There's
Something in the Woods... Even 30 Years Later
By Matt Wintz
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| Professor Wintz |
Note:
Matt Wintz is an Adjunct Professor in the Humanities and Cultural
Sciences Department of Mesa Community College in Arizona. He teaches
"Women and Films," where he discusses the impact of women
in different film genres. He has been making short films –
specifically horror – for ten years now. He is currently in
pre-production for "Pumpkill 2: Seeds of Destruction" and
is also planning a web series that's
an amalgamation of "Heroes" and "The Stand."
Professor Wintz's
column –"Matt's Movie Mortuary" – will feature reviews
and articles about the spooky and surprising world of horror films.
Remakes.
Re-imaginings. Whichever you want to call them the movie industry
has seen a share of them, especially in the horror genre. The
eighties had them with "The Blob" and "Night of the
Living Dead" and as the new millennium joined us, "Texas
Chainsaw Massacre," "Halloween," "Friday the
13th," and "A Nightmare on Elm Street" got them. So
did "Dawn of the Dead." In some ways the films were able
to stand on their own, bringing something that the original was
missing or didn't have the full ability to capitalize on. Some were,
in the technical term, horse-shit.
When it was
announced that there was an "Evil Dead" remake in the
works, fans groaned. Even though Sam Raimi and Bruce "The Chin"
Campbell were going to be involved, as producers, the fans clamored
for a sequel to "Army of Darkness." There's only ONE Ash,
there's only ONE chainsaw-handed, one-line spouting, S-Mart Employee
of the month who's able to look at one ugly woman and say "Yo
She-Bitch... let's go." So to say that this idea was met with
skepticism was an understatement. However, with the original being
such a classic (seriously, Stephen King praised it) and since I'd
heard good things about the remake, I decided to settle in for a
viewing. But I was going to do something else. I tracked down
"Within the Woods," the short film Sam Raimi did before
"Evil Dead" that is supposed to be "Evil Dead"
before he got more money, and decided I would watch that film, the
original "Evil Dead," and the remake and see just what
worked, what doesn't, and what else was going through my head.
___
Evil Dead (2013)
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The remake
kicks off with a girl in the woods being kidnapped by two "Deliverance" looking guys and being tied up in a basement/cabin, only for her
father to be part of the kidnapping. We then see that they are
trying to purge a demon from her because, well... in this movie that
kind of thing happens. After setting her ablaze as she threatens to
rip out his soul, the father then shotguns her to bring up the
opening credits. We then get to the obligatory introduction of five
young people showing up at a cabin, but this time we're not here for
just a fun trip. Mia is being treated to an intervention by three
friends and her brother David, and we're treated with some family
background and drama as the scene becomes a dark and stormy night for
Mia's first night of withdrawal.
As Mia
complains of a smell, Olivia (who's a registered nurse) tells
everyone it's the withdrawal. However, when the family dog paws at
the rug in front of everyone, it uncovers a bloodstained floor and
door into the cellar. Upon opening it, everyone reacts to a smell
and we go downstairs to the cellar from the opening scene, complete
with the Necronomicon and Double-Barreled Boomstick sitting on the
table. Mia, the recovering drug addict, is the smartest one in the
room, telling them they shouldn't have touched anything in the
basement as they bring the book and shotgun up. Dun-dun... DUN.
Our
hippie-looking high school teacher Eric decides to cut open the bag
with the book and read it, aloud, as he cuts his finger on a page and
bleeds on it. And even though it's written in BIG RED LETTERS to NOT
read the book, he decides to. And we get the classic "Evil
Dead" force running through the woods and hits Mia just as she
throws up. She then begins seeing a creepy girl in the woods before
coming inside and we're treated to Mia saying she needs to get out of
there, the group refusing to let her go, and her running out and
grabbing the car and taking off. She sees the girl on the road again
and crashes the car into the river, and now we've established they
won't have a way out when the demons come a calling. As Mia runs
from the river, we're then treated to a remake of one of the more
memorable scenes from the original when a group of trees decide to
get a little frisky and proceed to, well... rape her, thanks to some
black grossness provided by a possessed version of herself.
