The long-suffering Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), a bookish schoolteacher responsible for unleashing the demons in the first place, winds up being far more memorable, if only for the severity and quantity of carnage that's inflicted on him.īut making people cringe is easy any third-rate Saw knockoff can manage it. Fernandez is an interchangeable protagonist: present to take his considerable lumps, but never a driving force or an unforgettable center for the chaotic storm of blood and mayhem that the film becomes. Fernandez wears a near-constant expression of brow-furrowed concern that makes sense for the guilt-ridden brother he's been written as.īut when things start to go bad, one does miss the oversized B-movie charisma of Campbell, who's a big part of why the near-wordless latter third of the original works so well. Making the two leads family instead of romantically involved opens things up for all sorts of easily established family baggage that, while it sometimes tips toward the maudlin, does give the film higher emotional stakes and a greater sense of purpose than its predecessor. Shiloh Fernandez plays Mia's brother David, who'll emerge as the closest analog to Ash, Bruce Campbell's original hero. But the first major shift that Alvarez and co-writer Rodo Sayagues introduce is giving these characters a little more depth and purpose.Įschewing the usual recreational reasons for the cabin-in-the-woods template, their purpose here is a forced detox for Mia (Jane Levy). The basic, archetypal framework is the same: Five 20-somethings head to a remote forest location, accidentally unleash unspeakable evil via a flesh-bound book of rituals and incantations, and fall prey to malevolent, soul-devouring demons. With studio money, and Raimi and original star Bruce Campbell on board as producers, this Evil Dead is polished and meticulously planned, and it benefits from the attention to detail as well as from Alvarez's obvious love for the spirit of the source material. Luckily Alvarez, for whom Evil Dead is also a debut feature, doesn't try to replicate the practically accidental glory of that film. Raimi's 1981 debut is a masterpiece of punk filmmaking, a bunch of young enthusiasts who barely knew what they were doing, going out into the woods and stumbling blindly into the creation of a ragged landmark - largely because they didn't know, didn't care or didn't have the money to do it the way it was supposed to be done. Let's just get this out of the way up front: Fede Alvarez's remake of Sam Raimi's horror classic The Evil Dead can't hold a candle, shotgun or revving chainsaw to the original.
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