Evil Dead (2013 film)

''Evil Dead'' is a 2013 American supernatural horror film directed by Fede Álvarez, in his feature directorial debut, written by Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, and produced by Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi, and Bruce Campbell. Dubbed as a "re-imagining" of Raimi's '' The Evil Dead'' (1981), it is the fourth installment in the '' Evil Dead'' franchise. The film stars Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, and Elizabeth Blackmore. The film follows a group of five people being possessed and killed by supernatural entities in a remote cabin in the woods.

Talks for a fourth ''Evil Dead'' film began in 2004, with original film actor Bruce Campbell about the possibility for a next film in the franchise. The project was officially announced in July 2011, with Ghost House Pictures producing it, Diablo Cody in the process of revising the script, and Fede Álvarez chosen as the director. Much of the cast joined from January to February 2012. Filming took place in March 2012 and wrapped in May 2012 in New Zealand outside of Auckland, lasting about a month.

''Evil Dead'' had its world premiere at the South by Southwest film festival on March 8, 2013 and was theatrically released in the United States on April 5, 2013 by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film grossed $97 million worldwide against a production budget of $17 million, and received moderately positive reviews from critics. Another installment in the franchise, titled ''Evil Dead Rise'', written and directed by Lee Cronin, is planned to be released in 2023.

Plot

The film opens in 2008 with a teenage girl running through the woods until she is caught by two pursuing hillbillies. Subdued with a sack over her head, she awakens to find herself tied up in the fruit cellar of a remote cabin, where an old woman is reciting incantations from a strange book. The girl pleads with her father Harold to release her. After he refuses, she reveals her possession by a demonic spirit and threatens to kill him. Harold sets her ablaze and shoots her dead. Three years later, in 2011, David Allen and his girlfriend Natalie arrive at the cabin with their dog Grandpa, where they meet his estranged younger sister Mia and her friends Eric, a high school teacher, and Olivia, a nurse. The group plans to stay in the cabin while Mia overcomes her heroin addiction. Mia begins having serious withdrawal symptoms and complains of an overwhelming scent of decay, which the others ignore. David discovers that the cabin's cellar is littered with rotting animal corpses, a worn double-barrel shotgun, and a book called the ''Naturom Demonto''.

A curious Eric reads an incantation from the book, awakening a malevolent force. Mia begins seeing a bloody girl in the woods and begs the group to leave. They refuse, thinking that she must be seeing hallucinations. Mia steals Eric's car and leaves, but sees a naked girl and swerves, crashing into a tree. She runs into the woods, where vines from a demonic tree trap her. After Mia sees a demonic version of herself, a vine enters her body, possessing her.

David finds Grandpa beaten to death with a hammer and goes to confront Mia in the shower. He sees her scalding herself and tries to drive her to a hospital, but a sudden rainstorm washes out the road. That night, Mia wounds her brother with the shotgun and vomits a large amount of red bile onto Olivia's face before Eric manages to lock her in the basement. Olivia is later possessed by unseen forces. When Eric discovers her in the shower mutilating her face, she stabs him repeatedly with a hypodermic needle before he bludgeons her to death. Mia lures Natalie into the cellar and bites her before slicing her own tongue apart with a box cutter, and then forcibly kissing her. David helps her escape before locking Mia back in.

Eric explains that according to the book, the "Taker of Souls" must claim five souls to unleash the "Abomination". Natalie, convinced that her arm is infected, amputates it. Eric explains that Mia must be "purified" either by live burial, dismemberment, or burning. The now-possessed Natalie attacks the pair with a nail gun, but David shoots her other arm off; Natalie returns to normal but soon bleeds to death from her injury.

David begins to douse the cabin in gasoline, but when Mia starts singing a song from their childhood, he decides to bury her instead. He digs a grave and heads into the cellar to retrieve Mia, who attempts to drown him. Eric intervenes but is fatally stabbed. David sedates and buries Mia, and after hearing her heartbeat stop, quickly digs her up and attempts to use a homemade defibrillator to resuscitate her. After several seemingly failed attempts, David covers his sister and says she's "at peace". Returning to the cabin, he hears a voice behind him and finds Mia alive. David enters the cabin to retrieve his car keys, but Eric's possessed corpse stabs him. David locks Mia out to protect her and shoots a gasoline can, killing both him and Eric in the resulting blaze.

With David's death, blood begins to rain down from the sky and Mia is attacked by the Abomination in the form of her demonic doppelgänger. Mia finds a chainsaw and severs the Abomination's legs, but it retaliates by overturning David's Jeep which lands on her left arm and traps her. Pushed to her breaking point, Mia frees herself (losing her left hand in the process), grabs the chainsaw, and bisects the Abomination's head before it sinks back into the ground and the rain stops. An exhausted Mia leaves to search for help, unaware the ''Naturom Demonto'' is still intact, and slamming shut on its own.

In a post-credits scene, an older Ash Williams (the protagonist of the original three ''Evil Dead'' films) is seen in shadowed profile. He remarks "Groovy" before turning suddenly to face the camera.

