Dim-witted dubebro schlock

Rating: 1/10 (19 April 2013)

You know how some films are so bad, they back unwittingly into genius? Well, this rehash of Sam Raimi's 'Evil Dead' is definitely not one of them. The only thing this film backs unwittingly into is dim-witted, wooden dudebro schlock, so profoundly disengaging and ultimately unsatisfying that at one point I actually started composing haiku to its monumental awfulness on my mobile phone.
Perhaps I'm a little bias: I've got to admit I find scenes of violence towards women rather hard to take, and the horror-genre's disproportionate fondness for them, kind of troubling. I must make a distinction here, though, between violence justified by narrative and handled with tension, realism and empathy; and the violence of your typical 'torture porn' which is unmotivated, unrelenting and gleefully gratuitous. 'Evil Dead' falls into this latter category with the hollow splash of a turd landing in a hot-tub.
Don't get me wrong, I love the horror genre; that's why this kind of hackneyed nonsense is so depressing. And I had hopes too. I even dared to dream that this remake might improve upon or address some of things that bothered me about the original. Nope. How wrong can a person be? What distinguished Raimi's 'Evil Dead' was its inventive playfulness; a kind of B-movie shoe-string baroque. Silly, unquestionably, and of its time (with all the sexploiation undertones that this implies) absolutely, but a credible achievement nonetheless for its day. It was eager and engaging and weird as all get out. It didn't take itself too seriously either; it had (odd as this may sound) a quirky, dirty charm to it, and so a person was more willing to go with Raimi (and Campbell) and just ride the wave.
It's successor, though? Honestly, I don't even know where to start. The acting was unforgivably bad. And no, I'm not about to tell you that Bruce Campbell bestrode the known Thespian world like a colossus, but I am saying that when Alvarez decided to raise the emotional register and stakes of the film (Jane Levy's character, 'Mia' going cold turkey, the uneasy relationship between Mia and her estranged brother David, played by Shilho Fernandez) he needed to be sure that he had actors who could pull it off... He didn't. The supporting performances were risibly insipid and undistinguished, but in all fairness to Jessica Lucas and Elizabeth Blackmore they didn't have much to do but shout and die, horribly. Lou Taylor Pucci fares a little better, in that he actually gets to do a bit of toothless and unconvincing dudebro bonding, and display some actual emotions (fear, annoyance, and what is maybe meant to be confusion) before dying, horribly.
Sigh. To be honest, though, and to give the actors the benefit of the doubt, the dialogue was so silted and lacklustre, the characterisation so minimal and so poor, that there was really very little they could have done with it. Mia was the only protagonist with even so much as a semi-fleshed-out back-story or any distinguishing traits at all, and thus the only one of five (if you don't count the dog) who it was remotely possible to care about in any way. It's probably for this reason alone that Jane Levy's performance wasn't as abysmally bad as her co-stars.
The 'plot' really wasn't much better. What I'd hoped for, and what the trailers, and the way the film was being talked-up, seemed to suggest, was that this version would elaborate and lend substance to the more interesting and off-the-wall aspects of the original story... It doesn't... In any way... Shape... Or form. All it does is rehash the same scenarios, while sloshing round plenty of self-indulgent school-boy gore, with scant regard for things like basic human biology, the tensile strength of metals (hands are not detachable, electric carving knives can't cut through bone, car batteries are not a valid substitute for a defibrillator), or the dignity of women (yes, that scene is still there and still as well-handled as ever, also: nail gun to the face). And yeah, I get that the original had moments of utter idiocy, but what is forgivable in the context of a seventies b-movie, is not so acceptable to the twenty-first century sensibility, not with the bloated budgets of most modern horrors. What directors of such films would do well to realise is that a 'remake' doesn't just mean 'the same but bloodier'. To be truly credible, relevant and engaging to today's more sophisticated- jaded even- pallet, you need to bring a new dimension to the story, at the very least you need to tell it better. Rob Zombie's 'Halloween' franchise does this; Alexandre Aja's take on 'The Hills Have Eyes' wasn't a total loss either. In a cultural climate all ready saturated with better examples of the 'remake' genre Alvarez's film looks like little more than a cynical attempt to cash in on a trend. It evinces little love for the original, or for the poor audience who forked over time and money they won't get back to go and see this execrable bunkum.
I wanted to like this film, I really did, but can only see it appealing to teenage boys, or boy-children of limited intelligence and sensitivity.