After seeing “Cabin in the Woods” last year around this time, I left the theatre wholeheartedly believing that I would never watch a more ridiculous, cheesy, awful horror movie ever again in my life.
But then I saw “Evil Dead.”
These days, it’s hard to come across a genuinely good horror movie, so I was particularly excited for this one since all of my peers seemed to be talking about it. I had never even seen a trailer before stepping into the theatre, so I had high hopes to be completely traumatized and horrified, which, in my opinion, are reasonable expectations for a horror film.
The beginning of the movie seemed promising. A dark, gloomy opening scene set in a forest featured a pretty girl running from something. Looking like she had just gone to hell and back, (no pun intended) I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the poor girl. Surely, she was innocently running from some sort of evil being, right? Well, as soon as she threatens to eat her father’s soul, the audience starts to see that there may be something a little off about this whole situation. After the girl’s father decides to set her on fire, it’s obvious that things are not what they seemed to be at first.
Flash forward a few years, and we see yet another pretty teenage girl, Mia (Jane Levy) sitting on top of a car, this time with en edgy, artsy vibe. She and her friends are gathering at a cabin, and it’s obvious that they haven’t seen each other in awhile from the tension in the scene that’s either from estranged relationships, or from Mia’s addiction to cocaine.
With the moral support of her brother, (Shiloh Fernandez) two close friends, and her brother’s awkward girlfriend, Mia begins her journey of quitting cold turkey. With a group of young adults. Alone. In the woods. With no civilization nearby. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, the audience soon finds out that a lot can go wrong. Just as is expected from a cocaine addict in withdrawal, Mia begins to loose it. Suddenly, she is acutely aware of everything going on around her, and she’s even able to smell the “smell of death.”
One thing leads to another, and before the audience even has a chance to groan at the stupidity of the characters, they’re heading downstairs into a strange door in the basement. Among other strange things, one thing that they discover is a book protected by tarp and chains.
What’s a good scary movie without the masochistic, overly-confident male who thinks he’s invincible, right? Well, in “Evil Dead,” he’s disguised as a bitter, hipster, high school English teacher by the name of Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) who thinks it would be a great idea to read the book after the first page says “do not read any further.” Not only does he do that, but he also writes and speaks the”forbidden words” out loud after the book explicitly says not to do anything of the sort!
Eric’s stupidity paired with Mia’s withdrawal leads to her running away and coming face to face with the evil spirits, and the whole rest of the movie is a bloody, disgusting mess full of cheesy one-liners and decisions that make the audience wonder if people that stupid actually exist.
One thing that blows my mind is that even after Mia starts to obviously show signs of possession (burning herself, killing people, speaking in demonic voices, etc.) her brother still refuses to believe that it’s anything other than symptoms of withdrawal. Yes, because all recovering drug addicts go on demonic rampages during recovery.
It’s never a good sign if people are laughing instead of screaming in a theater while a horror film is playing, but that was unfortunately the case for this movie. Although the special effects were surprisingly well done, the script was just awful. I’m not sure if the screenplay writers (Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues) were intending for the lines to be humorous, or if they were just oblivious to how ridiculous everyone sounded.
The only grimacing that was taking place were the over-the-top scenes full of blood and gore. After a while, it gets kind of old seeing various body parts fall off and pools of blood surrounding different characters, but apparently that wasn’t a concern to the makers of the film. By the end of the movie, I was actually rooting for the evil spirits since the entire battle had already gone on for entirely too long.
The pattern was boring and predictable: evil spirit comes after someone, someone wins, someone is victorious for a few minutes, evil spirit comes back, fight continues, and repeat onto another, equally bland character. I honestly wasn’t sure if the movie was meant to be that poorly and ridiculously made, or if it was a complete accident. The only words that come to my head to describe it are “cheesy” and “unrealistic.”
Yes, I’m aware that it’s a movie and that movies aren’t always supposed to be realistic because they’re, well, movies, but to me, the scariest of horror films are the ones that keep me up at night wondering if it could happen to me. It’s normal to have a fear that a mass murderer may come and break into your house and send your whole family into a deadly game of hide-and-seek, because that can actually happen, but I think it’s safe to say that I don’t have to worry about a demonic spirit entering my body while I’m trapped in the woods because I’m not able to handle a life that does’t revolve around a drug addiction.
Either way, the plot consisting of a bunch of stupid teenagers left alone in an abandoned cabin in the middle of the woods is starting to become a pattern. Though the special effects always seem to be great, they don’t make up for the poor plot, lines, or acting. “Evil Dead” gets 5 out of 10 stars, and that’s solely for two reasons: Shiloh Fernandez’s bad boy smolder, and the special effects. (Even if they were over the top).
Evil Dead is rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, some sexual content and language. It runs for 91 minutes.
