Matt Konopka looks back at Fede Alvarez’s gruesome, grimy and gross ‘Evil Dead’ (2013) and how it paved a new way forward for the franchise.
I remember it like it was yesterday.
Freshly transplanted to Los Angeles and still in awe of the city, my friends and I made our way over to the Arclight Theater for a screening of Fede Alvarez’s 2013 Evil Dead (R.I.P. Arclight, I miss you). A blend of excitement and nervous anticipation coursed through our veins. Evil Dead hadn’t been back in the theaters since Army of Darkness in 1992. Sam Raimi was producing rather than sitting behind the camera. Bruce Campbell, the charismatic face of the franchise, would not be reprising his role for the first time. We had no idea what to expect. And we were in no way prepared for what was unleashed on the world that weekend.
Alvarez’s Evil Dead didn’t just deliver a great Evil Dead film…it paved the way forward for a new take on the franchise, still going strong today (looking at you, Evil Dead Burn).
At that time, all anyone knew Alvarez from was his giant robot invasion short film, Panic Attack!. With filmmakers like Curry Barker (Obsession) and Kane Parsons (The Backrooms) sending everyone into a craze over who the next big filmmaker to come from YouTube will be, people seem to forget that that sort of thing was already happening over a decade ago. Alvarez was one of the first to have Hollywood come calling thanks to his success on the video platform. I can recall reading the news that Raimi had brought him on to direct the next Evil Dead and thinking…huh?
While Panic Attack! impressed me, it didn’t scream “Evil Dead” whatsoever. The short displays Alvarez’s talent, no doubt, but it’s a giant robot movie. A smaller Pacific Rim. No gore. No comedy. More of an indication for a giant tentpole movie than a little ole’ Evil Dead film. Oh, how naive I was. We all were. Each of us went into the film that night unsure whether or not Alvarez was the guy, even with Raimi’s backing.
I didn’t know I was about to have one of the greatest theatrical experiences of my life.
It should be noted that I don’t just like Evil Dead. The franchise means everything to me. Raimi’s one of the guys who inspired me to become a filmmaker. Accomplished through various inventive camera rigs, those opening shots of Evil Dead, with the image swooping through an atmospheric forest, became my go-to reference for why trusting filmmakers with a vision is essential. Evil Dead 2, one of the best horror comedies ever made, is one of my desert island movies that I could watch endlessly on repeat. Army of Darkness acts as a massive tribute to the stop-motion animation of Ray Harryhausen, the sort that helped turn me into the monster kid I am today. Yeah, I love Evil Dead. Alvarez had a tall task in appeasing fans of the franchise.
Lucky for all of us, he did so and then some.
A remake of the first Evil Dead—at least, at first glance—Alvarez’s take lays down a familiar premise, but with a few big changes. Once again, a group of five friends heads to a mysterious cabin in the middle of the woods. Instead of partying, though, they’re there to help David’s (Shiloh Fernandez) sister, Mia (Jane Levy), detox from her heroin addiction and overcome it once and for all. While there, the gang discovers an old book bound in flesh (the Necronomicon). Screwhead Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) gets the idea to read out loud from the book—despite multiple bold warnings advising against it—unleashing demons onto the group. Mia’s first to encounter the supernatural occurrences, but thanks to her addiction, no one believes her. Soon, entities from Hell begin to swallow their souls one by one, promising death to them all by dawn.
Right from the atmospheric opening, Evil Dead announces itself as a whole new beast that refuses to be contained. Try, and it’ll bite your hand off. Not worth the risk. Just ask Ash.
The last time we saw the franchise, we had the pure camp of Ash battling a horde of stop-motion skeletons while dropping one-liners every few seconds. Yeah, Army of Darkness is a blast, but it isn’t the least bit scary. To open, Alvarez’s Evil Dead has a bloody and battered teen girl wandering a misty forest before she’s caught by her father and others. Taken to a decrepit basement lit by a low flame and filled with carcasses, the film immediately sets a different tone. This Evil Dead is grittier. It’s darker. It’s grislier. Most importantly, it’s scarier.
Then the poor young woman transforms into a deadite, Daddy blows her head off with a shotgun, and all bets are off. The credits roll up in flames, set to the tune of Roque Baños’ cacophonic score, and we’re off on a rollercoaster straight to Hell. No guardrails to keep this bad boy from going off the track. As if we’d want them.
It was about that moment that an excited energy filled the air of that theater where I first watched Evil Dead so long ago. You could sense fingers gripping seats. Hear heartbeats quicken. We knew then that this wasn’t going to be like any Evil Dead that came before. Nor should it. The best remakes don’t just copy and paste scene for scene with a slightly different look (the 2006 Omen, ugh). They take what’s familiar, blend it with the modern, and churn out something fresh. Or, in this case, a rotten, nasty, vicious newborn deadite snapping its teeth and clawing at our eyes (complimentary).
Alvarez gives Evil Dead fans what they came for. An old cabin in the woods; The Necronomicon, looking nastier than ever; Deadites with an insatiable mean streak; And, yeah, a chainsaw revved all the way up to eleven (more on that in a moment). That’s where the similarities end, though. Well, sort of.
Back when Sam Raimi made Evil Dead, the intent was to deliver the sort of grindhouse horror movie that could sell tickets at the drive-in. Something grimy and gross and guaranteed to shock. He did that, but not without letting a little bit of that Raimi camp seep in, which then poured into Evil Dead 2 like a geyser of blood. Alvarez removes all of that, for better or worse, depending on who you talk to.
Instead of gore that’s so over-the-top it makes you laugh, Alvarez goes for a different flavor. With his Evil Dead, the violence is so over-the-top gruesome, it makes you want to either cheer or reach for the vomit bag, whichever comes first. He takes the franchise back to the roots of that sinister tree that horrified audiences way back in 1983.
That’s what I remember most from my first watch. One scene after another, it’s like the filmmaker is running at us with a chainsaw in one hand and a severed head in another. We’re witness to rusty nails to the face, knives splitting tongues down the middle, a meat slicer severing an arm down to one last, hanging thread of tissue before it finally snaps off. All of it brutal. All of it bloody. Some of the most grotesque images we had ever seen in an Evil Dead film, shot with an intensity that makes the audience feel the pain. What Raimi accomplished with that pencil to the ankle in the first movie, Alvarez achieves with every moment of violence.
I’ll never forget hearing the roaring applause fill the theater after each flying limb or pulverizing smash to the face with a slab of porcelain. That was when I knew that Evil Dead was never going to be the same. From then on, it would be meaner. Nastier. Gorier. And more cathartic. When Mia shoves that chainsaw into the face of the big bad, raining blood, turning the scene red…I’m not sure anything in the franchise feels as satisfying as that, other than Ash uttering “groovy” for the first time.
I was right. Evil Dead hasn’t been the same since (at least, the films haven’t). Both Rise and Burn continued what Alvarez started. These are movies that grip you by the throat and scream in your face. They don’t have any rules. Kids are as fair game as adults. Pets, too. Whatever the line is, these movies skip over it with the most deliciously evil deadite smile possible. Even seasoned horror fans are made to squirm in their seats (cheese grater, anyone?).
Evil Dead (2013) summoned a whole new era of terror from the Necronomicon. A few words or Kandarian daggers aren’t going to stop it, either. Alvarez set a grisly new bar for the franchise. And me? I’m just enjoying the ride as Raimi continues to bring in exciting new filmmakers and lets them run wild with one goal and one goal only: Make the audience scream.
Prepare for Evil Dead Burn to do just that when it rages into theaters on July 10th via Warner Bros.