Cast

Additionally, Bruce Campbell appears uncredited in the post-credits scene as Ash Williams. Briefly reprising their roles from the original film through archival recordings, Bob Dorian voices Professor Raymond Knowby and Ellen Sandweiss voices Cheryl Williams, who warns the main characters that they will die. Jack Walley also had a small role in the film as Billy Bob, a truck driver who rescues Mia after she escapes the cabin, though his scene wound up being deleted. It was restored in the extended cut.

Production

Writing

Fede Álvarez 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. 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. 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." The film was officially announced that July.

Casting

Actor Shiloh Fernandez was cast in the lead male role of David. Initially Lily Collins was scheduled to play the lead female role of Mia, but dropped out in January 2012,. with Jane Levy replacing her the next month. Lou Taylor Pucci, Elizabeth Blackmore, and Jessica Lucas later joined the cast.

In November 2018, Álvarez confirmed the film's relationship to the original:

Filming

Álvarez, 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."

Release

Theatrical

TriStar Pictures released the film theatrically on April 5, 2013, in the United States, with Sony Pictures handling other markets. Fede Álvarez 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. The film has been rated uncut as an 18 by the BBFC for containing strong "bloody violence, gory horror and very strong language". StudioCanal handled the release of ''Evil Dead'' in the United Kingdom.

''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.

Home media

''Evil Dead'' was released on DVD and Blu-ray, on July 16, 2013. The Blu-ray exclusives include commentary from three of the cast, and screenwriters Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues, and 5 featurettes, while the regular DVD includes only 3 of the featurettes. The Shout! Factory will release the 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray containing both cuts of the film and an exclusive poster on September 27, 2022 under their Scream Factory sub label.

Extended cut

An "extended version" featuring an alternative ending (a deleted mid-credits scene) 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 UK on Channel 4 on January 25, 2015.

On October 10, 2018, Sony Pictures announced the release of the Unrated Cut on Blu-ray Disc in a two disc manufacture on demand combo pack with the theatrical version. It was released on October 23, 2018. The extended cut is 96 minutes compared to the 91 minute theatrical cut.

Reception

Box office

The film grossed $25.8 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office. It went on to gross $54.2 million domestically and $43.3 million internationally, for a worldwide take of $97.5 million, against its $17 million budget, making it a box office success.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 63% based on 201 reviews and an average rating of 6.16/10. The 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." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.

Evan Dickson from Bloody Disgusting reviewed the film at SXSW and went on to say, "''Evil Dead'' is amazingly gory and fun" and gave the film 4/5 stars. 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". 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." 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". 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." Matt Singer called the film "an assault on the senses" and "a success, one that out-''Evil Dead''s 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.'"

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?"

Accolades

Sequel

At the SXSW premiere, Álvarez announced that a sequel was in the works. 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''. At a WonderCon panel in March 2013, Campbell and Álvarez stated that their ultimate plan was for Álvarez'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. On October 30, 2013, co-writer Sayagues confirmed to DeadHollywood that he and Álvarez would not return for the sequel. That same month, Álvarez took to his Twitter that the rumor was not true.

In November 2018, Álvarez announced that "They're just ideas right now. Nothing to announce officially. We do have a script for ''Don't Breathe 2''. That's the only difference. We don't have a script for ''Evil Dead 2''. But we do have a script for ''Don't Breathe 2'' that we wrote." He also said that "When I tweeted that I was interested in seeing what people prefer. We were having some internal debates about what people would be interested in most. Unfortunately, ''Evil Dead 2'' won. Which, I guess I would have preferred ''Don't Breathe 2'' to win because it's one of my own creations. Obviously ''Evil Dead'' has the bigger following."

On July 10, 2019, Raimi discussed the future of the ''Evil Dead'' franchise, saying that "We'd like to make another ''Evil Dead'' feature and in fact we're working on some ideas right now." Raimi said that he would be interested in making another film with Campbell, although, Campbell earlier claimed that he has retired from the role of Ash. He also considered another option would be a sequel to the 2013 reboot, but he is unsure if Álvarez would want to make a sequel at this point because the director is a successful "artist in demand" now. By October, Raimi announced at the New York Comic Con, that a new film is in development. Bruce Campbell will serve as a producer, and will not be the star of the film due to his retirement role as Ash Williams. In June 2020, Campbell revealed that Lee Cronin was handpicked by Raimi to write and direct the film, which will be called ''Evil Dead Rise''.

''Evil Dead Rise'' is scheduled to be released theatrically on April 21, 2023. The film was originally set for a digital-only release on HBO Max.

Notes

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Evil Dead 2013
The Evil Dead (franchise) films
2010s supernatural horror films
2013 films
2013 horror films
2013 directorial debut films
Remakes of American films
American splatter films
American supernatural horror films
American dark fantasy films
Demons in film
FilmDistrict films
Films about spirit possession
Films directed by Fede Álvarez
Films produced by Sam Raimi
Films scored by Roque Baños
Films set in 1980
Films set in 1992
Films set in forests
Films set in Massachusetts
Films shot in Michigan
Films shot in New Zealand
Films with screenplays by Fede Álvarez
Films with screenplays by Rodo Sayagues
Ghost House Pictures films
Horror film remakes
TriStar Pictures films
Film censorship in Ukraine
Film controversies in Ukraine
Film controversies in the United Kingdom
2010s English-language films
2010s American films
Films about heroin addiction