't figure out how to talk about this mess without discussing this stuff. Note bene: I never saw the first Evil Dead movie as it was not available for rental where I lived, but the remake Evil Dead 2, was ubiquitous, so a saw it more times than I can count. I saw the third one first in a theater, but have seen it countless times. as a result, when I reference the Sam Raimi works, I'm referring to 2 and 3.
I'm going to unpack the pervasive tonal issues first. I mentioned the lack of humor. This is particularly a problem because they went for a high level of realism while retaining the over the top violence. This is a bad combination. The humor and surrealism of the Raimi movies are part of the fascination of those movies. The things going on are terrible, but there is an hallucinatory quality with sequences like Ash's battle with his own hand or in the third movie, his struggle with an army of minimes. That's why it works. Beyond this, Bruce Campbell manages to make his character a pompous idiot, who is still somehow likeable enough to root for. His injuries are deserved, being mostly a result of his hubris and the cartoonlike quality of the live action makes them easy to swallow, but underneath it all, you very much want him to survive the battering.
Now look at the new offering. They have replaced the surreal, hallucinatory aspect and claustrophobia with a grungy realism and a realistically painful set of injuries. While I'm generally all for making bloodloss count as films generally don't, the battering the characters takes feels to real to be an amusement. We slip from cartoonish dream logic into torture porn, and I simply couldn't enjoy that. Also, killing animals generally ratchets things up for people emotionally, so this is torture porn with animals getting fridged as well. With the realism, you also lose the claustrophobia and the sense of isolation. Add to this that they only included one likeable character, Olivia, and proceeded to kill her off early. Oh look! The one character of color is killed completely dead first! There is no Ash in this film. I hated Eric and David so much I spent most of the movie wishing they'd hurry up and die already. Natalie had no personality and seemed to exist solely to die. Did she have lines beyond calling for Mia? She must have, but my memory of her is to stand silent and make faces when they cut to her. While I have a whole lot of problems with Mia's arc from a logic perspective, I do give the actress credit for making me actually root for her at the end. However, what with her being possessed early, I spent the whole section from Olivia's conversion to Mia's escape from the wall not giving a fuck about the survival of the characters and the whole exercise seemed mostly pointless for a third to a half of the film. This is never good.
I'd like to take a moment to point out how the modern effects and higher budget hurt the film. Remember the characteristic use of the shaky cam in the originals. There was a real sense of jeopardy, a feeling that something horrible was coming. In this remake they replaced that with a smooth swoop. Xers, I bet you first saw a swoop like that in Lost Boys. At least, that's where I first saw it. In the language of film, we're conditioned to read smooth camera swoops as flight; shaky cam or hand helds suggest more earthy monsters: beast, serial killers, and the like. A more smooth, aerial attacker doesn't suit the feel, and it's speed suggested it should be there already when we kept cutting back to it. It pulled us out of the movie. It felt like empty homage without any understanding of why the original worked.
While I'm o the subject of how the low budget of the original helped, I'd like to talk about the cabin. The original was shot in an actual cabin in the woods. Because it was shot in a real location with analog effects, there was a solidity to the location that this new movie lacks. While I haven't drawn up a floorplan of the cabin, there was an instinctive sense of proximity. It felt like a real place, a creepy real place, with exaggerated folksiness heightening the hallucinogenic quality, while the geographical grounding somehow anchored things. The forest looked and felt real, because it was, and that aided the claustrophobia and isolation, just like the fixed geography of the cabin helped create that feel. It was a small cabin with limited rooms. The new movie's cabin seems like a TARDIS. The exterior looks much smaller than an interior. Squirrel and I had an argument over the number of floors, as the rooms appeared to be unlimited in number. (I won by pointing out the exterior had no room for a full second floor). It was unclear how rooms connected, and as the space looked unlimited you lose the claustrophobia.
Again here, the geography undermined the premise, as we had trouble believing they could have completely missed the existence of a massive basement complex and tunnel system spending time there as children. Trust me, my friends, my sister, and I searched any property we spent any time in for nooks and crannies for hide and seek. I can't imagine missing the secret tunnel or the massive basement complex bigger than the house. Just saying. Given how much time we spent individually trying to work that out and the chronology of the opening sequence vs. the family chronology.... It really pulled us out of the movie. I actually do admire the film putting all the exposition in the final credits as that took serious ovaries, but there actually needed to be a bit of chronological exposition early on to stop us trying to figure out how the summoning relates to their mother's mental illness and how exactly those people found the cabin and the trap door so close to where they caught the girl in the opening sequence. It's awfully big for coincidence, but if it's not, it really needs an explanation. Were they connected to the family as friends or relatives? Were they squatting there? Was there a clue in the photo collections that explained everything? Frustrating as hell and not the fun sort of ambiguity.
