It was last April that B-Movie Megastar Bruce Campbell shocked fans when he revealed a remake of Sam Raimi’s low budget cult classic The Evil Dead was in the works, saying:
NEWSFLASH: We are remaking Evil Dead. The script is awesome. I will be one of the producers and possibly play the milk man.
At the time Campbell offered little else about when the flick would be made, but assured, “The remake’s gonna kick ass – you have my word.” Within a few months, Evil Dead was in development with director Fede Alvarez signed on to make his feature-length debut, and controversial (but Oscar-winning) Juno scribe Diablo Cody on board to give the script a polish. Days later a Campbell cameo was confirmed, but little else on Evil Dead redux surfaced…until now.
With the approach of the American Film Market, producers have released a simple synopsis: (STYD via /Film)
Five twenty-something friends become holed up in a remote cabin where they discover a Book Of The Dead and unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the nearby woods, which possess the youngsters in succession until only one is left intact to fight for survival.
Of course, this is essentially the plot of the original, but Bloody Disgusting has unearthed some gruesome new details that give this terror tale a new twist. In Alvarez and Cody’s Evil Dead reboot, the reason these friends trek to a cabin in the woods is not for a carefree weekend of camping and sex. No, no. The reason for this batch of twenty-something’s trek to an isolated lodging is to provide a safe and supportive environment in which one character’s sister can go through withdrawal from drug abuse. Because such a process can make people pretty unhinged, he and his friends don’t immediately realize when li’l sis is no longer just a fix-craving junkie – but an undead demon!
The other noticeable diversion from the original is that here the demons are not unleashed by recklessly playing a video recording of a chant. Instead, one of these cabin mates reads aloud from the Book of the Dead, which in the original was written in an arcane text. Does this mean that one of these youngsters just so happens to speak Sumerian? Unfortunately it seems so. But you know what? One of the best aspects of the original is its go-for-broke insanity, so I’m not going to judge this reboot on this seemingly stupid detail alone. Instead, I’m going to hope that something fun, fearless and truly gross will rise. And if it doesn’t, we’ll always have the original trilogy to enjoy.
Do you share Kristy’s cautious optimism? Or do these deviations mean The Evil Dead reboot is dead to you?