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EVIL DEAD
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CHAPTER I
ORIENTATION
Evil Dead is a 2013 American horror film co-written and
directed by Fede Alvarez. It is the fourth installment of the Evil
Dead franchise, serving as both a reboot and a loose continuation of
the series; the first was not directed by Sam Raimi. The film had its
world premiere at the South by Southwest festival on March 8,
2013. This film was acted by Jane Levy (Mia), Shiloh Fernandez
(David), Lou Taylor Pucci (Eric), Elizabeth Blackmore (Natalie),
and Jessica Lucas (Olivia).
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CHAPTER II
INTERPRETATIVE RECOUNT
After being captured in the woods, an injured girl is
restrained in a basement with many people present. Upon revealing
she is demonically possessed, her father, Harold, sets her on fire
and shoots her dead.
Sometime later, Mia, her brother David, their friends Eric
and Olivia, and David's girlfriend, Natalie, arrive at an old cabin,
remote cabin in the woods where they plan to help Mia recover
from heroin addiction. A foul stench leads them to the cellar, where
they discover rotting animal corpses, a double-barreled shotgun and
a book titled Naturom Demonto, a Sumerian variation of the Book of
the Dead. Ignoring warnings scrawl on the book's pages, Eric reads
a passage aloud, summoning a demon. Believing that there is
something coming after her, Mia pleads to leave, but the group
refuses, believing she’s suffering from withdrawal.
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Feeling betrayed, she hijacks the group's car and head out on
her own, but when a demonic version of Mia appears it causes her
to steer into a flooded ditch which disables the car. Returning to the
cabin on foot, she gets entangled in a cluster of vines that become
animated and rape her. After the rape, David and Olivia find Mia
and take her back to the cabin. Mia tells David that whatever
attacks her in the woods is in the cabin with them, but he doesn't
believe her. After returning to the cabin, the now fully possessed
Mia attacks both Olivia and David before passing out. The group
locks her in the cellar to contain her. The demon then possessed
Olivia, forcing her to mutilate her face with a broken shard of glass
and attacks Eric, who kills her in the ensuing struggle.
While David tend to Eric's wounds in a shed next to the
cabin, a crying Mia lures Natalie into the cellar, managing to bite
her hand before she flee back upstairs. Eric does some research in
the book, and learns that it prophesies that a demon called the
Taker of Souls must consumed five souls in order to unleash a
being called the Abomination. Meanwhile in the kitchen, Natalie's
bite wound begin to infect and corrode her hand and rapidly spread
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onto her arm, leading her to sever it with an electric knife before it
could reach her torso. David and Eric tend to Natalie's wounds, and
then discuss their next move. Eric explains that Mia must be
"purified" via burning, live burial, or dismemberment, which would
end her possession and hopefully end the demon's assault.
Suddenly, a possessed Natalie attacks them with a nail gun and a
crowbar. David blew off Natalie's other arm with the shotgun, and
the demon left her body as she bleeds to death.
Coming up with a plan, David leaves a heavily injured Eric
by the car while he plans to knock out Mia and buries her alive.
David then injects Mia with tranquilizers to completely render her
unconscious while he put her in a shallow grave next to the cabin.
After she died, he digs her up and uses an improvised defibrillator
to revive her; the demon has been exorcised, and she is human
again. Returning to the cabin to get the keys to his Jeep, David is
attacked and mortally wounded by Eric, who was now possessed.
David locks Mia out of the cabin, engaging Eric by himself. Eric
taunts David about the Abomination's imminent arrival. David is
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responded by using the shotgun to ignite a nearby gasoline can,
engulfing the cabin in flames and killing them both.
Since five souls have now technically been taken, the
prophecy has been fulfilled. Blood rain from the sky as the
Abomination rises from hell, out of the ground, and chases Mia.
After a protracted showdown that results in the loss of her hand,
Mia manages to kill the Abomination by splitting it in half
vertically with a chainsaw, upon which the Abomination sink back
into the ground. The blood rain stop and Mia, hardened by the
events of the night, walked away into the forest. The Naturom
Demonto lies on the ground nearby, unscathed by the cabin fire, and
slammed shut on its own.
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CHAPTER III
EVALUATION
Most of you have read and re-read the basic framework of the
story: Mia (Jane Levy) was brought to a remote, family owned
cabin by a group of friends Eric played by Lou Taylor Pucci, Olivia
played by Jessica Lucas and Natalie played by Elizabeth
Blackmore) and her wayward brother (David, played by Shiloh
Fernandez) to help her break a heroin habit. They stumble upon the
Necronomicon and through a series of poor choices; call forth a
vengeful demonic force that wreaks all manner of havoc on the
group. This simple plot framework, I think actually works in a
stronger way than just a recreational trip into the woods. I felt this
was smart in terms of a plot device and works well as a reoccurring
reference point once things start to go downhill.
At the start, we’re thrown into the middle of a scenario
where a teenage girl is being pursued by a group of people intent on
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capturing her and ridding her of the demon. The visuals are really
good and the cinematography is excellent but it is confusing to try
to figure out when this might be happening, what the
circumstances are, etc. It felt uneven. On the one hand, it was
arresting to have to watch a family destroy the living body of their
loved one but on the other hand we don’t know these people so the
impact isn’t felt as strongly as it was intended.
The craft of the film as a whole is quite remarkable. I’ve
talked about the effects and the shooting style (with loving but
merely slight nods to the board-cam style of Sam Raimi in the
original) which are strong and confident and keep the pace strong
from start to end. There is also a crafty play against our
expectations of jumps and scares at times that renders you
unsteady, anxious. It is brilliant and utilizes the preconceived
expectations of the audience against them.
I think it is important to point out a few other aspects of the
production that were impressive:
For one, the art direction was nothing short of perfect. It
would have been so easy, so easy to just dress the cabin and area
like 10,000 other horror movies and call it a day but they really took
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that part seriously and made the surrounding forest its own
character, the cabin a real thing. They don’t overdo the props and
they take advantage of every opportunity to add grit to everything
without making it look like a soundstage all dolled up.
For another, the score is a thing of beauty. Roque Baños has
crafted a steady, ballsy collection of music that dances around the
scenes in always the right way. There is a delicate timber to some
parts, a frantic static and crash to others but it all adds up to a very
dynamic piece of music that fits beautifully with everything
Alvarez is doing on screen.
Finally, the performance by Jane Levy as Mia is just
absolutely good. Watching her go from victim of drugs to dote
upon loved one to unsteady addict to violent demon is nothing
short of fantastic. The commitment to every stage is perfect.
Perfect. She just owns the role in every way that matters and makes
us invest in her survival. You really don’t have a choice. She could
not have done a better job – mucking through water and mud and
blood and all else to produce an iconic.
So, this was an utterly grand bit of filmmaking. While the
early stages suffered from some chunkiness, the film as a whole is a
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victory in that it delivers on the promise of living up to the legacy
of the original. It does not let you down, it does not disappoint.
This bloody, intense chapter in the Evil Dead legacy is not only a
worthy addition to that group but stands alone as one of the best
remake/re imaginings I’ve seen in many years. Hat is off to all
involved and here’s hoping it brings some serious dollars at the box
office. We all need more of Evil Dead’s intensity and creativity in
the horror genre’ and since money talks, we as a fan base need to do
a lot of talking about this one. Get out and see it as soon as you’re
able.
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REFERENCES
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1288558/
http://www.horror-movies.ca/evil-dead-2013-review/