Every week I’m going to shed a bit of light on a movie that’s either celebrating a milestone anniversary, hitting a streaming device or that I selfishly want to praise. These are my #TBT Cinematic Moments:
Evil Dead – If you follow me on Twitter my handle is an obvious nod to a cult horror classic, Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead, so of course I’m going to cover this film at some point. This isn’t the original I’m talking about though, this is the 2013 Fede Alvarez remake, celebrating its five-year anniversary right as I publish this.
For a long time there was speculation if we’d ever see a follow-up to 1993’s Army Of Darkness and, well, the fan base is pretty rabid and outspoken as I’m sure Raimi and Bruce Campbell could attest to. Being that fans held so true to the originals, the announcement of a remake/reboot was met with an unfathomable anger. No one wanted to give it a chance, Alvarez was an unproven talent and no amount of back up from Campbell and Raimi themselves seemed to sway that.
The movie came out on April 5th, 2013 and, in my opinion, blew the doors off in a fun and original direction. Instead of Having Ash, his lady and a couple of friends heading to a cabin in the woods for a weekend getaway we have a group of friends in crisis mode as they are bringing their friends Mia to the cabin for a serious heroin detox. Then, one of the more dangerously curious friends decides to read from a book that has been bound and shoved away in the cellar and, oh man, does he ever pay for that.
Evil Dead is everything I wanted from a possession horror film, especially under the header of an Evil Dead film. We get high levels of gore, incredibly dark humor and, best of all, practical effects, something that is sourly missed from this genre nowadays. The cast is well assembled, including the lead, a personal favorite, Jane Levy from the short-lived sitcom Suburgatory. If you are a staunch anti-remake film-goer it’s likely that this one stayed far off your radar but I implore you to give it a chance, even just for the glorious third act of this movie that has a shot that I can’t even begin to explain how beautiful it is. Seriously, Fede is a gift to us movie fans. Don’t believe me? Watch this, then his follow-up Don’t Breathe.
Steve Stebbing 