Evil Dead (2013 film)

Evil Dead
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Fede Alvarez
Produced by	Bruce Campbell Robert Tapert Sam Raimi
Screenplay by	Fede Alvarez Rodo Sayagues
Based on	The Evil Dead by Sam Raimi
Starring	Jane Levy Shiloh Fernandez Jessica Lucas Lou Taylor Pucci Elizabeth Blackmore
Music by	Roque Baños
Cinematography	Aaron Morton
Edited by	Bryan Shaw
Production company	Ghost House Pictures FilmDistrict
Distributed by	TriStar Pictures
Release dates	March 8, 2013 (2013-03-08) (SXSW Film Festival) April 5, 2013 (2013-04-05) (United States)
Running time	92 minutes[1]
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$17 million[2]
Box office	$97.5 million[2]

Evil Dead is a 2013 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Fede Alvarez. It is the fourth installment of the Evil Dead franchise, serving as a reboot and as well as a loose continuation of the series; the first neither to be directed by Sam Raimi, have Bruce Campbell as the main star, nor to be scored by the original trilogy's composer, Joseph LoDuca. Instead it was scored by Spanish composer Roque Baños.

The film is the feature debut of Alvarez, whom Raimi selected. It was produced by Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert G. Tapert; the writer-director, lead actor, and producer of the original trilogy respectively. Evil Dead was shot in New Zealand outside of Auckland, with filming lasting one month.^[3] The film had its world premiere at the South by Southwest festival on March 8, 2013. On March 9, 2013, it was announced that the film will have a sequel, followed by a crossover with the original trilogy. Evil Dead was announced on July 15, 2013 to be adapted into a live experience as the first maze announced for Universal Studios Hollywood's and the second maze for Universal Orlando Resort's annual Halloween Horror Nights event for 2013.

Plot

In the woods, several men pursue and capture an injured little girl. They bring her into a cabin's cellar and tie her up. It is soon revealed that the girl is possessed. Her father sets her on fire and shoots her in the head.

David (Shiloh Fernandez) and his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) meet up at a cabin in the woods with his younger sister Mia (Jane Levy). Along with them are their friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and David's dog. They plan to stay in the cabin until Mia overcomes her heroin addiction. It is later revealed that David moved to another city years before, leaving Mia to take care of their dying mother. Eric remarks how David has grown distant over the years, but Olivia notes that their old friend is back and trying to make a change.

The group discover the cellar, where they see rotting animal corpses, a shotgun, and a book entitled Naturom Demonto. Eric, having some knowledge of witchcraft practices, begins studying the book. Despite the written warnings, he reads aloud an incantation, awakening a malevolent force. It rushes towards the cabin and into Mia, who is standing outside alone.

Mia begins seeing someone in the woods and asks the group to leave. They refuse, believing that she is just suffering from withdrawal. Mia steals the car keys and leaves alone. As she drives away, a mysterious girl causes her to crash the car into a pond. She begins walking back to the cabin. Frightened by a ghostly shape, she becomes entangled by the branches of a tree. The girl, who looks like a demonic form of Mia, releases black tar-like vines from her mouth. The vines crawl inside Mia, beginning her possession.

David and Olivia find Mia and take her back to the cabin, ignoring her warning. David sees his dog beaten and shot to death under the shed, and confronts Mia. In the bathroom, he sees her scalding herself in the shower, which reminds Eric of a scene depicted in the witchcraft book. David tries to drive her to a hospital, but heavy rains caused a flood, blocking the way out.

The possessed Mia wounds David, threatens the group with death, and falls to the floor unconscious. When Olivia retrieves the gun, Mia overpowers her and vomits blood on her face. Mia is then locked in the cellar. Olivia goes to the bathroom to clean herself, and becomes possessed. Eric checks on her and sees her cutting into her cheek with a mirror shard, another scene from the book. Olivia attacks and wounds Eric. He throws her off, breaking the toilet. When she continues attacking him, he grabs a broken piece of the toilet and bludgeons her to death.

A crying Mia lures Natalie into the now opened cellar. Natalie enters the cellar and Mia alternates between attacking Natalie, violating her and mutilating herself. Meanwhile, in the shed, while David tends to Eric's wounds, Eric tells David of what he learns. According to the book, a demon called the Taker of Souls must consume five souls in order to unleash a being called the Abomination. Hearing Natalie's screams, David returns to the cabin. He gets Natalie out of the cellar, closes the door and chains it.

