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Evil Dead (2013)

Posted By: Mindsnatcher
Evil Dead (2013)

Evil Dead (2013)
4K-2160p WebDL | mkv | x265 HEVC @ 18.0 Mb/s, 23.976 fps | 3840 x 1606 | 1h 31min | 12.1 GB
6-ch English AC-3 @ 640 Kbps, 48KHz, 16-bits | Subtitle: English
Genre: Horror


Evil Dead (2013)
Evil Dead (2013)
Evil Dead (2013)
Evil Dead (2013)
Evil Dead (2013)
Evil Dead (2013)


Mia (Jane Levy) and her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) have retreated to their family's old secluded cabin in hopes of breaking Mia's addiction to hard drugs, cold-tukey style. With them is David's girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore), a high school teacher named Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), and a nurse named Olivia (Jessica Lucas). All know it will be a challenge. David vows to remain by Mia's side through thick-and-thin, and Olivia warns of the potential for crisis when Mia's system begins to break down without the narcotics. As they wait out the withdrawal, Mia claims to smell something dead from inside the cabin. The dog catches whiff of it, too, and they're led to a secret basement filled with dead cats, strange artifacts, and a frightening tome. Eric opens the book and, in spite of its warnings, proceeds to read from it, aloud. Unfortunately, the passages he's chosen are in fact a summons for evil spirits that quickly possess Mia. David believes her pleas to flee to be drug, not demon, induced. Nevertheless, they all quickly come to realize the certain death they face. Floods have washed away the only way home, leaving five young adults to battle ancient demons determined to leave no flesh unharmed, no limb safe from detachment, no soul alive.

Evil Dead looks great in a very modern sense of the term. There's no mistaking the film's technical polish, the vast amounts of expertise behind the production, the atmosphere of dark peril and dread built not on grainy 16mm film but instead smooth HD video, and the amazing and fully seamless gore effects, from vomiting huge quantities of bile to brutally removing limbs, from yanking projectiles and sharp objects from skin to a little chainsaw action at the end (oh, boy, that's some rough watching there). The net effect is hugely positive, even considering a few negatives, chiefly the disappointingly stock characters (though they weren't much more than stock in 1981) and that lifeless HD video sheen (that's modern cinema). But beyond the technical polish and the few complaints is a movie that, at its core, feels more inspired by the older film rather a straight remake of it. Sure, many of the classic moments are left intact – the cellar hatch, the "vine rape" – but some have been re-imagined, character fates are swapped around, and some new ideas are injected into the movie for that minty fresh taste. Evil Dead in many ways conquers the unenviable challenge of forging its own identity through making use of old ideas and classic moments while also bringing something new to the table. Fede Alvarez largely succeeds in making the movie his own, of finding that balance that respects the original but pushes forward into a new era for a cherished franchise. The movie is fast, magnificently gory, and relentlessly unsettling. It's comfortably familiar but at the same time unnervingly unfamiliar. That's the mark of a quality remake.

Yet there's that unmistakable "teenagers in peril" vibe that's so terribly overdone these days, complete with the interchangeable characters that are mostly defined by face rather than personality or intimate traits. Horror does enjoy the benefit of not really needing massive amounts of character development when they're all going to be covered in massive amounts of blood by the end, but it would be nice to know them beyond "girl with drug addiction" or "guy with glasses." It becomes difficult to tell some of them – particularly the girls – apart when they've gone from supermodel to satanic demon, covered in blood and who-knows-what and with various limbs and chunks of skin missing from their bodies. Evil Dead works more on kinetic energy, in the moment, leaving behind much of a plot in favor of its relentless pacing and ooey-gooey gore. The story is thin, as it was in the original, and it's set up just enough to give the characters a reason to be at the cabin and, later, not want to leave until it's too late. What's more, Evil Dead just isn't particularly scary. There are certainly some classic "jump" scares, but the film banks more on excess visuals than any sort of dramatic, emotional, skin-crawling terror. It does largely leave the story wide open with minimal explanation, which heightens the fear and intensity considering the quantity of unknown behind the possessions, beyond, of course, the readings from the book. No matter the plot specifics or lack of robust characterization, though; this is a brutal, nonstop assault of high intensity gore and raw, unflinching terror of the highest order. They don't get much more gruesome than this. Fans of these sorts of films should fall in love after one viewing.