Which brings us to the plot. By no means is this list able to encompass the huge list of things wrong with this plot. Instead, let's call it a representative sample. Firstly, I do get why they they didn't immediately flee on seeing there had been a break in some time before. People do break in to vacation cabins, and unless the owner is very rich, you can't get a cop to come all that way out to investigate. I would expect more caution as the squatters could still be there, and I would expect them to put more effort into securing weapons and making sure they weren't burgled, but I really am not complaining about that, especially given their motivation to stay.
1.What I am bitching about is once they spotted the blood trail. It was clear someone dragged a dead or seriously injured person or large animal into that trap door. Both Mia and the dog thought they smelled something dead down there. Whoever did it, tried to cover it up with a rug. It is at this point, any one as bright as Olivia or even that asshole eric, should know to grab your shit and drive to civilization, or at least a location where they could call 911 on their cells. Some one broke in and may have covered up a murder or murders. Do not open the trap door. There could be an axe murderer down there at worst or a crime scene you want to avoid disturbing at best. Screw that. This is officially a job for the police. You do not want to do a rough detox for your addicted friend in a building to which a murderer might return in a room over rotting corpses. Then, assuming you are foolish enough to go down there and you see that they've removed the body of the big thing they killed, but left a forest of small dead animals and implements? Again, it could still be a crime seen as none of those animals were big enough to make that blood trail. Again, not a good place to detox your friend. For sure don't be disturbing the crime scene and carrying away books. I have trouble believing that none of them had ever seen a single police procedural show or horror/serial killer movie. I'm having trouble believing that in any random group of five people, one of them bright and practical enough to become a nurse and one smart enough to translate Sumerian, none of them were bright enough to think leaving was the thing to do at this point. I just can't. This is not a horror movie genre thing. This is a real person thing. If I came home and found the apartment door jimmied open and a Squirrel sized blood trail in my kitchen/entry way, I would not investigate myself. I'd gimp at top speed for upstairs and start pounding doors until I found someone to call 911, and fuck if I'd go back to the apartment before the police cleared it. I'm not a coward, but I'm not stupid. Yet not one of them except Mia had that impulse. Just saying.
2. Nothing good ever comes out of a book bound in human skin. Add that to the crime scene where they found it and the massive warnings, why the fuck would you go to all that effort to read something out of it? It was at this point that I started loathing Eric so much no amount of injury could make him sympathetic.
3. Everybody refusing to leave the crime scene after shit started to get scary just seemed implausible. Yes, even you, Olivia. Especially you, Eric.
4. If they didn't want Mia to escape and knew she was a risk for both flight and self harm, why did they leave keys and weapons lying about? I am again having trouble believing that they could pursue professions like nurse, teacher, and garage mechanic without being bright enough to take basic precautions.
5. David's plan is ridiculous. Just saying.
6. How does he know Mia isn't still infected? It could have just been a trick like the one that took in the silent blond.
7. That book is so not Sumerian. Sumerians did not have modern book books at all. Also,I've seen a lot of Sumerian art and writing over the years and that book was clearly designed to look like early modern block printing, mixed with random handwritten art and passages. No, I don't know why they decided on Sumerian.
I just.... meh. I did like that they sort of passed around bits of Ash to the various characters. I did like that this completely lacked the sex negative agenda of most slasher films, although I have some serious questions about the underlying racism and the filmmaker's views on women generally. (A big black slimy snake rapes her and taints her? Really? You don't have to go far to have serious questions about the racial and sexual agenda here. They also seemed to be hinting at the homoerotic here and there without having the guts to go there, but that could easily be my imagination given the the erasure). I did think the detox concept was a good one and could have been used to ratchet up the psychological horror and help create the sense of isolation and claustrophobia if the script, directing, and editing had been better. too bad it didn't occur to them to do that. Or to make Olivia the main character instead of David the way Cabin in the Woods essentially did. Just in general, this is exactly the sort of movie Cabin in the Woods was mocking and deconstructing. I have not forgotten all the ways Cabin was problematic, but honestly, as I was watching this, I kept thinking about how much better Cabin did it. It' always a bad thing when you are constantly comparing the movie you are watching with another better one because you are bored and a little disgusted with what you are actually watching.