Natalie cleans the bite wound inflicted by Mia and sees an infection spreading from it. As it quickly crawls up her arm, she tries to stop it by cutting the arm off. Eric explains to David that Mia must be "purified" either by live burial, dismemberment, or burning. The purification will end her possession. As they debate, Natalie becomes possessed. She shoots Eric with a nail gun then beats him with a crowbar. David shoots Natalie's other arm off with the shotgun. The demon leaves her body and Natalie bleeds to death, confused, in David's arms.

David takes the injured Eric outside, planning to burn down the cabin with Mia in it. Mia starts singing their mother's lullaby, and David changes his mind and decides to bury her instead. He digs a grave, then enter the cellar to subdue his sister. Mia ambushes him and attempts to drown him. Eric intervenes and knocks Mia out, suffering another stab wound in the process. Before Eric dies, he and David reconcile. David sedates Mia, puts her in the grave and buries her. After she dies, he digs her up and uses an improvised defibrillator to revive her. The demon is exorcised and her self-inflicting wounds are healed. As David enters the cabin to retrieve the car keys, the possessed Eric stabs him in the neck. David locks Mia outside and shoots a nearby gasoline can, killing Eric and himself.

With five souls now claimed, the Abomination rises from the ground as blood rains from the sky. As Mia evades the Abomination, she finds a chainsaw in the shed and fuels it. She severs its legs, but it overturns David's Jeep, which pins her arm underneath. Mia pulls herself free from the Jeep, completely severing her hand in the process. She then grabs the chainsaw and cuts the Abomination in half. Its corpse sinks into the ground and the blood rain stops. Sunlight begins to shine through the forest as Mia, hardened by the events of the night, walks away into the forest. The Naturom Demonto lies on the ground nearby and slams shut on its own.

Cast

In addition, using audio from the original film, Bob Dorian plays Professor Raymond Knowby during the credits and Ellen Sandweiss plays a voice cameo as Cheryl Williams. Bruce Campbell plays Ash Williams in an uncredited post-credit cameo appearance.

The initial letters of the five main characters' names (David, Eric, Mia, Olivia, Natalie) form an acrostic spelling out the word DEMON.^[4]

Production

Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues co-wrote the script, which was then doctored by Diablo Cody in an effort to Americanize the dialogue since English was not the writers' first language.^[5] The film was produced by Raimi, Campbell, and Robert G. Tapert, who are the producers of the original trilogy.

Raimi and Campbell had planned a remake for many years, but in 2009, Campbell stated the proposed remake was "going nowhere" and had "fizzled" due to extremely negative fan reaction.^[6] However, in April 2011, Bruce Campbell stated in an AskMeAnything interview on Reddit.com, "We are remaking Evil Dead. The script is awesome [...] The remake's gonna kick some ass — you have my word."^[7]

On July 13, 2011, it was officially announced, via a press release, that Ghost House Pictures would team up with FilmDistrict to produce an Evil Dead remake, with Diablo Cody in the process of revising the script and Fede Alvarez directing.^[5] Actor Shiloh Fernandez was cast in the lead male role of David.^[8] Bloody Disgusting reported that Lily Collins would play the lead female role of Mia, but on January 24, 2012, she dropped out of the role.^[9][10]

On February 3, 2012, it was announced that actress Jane Levy, star of the television series Suburgatory, would replace Collins in the lead female role as Mia.^[11] Lou Taylor Pucci, Elizabeth Blackmore, and Jessica Lucas later joined the cast.^[12][13]

In January 2013, Alvarez commented on the ambiguity of the film's relationship to the original:

Now, the way I personally like to see Evil Dead (2013), it's as a story that takes place 30 years after The Evil Dead ended. The car is there, the cabin is there (a family bought it and did some work on it more than 20 years ago) and the book has found its way back to the cabin... New kids will encounter it and suffer its wrath. Is Evil Dead a sequel then? Maybe. But the problem with the sequel theory would be that there are too many coincidences between the events on The Evil Dead and the ones on Evil Dead to have happened on a continuous story line [...] But if you believe the Naturom Demonto can force these things to happen... then it could be a sequel... and I do believe in coincidences.^[14]

Alvarez, who also has a background in CGI, also confirmed in an interview that the film does not employ CGI (except for touch-ups): "We didn't do any CGI in the movie [...] Everything that you will see is real, which was really demanding. This was a very long shoot, 70 days of shooting at night. There's a reason people use CGI; it's cheaper and faster, I hate that. We researched a lot of magic tricks and illusion tricks."^[15]

Sam Raimi's 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 can be seen in an opening scene with David and Mia as they arrive at the cabin. The 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 has appeared in almost all of the movies that Raimi has been involved with over his career.

