The Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons

As I'm wating for the start of Evil Dead 2013 the semi sequel-remake of the original Evil Dead. Now as I stated before on these message boards that I don't care much for remakes. What sold me is that Bruce, Sam, Robert were actively invovled in the 2013 version. The lack of overt CGI effects help me decide to buy a ticket. Now I did enjoy seeing Bruce Campbell in one of the tv spots.

Discuss.

I heard you have to stay till the very end afer the credits.

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Jaws3dfan®
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Psst....check out my review of EVIL DEAD on my long-dormant blog:

http://deadstaebler.blogspot.com/2013/04/im-back-in-cabin-again.html

Warning: there might be a ten dollar word or two.

Your "ten dollar word" warning should also include a spoiler warning... but that's okay, I saw it before reading.

I enjoyed it for the gore gags, made more effective because they were mostly practical, and the climax was pretty nifty (or dare I say...groovy?).
However, the tone was way too serious to forgive the faults of the script. Too many poor, nonsensical decisions by the cabin spam ("don't worry, everything's going to be okay"... now let's leave you alone and sit in the other room...more than once!). And I am so sick and tired of movies expecting us to suspend our disbelief that nail guns can be wielded like regular guns so one may casually dispense deadly metal projectiles freely.

Little things like this can be forgiven with a more playful tone, but they decided to go for nasty and creepy. Which worked half of the time, but could have been so much better. I enjoyed the moderately surprising climactic showdown, but...


Still, I can recommend it for the gore and dismemberment, if that's your thing. And try not to watch the redband trailer if you haven't already. More than a few of the gags were spoiled in that.

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Aliens? Us?
Is this one of your Earth "jokes?"

So far Evil Dead 2013 is porjected to make 20 to 25 million dollars for this weekend. This is good news. Reason why is that Sam, Bruce, and Robert can go foward with the sequel and Army of Darkness 2/Evil Dead 4.

If you haven't read of any of the interviews that the producers didn't want Evil Dead 2013 to be a copy cat camp remake. They wanted to be more serious horror film than the original. The plan is to unite Mia and Ash in the seventh Evil Dead.

As a person who is jaded when its come to horror films of today. It is one of the few horror films on the first viewing it did scared me. The other films on the short list was Night of the Living Dead 1968, Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity 2 and 3, and YellowBrickRoad.

It is one of two horror remakes I like. The other is I.... Spit on Your Grave.

"Jeff Neff" congrats on getting the blog going again.

The Box office grosses may be good, but, the Cinemascore rating of a "C+" has got to be worrisome to the future legs of it in theaters. It sounds like the tone problems may have thrown a lot of first night attendees expecting more of the goofy adventures of an Ash-like character.

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Long Live the Orson Welles Cinemas

The original movie wasn't considered "funny" and "campy" at the time. It was thought to be one of the scariest movies ever made ("The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror"), and that's the movie they are trying to remake. The critics who are complaining about "lack of humor" seem to be thinking of Evil Dead 2. The remake isn't supposed to be a comedy. That was never the intention. They are going for pure scares, blood and gore, and I think they delivered on that level. They definitely did not water it down, that's for sure.

Uh, that's what I said.

I think there was some confusion in the public about what kind of EVIL DEAD retread they were getting. I think that EVIL DEAD II and ARMY OF DARKNESS (not to mention the whole inexplicable cult of Bruce Campbell) have superceeded the original in much the same way that the more bravura thrills of ROAD WARRIOR superceeded that of the superior MAD MAX in the public's eye (not to mention that Mel Gibson became a huge international star after the original).

I think the spectre of Bruce and II/ARMY were what a lot of folks were expecting which resulted in the poor C+ audience response. Some of it may be poor marketing, and a lot of it may be uniformed audience members.

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Long Live the Orson Welles Cinemas

I never said I was misinformed about the tone of the remake going in, so I wasn't "disappointed" that I didn't get a groovy, more comedic horror movie. I am expressing disappointment because I didn't think it worked as it was presented. The director was not a skilled enough writer to maintain the overall sense of bleakness and dread he was going for, and the story suffered from a poor sense of geography and progression of the plot.

As I said before, little things like that can be forgiven in a different context, but if a tone is established that encourages you to take it seriously, you are opening yourself up to a higher standard of criticism. The creepiness and scares would have been more effective for me in this case with a lighter overall tone.

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Aliens? Us?
Is this one of your Earth "jokes?"

