I blame Cabin In The Woods.
A few Saturday nights ago BBP’s David Ward, JP Fallavollita and myself gathered in my basement den, a copy of the Evil Dead reboot ready to go in the player (it’s out today on DVD/Blu-Ray from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment). None of us had caught this one in the theatre, so there was actually some real anticipation in seeing how this well-regarded reboot turned out. All the right pieces were in place – original director Sam Raimi and star Bruce Campbell were producing, and had handpicked director Fede Alvarez to update the film for a new generation. Meanwhile, the plan for this incarnation was going to be pure, balls to the wall horror.
However, while Evil Dead 2013 does indeed deliver the evil (and the dead), at the end of the day, there was something lacking for me. Check out the trailer and then find out what it was after the jump.
The truth of the matter was, as I was watching Evil Dead, I just couldn’t stop thinking about Cabin In The Woods, the Joss Whedon produced/Drew Goddard directed 2012 horror flick about some teenagers who travel to a…cabin in the woods…and bad stuff goes down. It was a film that, while still horrific, also offered a bit of a parody of horror movie tropes, like the female victim, the bad decisions characters make in these films, etc. Essentially, everything that Cabin In The Woods made me laugh at was a big part of Evil Dead, which, unfortunately, made it very hard for me to take the latter film seriously. It was especially hard when you had characters that aren’t particularly likeable either. There’s nobody in this Evil Dead that captures your heart or imagination they way that Bruce Campbell’s Ash did, which is a huge flaw.
Even though I was disappointed by Evil Dead, I will say, it wasn’t a total bust. There are some decent jump scares, and if you like gore, you’ll find a-plenty here. The last fifteen minutes are also fairly clever and kick-ass, almost enough to make up for the rest of the film. Almost.
For horror fans, it’s definitely worth watching Evil Dead 2013 so you can form your own opinion. For me, I may revisit it some day, but not before I check out Cabin In The Woods again.
I haven’t seen Evil Dead, but I have seen Cabin in the Woods and loved it!!! Now, I’ll have to watch Evil Dead and let you know what I thought about it.