I'm going to unpack the pervasive tonal issues first. I mentioned the lack of humor. This is particularly a problem because they went for a high level of realism while retaining the over the top violence. This is a bad combination. The humor and surrealism of the Raimi movies are part of the fascination of those movies. The things going on are terrible, but there is an hallucinatory quality with sequences like Ash's battle with his own hand or in the third movie, his struggle with an army of minimes. That's why it works. Beyond this, Bruce Campbell manages to make his character a pompous idiot, who is still somehow likeable enough to root for. His injuries are deserved, being mostly a result of his hubris and the cartoonlike quality of the live action makes them easy to swallow, but underneath it all, you very much want him to survive the battering.
Now look at the new offering. They have replaced the surreal, hallucinatory aspect and claustrophobia with a grungy realism and a realistically painful set of injuries. While I'm generally all for making bloodloss count as films generally don't, the battering the characters takes feels to real to be an amusement. We slip from cartoonish dream logic into torture porn, and I simply couldn't enjoy that. Also, killing animals generally ratchets things up for people emotionally, so this is torture porn with animals getting fridged as well. With the realism, you also lose the claustrophobia and the sense of isolation. Add to this that they only included one likeable character, Olivia, and proceeded to kill her off early. Oh look! The one character of color is killed completely dead first! There is no Ash in this film. I hated Eric and David so much I spent most of the movie wishing they'd hurry up and die already. Natalie had no personality and seemed to exist solely to die. Did she have lines beyond calling for Mia? She must have, but my memory of her is to stand silent and make faces when they cut to her. While I have a whole lot of problems with Mia's arc from a logic perspective, I do give the actress credit for making me actually root for her at the end. However, what with her being possessed early, I spent the whole section from Olivia's conversion to Mia's escape from the wall not giving a fuck about the survival of the characters and the whole exercise seemed mostly pointless for a third to a half of the film. This is never good.
I'd like to take a moment to point out how the modern effects and higher budget hurt the film. Remember the characteristic use of the shaky cam in the originals. There was a real sense of jeopardy, a feeling that something horrible was coming. In this remake they replaced that with a smooth swoop. Xers, I bet you first saw a swoop like that in Lost Boys. At least, that's where I first saw it. In the language of film, we're conditioned to read smooth camera swoops as flight; shaky cam or hand helds suggest more earthy monsters: beast, serial killers, and the like. A more smooth, aerial attacker doesn't suit the feel, and it's speed suggested it should be there already when we kept cutting back to it. It pulled us out of the movie. It felt like empty homage without any understanding of why the original worked.
While I'm o the subject of how the low budget of the original helped, I'd like to talk about the cabin. The original was shot in an actual cabin in the woods. Because it was shot in a real location with analog effects, there was a solidity to the location that this new movie lacks. While I haven't drawn up a floorplan of the cabin, there was an instinctive sense of proximity. It felt like a real place, a creepy real place, with exaggerated folksiness heightening the hallucinogenic quality, while the geographical grounding somehow anchored things. The forest looked and felt real, because it was, and that aided the claustrophobia and isolation, just like the fixed geography of the cabin helped create that feel. It was a small cabin with limited rooms. The new movie's cabin seems like a TARDIS. The exterior looks much smaller than an interior. Squirrel and I had an argument over the number of floors, as the rooms appeared to be unlimited in number. (I won by pointing out the exterior had no room for a full second floor). It was unclear how rooms connected, and as the space looked unlimited you lose the claustrophobia.
Again here, the geography undermined the premise, as we had trouble believing they could have completely missed the existence of a massive basement complex and tunnel system spending time there as children. Trust me, my friends, my sister, and I searched any property we spent any time in for nooks and crannies for hide and seek. I can't imagine missing the secret tunnel or the massive basement complex bigger than the house. Just saying. Given how much time we spent individually trying to work that out and the chronology of the opening sequence vs. the family chronology.... It really pulled us out of the movie. I actually do admire the film putting all the exposition in the final credits as that took serious ovaries, but there actually needed to be a bit of chronological exposition early on to stop us trying to figure out how the summoning relates to their mother's mental illness and how exactly those people found the cabin and the trap door so close to where they caught the girl in the opening sequence. It's awfully big for coincidence, but if it's not, it really needs an explanation. Were they connected to the family as friends or relatives? Were they squatting there? Was there a clue in the photo collections that explained everything? Frustrating as hell and not the fun sort of ambiguity.
Which brings us to the plot. By no means is this list able to encompass the huge list of things wrong with this plot. Instead, let's call it a representative sample. Firstly, I do get why they they didn't immediately flee on seeing there had been a break in some time before. People do break in to vacation cabins, and unless the owner is very rich, you can't get a cop to come all that way out to investigate. I would expect more caution as the squatters could still be there, and I would expect them to put more effort into securing weapons and making sure they weren't burgled, but I really am not complaining about that, especially given their motivation to stay.