Eric and Olivia
talk about how David is there, and there's no reveal of why Eric's
pissed. David finds the dog dead, having been beat to death with a
hammer, and David believes it to be Mia, leading to him trying to
break the door in and they find her boiling in the shower. As David
tries to get Mia out, we come to the bridge which has been washed out
while Mia is going all demoness in the front seat. Olivia, who had
been the whole "I'm giving her the treatment she'd get at a
hospital" and leading the crusade is now becoming unraveled with
what happened, and Eric talks about how things are getting worse.
Mia then walks out, cracking her neck and bringing the shotgun with
her. She shoots David in the arm and we get some demon stuff going
on, followed by her saying "You're all going to die tonight"
and she collapses. We then get a bloody deadite vomit bath on Olivia
who throws Mia into the open cellar, and they close it on her. So
slowly, the movie starts to pay homage to the original, and things
begin to pick up steam. Eric then throws down the "It's
witchcraft" gauntlet and Olivia then starts to show signs of
getting possessed: we are off to the races. Olivia goes after Eric,
and afterward Eric reveals to David that he read from the book and
it's "something evil." David's girlfriend Natalie (who is
finally given a name forty-five minutes into the movie) goes to find
things to help treat Eric's wounds, and she finds that the cellar is
now open and Mia is calling for her. And of course, she goes into
the cellar.
I will give the
movie some credit, they do come up with some pretty decent demonic
one-liners such as "Your sister is being raped in hell."
They also look to homage "Evil Dead 2" as Natalie's hand
becomes possessed (much like Ash's in the original) and she decides
to hack it off, but this time not with a chainsaw but an electric
knife. They also use the old Professor Knoby reading from the first
"Evil Dead" in the closing credits, which is a nice touch
as well. I always loved that reading, it sets a great tone. And of
course, the post-credits sequence is, well... "groovy."
The Evil Dead
(1981)
Now of course
one of the biggest critiques of the new "Evil Dead" is that
it's simply not the original. The original, for those who are
uninitiated, was the 1981 Sam Raimi classic that had a wonderful
quote promoting the movie from Stephen King on the poster. Starring
the greatest chin in the business, Bruce Campbell, the original
followed series protagonist Ash Williams, his sister Cheryl, his
girlfriend Linda, and their friendly romantic couple Scotty and
Shelly as they ventured into the woods and were beset by demons after
a tape recording of some of the readings from the same Book of the
Dead that the remake brings in. One thing to remember about the
original 1981 film, that some fans seemed to forget when the remake
was announced, was that it played as a straight horror film. There
was no possessed hand into chainsaw hand into wisecracking one-liner
hero, Ash just happened to be the last one standing after a demonic
nightmare that his friends succumb to. Here, the remake and original
both stand together: this isn't necessarily a "splatstick"
horror comedy. Is there humor at times? Maybe, but it's a horror
movie, you're supposed to be squeamish as the trees rape the young
women they do, and while the gore and blood is over the top, it's
still meant to be a trippy nightmare.
Within the Woods
(1978)
The entirety of
the "Evil Dead" universe comes from a short film that Raimi
and Campbell had done together as a precursor to all this entitled
"Within the Woods." This doesn't have the Book of the Dead
but deals with a possibly possessed dagger that is taken from its
place in an Indian burial ground. The interesting twist here is that
it's Bruce Campbell's character who takes it and is possessed, and
it's his girlfriend (played by Ellen Sandweiss who plays his sister
in "Evil Dead") who's the main heroine. Running around a
half hour but having many bits of both "Evil Dead" and
"Evil Dead 2" that would come later, the film was used as a
way for Raimi to make money for a full-length feature. Found on the
bootleg market (or Youtube) the film isn't horrible and if you can
get past its low budget from 1978, it's definitely wonderful
as a curiosity piece.
___
Overall, I can
say that I enjoyed the newer version of "Evil Dead" and
there are some good moments that make the viewer squirm. This was
not a remake that fell flat to the viewer or the informed public of
the original, but it doesn't set itself apart like, say, the "Dawn
of the Dead" remake that has gone on to break from the
constraints of being just a remake and be an excellent stand-alone.
Now of course, if pressed, I would say that the newer version isn't
as great as the original, but that is part because of the aura the
original (and its lead actor) have built for themselves over thirty
years. It is possible, given a few years and the potential sequels
being talked about, that this new saga of "Evil Dead" could
pave its own blood-soaked path through the woods of horror history.
Until next time...