I enjoyed this new one, though the second half of the movie was a bit better than the first half. But once they really got into things, it rollled along nicely.

That said, bring on another. I don't care if it stars Mia or Ash or both. I'm ready for more.

I don't really see that in your original post, but fine, whatever. Let's not argue that.

My point was, they have been very clear in the marketing about the tone they are going for. The trailers and TV ads promise a very serious, bloody, gory horror film, as do the posters. Interviews all over the internet with the director, Raimi, Campbell, the actors, they have all made it clear it's not going to be "the wacky misadventures of Ash". What else would you like them to do? You can't blame the filmmakers for the mistaken impressions of the audience. If people buy tickets not knowing what they are getting into, whose fault is that? And frankly, most of today's younger audience have never seen the Evil Dead films and don't know who Ash is anyway, nor do they care.

I'm not saying everyone has to like the film. I don't expect everyone to like the film. But certain people (and I'm referring to people outside this board) clearly don't understand what it is they're watching. I'm not really concerned with what those people think, or what the CinemaScore rating is or what the Rotten Tomatoes rating is or any other groupthink rating. I care about what's on the screen. I really enjoyed the film. The film is what I find worth talking about. The rest is not really my concern as an audience member. So if a bunch of idiots buy tickets to Movie A and expect to see Movie B, that's their problem and not ours. Most horror films have one good opening weekend anyway. So those idiots gave Evil Dead that good opening weekend. Good for Evil Dead, I say!

I think this article sums it up pretty well.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/170114-whats-so-funny-the-mis-remembering-of-the-evil-dead/ So you don't like the new Evil Dead remake because it's not funny enough? Really? What Evil Dead are you thinking about?


Although, you gotta gag at this line: "That’s because Raimi more or less invented horror comedy with Evil Dead 2 "

Uh, Bride of Frankenstein?

1935...........

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Long Live the Orson Welles Cinemas

I saw this yesterday and I was severely disappointed, I didn't like any of the characters so as they were being butchered I never felt bad for them. Sam Raimi really dropped the ball and missed the point of the original. This wasn't a remake because the story was nothing like the original, they could have called it "Spooky old cabin in the woods" or "Witchcraft Cabin" and it would have made more sense.



We pulled a double feature and went to see the new GI Joe movie immediately following Evil Dead and GI Joe was great with lots of action good story line, skip Evil Dead and go see GI Joe.

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Jaws3dfan®
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I finally got around to seeing this remake yesterday and I have to say that I was presently surprised by much I liked it. Are the characters well developed? No. And they weren't in the original, we only feel like they were since I'm guessing most people on this forum have seen it over a dozen times. It would've really helped if there had been a clearly defined protagonist (even if they killed him or her off halfway through). I think this is part of why the third act really fell apart. By this point there were 3 poorly defined protagonists and their it didn't really make sense why any of them were still there or had returned to the story. But by then I was just happy to lay back and enjoy the mayhem and carnage onscreen and not question it too much. I was pleasantly surprised by how gory the movie was and that it was actually a film unafraid to let night read as night. So often I'm watching movies and can completely tell where the condors with the 12k's are parked a block away lighting up the entire neighborhood. One incidental observation: 4k projection just ISN'T as good as a new 35mm film print and this movie proves it. The aerial shots of the car driving through the woods at the beginning had about as much digital "noise" as anything I've ever seen. Overall I'll recommend it, especially compared to most of the other recent remakes.

As for GI Joe 2... You can't pay me to watch that garbage. I made the enormous mistake of seeing the original "film" and I'll probably still be regretting the loss of those 2 hours of my life when I'm on my deathbed. It took me a week to get rid of the headache the original gave me.

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"I came here to chew bubble gum and kick a**. I'm all out of bubble gum."

SPOILERS

I do understand the confusion, but I really think that Mia is the protagonist. She just gets possessed for a large chunk of the movie and then comes back at the end. If you think about the movie as a whole though, it's kind of her story. I think they could have made that more clear and had her possessed for less of the film, but that's how I read it. The scene at the end with the chainsaw was her getting revenge for everything that's happened to her up to that point, and basically becoming the heroine of the piece that she was always meant to be. It was her "F*** YOU" moment. If you think about it, she's the reason why they are there in the first place, the infamous tree-rape happens to her, she's the first one to recognize that something evil is there, and so on. She goes from being a junkie (throwing away her life) to a survivor. The others are just along for the ride and trying to survive. I saw it as being Mia's story the whole time. That was my interpretation of it anyway..