1.What I am bitching about is once they spotted the blood trail. It was clear someone dragged a dead or seriously injured person or large animal into that trap door. Both Mia and the dog thought they smelled something dead down there. Whoever did it, tried to cover it up with a rug. It is at this point, any one as bright as Olivia or even that asshole eric, should know to grab your shit and drive to civilization, or at least a location where they could call 911 on their cells. Some one broke in and may have covered up a murder or murders. Do not open the trap door. There could be an axe murderer down there at worst or a crime scene you want to avoid disturbing at best. Screw that. This is officially a job for the police. You do not want to do a rough detox for your addicted friend in a building to which a murderer might return in a room over rotting corpses. Then, assuming you are foolish enough to go down there and you see that they've removed the body of the big thing they killed, but left a forest of small dead animals and implements? Again, it could still be a crime seen as none of those animals were big enough to make that blood trail. Again, not a good place to detox your friend. For sure don't be disturbing the crime scene and carrying away books. I have trouble believing that none of them had ever seen a single police procedural show or horror/serial killer movie. I'm having trouble believing that in any random group of five people, one of them bright and practical enough to become a nurse and one smart enough to translate Sumerian, none of them were bright enough to think leaving was the thing to do at this point. I just can't. This is not a horror movie genre thing. This is a real person thing. If I came home and found the apartment door jimmied open and a Squirrel sized blood trail in my kitchen/entry way, I would not investigate myself. I'd gimp at top speed for upstairs and start pounding doors until I found someone to call 911, and fuck if I'd go back to the apartment before the police cleared it. I'm not a coward, but I'm not stupid. Yet not one of them except Mia had that impulse. Just saying.
2. Nothing good ever comes out of a book bound in human skin. Add that to the crime scene where they found it and the massive warnings, why the fuck would you go to all that effort to read something out of it? It was at this point that I started loathing Eric so much no amount of injury could make him sympathetic.
3. Everybody refusing to leave the crime scene after shit started to get scary just seemed implausible. Yes, even you, Olivia. Especially you, Eric.
4. If they didn't want Mia to escape and knew she was a risk for both flight and self harm, why did they leave keys and weapons lying about? I am again having trouble believing that they could pursue professions like nurse, teacher, and garage mechanic without being bright enough to take basic precautions.
5. David's plan is ridiculous. Just saying.
6. How does he know Mia isn't still infected? It could have just been a trick like the one that took in the silent blond.
7. That book is so not Sumerian. Sumerians did not have modern book books at all. Also,I've seen a lot of Sumerian art and writing over the years and that book was clearly designed to look like early modern block printing, mixed with random handwritten art and passages. No, I don't know why they decided on Sumerian.
I just.... meh. I did like that they sort of passed around bits of Ash to the various characters. I did like that this completely lacked the sex negative agenda of most slasher films, although I have some serious questions about the underlying racism and the filmmaker's views on women generally. (A big black slimy snake rapes her and taints her? Really? You don't have to go far to have serious questions about the racial and sexual agenda here. They also seemed to be hinting at the homoerotic here and there without having the guts to go there, but that could easily be my imagination given the the erasure). I did think the detox concept was a good one and could have been used to ratchet up the psychological horror and help create the sense of isolation and claustrophobia if the script, directing, and editing had been better. too bad it didn't occur to them to do that. Or to make Olivia the main character instead of David the way Cabin in the Woods essentially did. Just in general, this is exactly the sort of movie Cabin in the Woods was mocking and deconstructing. I have not forgotten all the ways Cabin was problematic, but honestly, as I was watching this, I kept thinking about how much better Cabin did it. It' always a bad thing when you are constantly comparing the movie you are watching with another better one because you are bored and a little disgusted with what you are actually watching.
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-12 06:57 pm (UTC)This remake has, as far as I've seen, been very well marketed in terms of telling you exactly what to expect - both the advertising and every interview they've done has said, effectively, 'we're doing a serious horror remake because we have the special effects capabilities and the budget to actually utilize them, now.' It hasn't been sold as 'This will be funny'; it's been sold as 'This will be terrifying and disturbing'. I'm sorry that you went in expecting something else, though.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-13 04:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-07 02:46 pm (UTC)This was intended to re-imagine the first movie for a modern audience. They are currently talking about a sequel, which would most likely head in the direction of ED2/AoD tonally, though that is still up in the air.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-08 04:17 am (UTC)There really were things I liked about the new version, I just think they made some bad choices in scuttling things that worked in favor of things that didn't.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-13 05:44 am (UTC)