Release

TriStar Pictures released the film theatrically on April 5, 2013 in the United States,^[16] with Sony Pictures handling other markets. Fede Alvarez tweeted on January 28, 2013 that the film first received an NC-17 rating, which prompted cuts in order to obtain the contractually obligated R-rating.^[17] The film has been rated uncut as an 18 by the BBFC for containing strong "bloody violence, gory horror and very strong language".^[18] StudioCanal handled the release of Evil Dead in the United Kingdom.^[18]

Evil Dead premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX on March 8, 2013. The music for Evil Dead, composed by Roque Baños, was released by La-La Land Records in a 40-minute digital form and a 70-minute physical release, on April 9, 2013.^[19]

Home media

Evil Dead was released on DVD and Blu-ray, on July 16, 2013.^[20] The Blu-ray exclusives include commentary from three of the cast, and screenwriters Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues, behind the scenes and a featurette, while the regular DVD will include three other featurettes.^[21]

Extended cut

An extended version, that has yet to be released, featuring an alternative ending and various other deleted clips and dialogue, some of which were featured in the original trailer but subsequently removed from the theatrical version, was aired in the U.K., on January 25, 2015.

No one has yet confirmed whether this was an intentional debut for the anticipated "extended cut", which fans of the film have asked about since the theatrical release, or whether StudioCanal UK had inadvertently supplied Channel 4 with the wrong copy of the film.

Alvarez has confirmed on Twitter, that the version aired was not the extended cut.

Channel 4 has subsequently confirmed that the wrong copy of the film was supplied to them and that they have sent it back. They added that they have no other information on the version which aired and since the "extended/incorrect" version has been returned to StudioCanal UK they would not be airing it again. However, the extended version still airs on Film4. And, was aired again on 13 February 2016.

Reception

The film brought in $26 million in its opening weekend^[22] and became a box office success, grossing over $54,239,856 domestically and $43,303,096 internationally, for a worldwide take of $97,542,952.

The film received generally positive reviews from critics; it holds a score of 62% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 173 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The site's consensus states, "It may lack the absurd humor that underlined the original, but the new-look Evil Dead compensates with brutal terror, gory scares, and gleefully bloody violence."^[23] On Metacritic, the film has a score of 57 out of 100, based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".^[24] Criticism of the film focused on the characters and some of the story being spoiled by the trailers.

Evan Dickson from Bloody Disgusting reviewed the film at SXSW and went on to say that "Evil Dead is amazingly gory and fun" and gave the film 4/5 stars.^[25] Chris Tilly of IGN gave Evil Dead 9/10, and called the movie a "terrifying, exhilarating and relentlessly entertaining new chapter in the Evil Dead story".^[26] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a positive review, calling it a "remake that will win the hearts of many of the original's fans."^[27] Independent horror review site HorrorTalk gave the film four stars out of five saying it is "the most unrelenting and bloody horror film to come out of a major studio in a very long time".^[28] Emma Simmonds of The List commented, "Evil Dead has ample cheap shocks and few bloodcurdling frights but it builds to something gorily bravura and, if that's your bag, you'll come away satisfied. It's a while before anyone picks up a chainsaw, but boy is it worth it when they do."^[29] Matt Singer called the film "an assault on the senses" and "a success, one that out-Evil Deads the original movie with even more gore, puke, blood, and dismembered limbs. It may not be wildly inventive, but it is effective, and plenty faithful to the spirit — and tagline — of the first 'Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror.'"^[30]

Richard Roeper rated the film one star out of four, criticizing the film's unoriginality, the characters' lack of intelligence, and the film's reliance on gore for what he felt were cheap scares. He concluded his review by saying, "I love horror films that truly shock, scare and provoke. But after 30 years of this stuff, I'm bored to death and sick to death of movies that seem to have one goal: How can we gross out the audience by torturing nearly every major character in the movie?"^[31]

Accolades

Sequel

At the SXSW premiere event, Alvarez announced that a sequel is in the works.^[33][34] In addition, Sam Raimi confirmed plans to write Evil Dead 4 with his brother; it was later specified that this film would be Army of Darkness 2.^[35] At a WonderCon panel in March 2013, Campbell and Alvarez stated that their ultimate plan was for Alvarez's Evil Dead 2 and Raimi's Army of Darkness 2 to be followed by a seventh film which would merge the narratives of Ash and Mia.^[36] On October 30, 2013, co-writer Sayagues confirmed to DeadHollywood that he and Alvarez will not return for the sequel.^[37] That same month, Alvarez took to his Twitter that the rumor is not true.^[38][39] The next step in the Evil Dead franchise is a continuation of the original trilogy story in the new TV series, Ash vs. Evil Dead.

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to: Evil Dead

• Official website
• Evil Dead at the Internet Movie Database
• Evil Dead at Box Office Mojo
• Evil Dead at Rotten Tomatoes
• Evil Dead at Metacritic