DonFishies

When I initially heard about a remake to Evil Dead, I was a little disappointed. I was never a huge fan of the original film, but the sequels remain two of the most wildly entertaining films I have ever seen. With my doubts in mind, everything changed the moment I saw the first red-band trailer. And now after catching a screening of the film last week, I wonder why I doubted Fede Alvarez's re-imagining in the first place.

Five friends venture to a cabin to help Mia (Jane Levy) kick her drug habit. Things are not as they seem from the very start, but it only gets worse after Mia's claims she was attacked by a demon in the forest. Her friends just think she is adjusting badly to going cold turkey, but strange occurrences start to take place within the cabin, and it quickly becomes obvious that Mia is not quite herself.

I went in with low expectations, but Alvarez does a great job bringing the film to life. It hints at and replays certain key moments from the original series, but for the most part, Evil Dead is very much its own individual thing: a re-imagining that exists all on its own. The story is not all too important here, but it does more than enough to move the film along from beginning to end; something the horror remake genre has botched all too often. Better yet, Evil Dead never feels like it is struggling to live up to lofty comparisons, and seems very content at having fun mercilessly torturing these five young people. Fans will love seeing how Alvarez reinterprets some of the franchise's most popular scenes, but non-fans will still get a hint of glee seeing just how depraved the film quickly becomes. It may take a while to get there, but it never lets up afterwards.

The trailers and marketing elements suggest that the film is terrifying. Indeed the trailer was absolutely horrifying. But I found myself not so much scared as why I was mortified by some of the kills and ludicrous ideas inflicted on the cast. I say ideas mainly because some things that happen should result in a criminal diagnosis on everyone involved. The film is definitely not for the squeamish, and revels in the amount of blood and gore it spills at every turn. It uses the original franchise as a barometer, and then throws it out the window in favour of being more "inventive" and eclectic with its choices. The trailers may have prepared you for some of the brutality, but it only hints at the lingering after-effects. Expect to hear a lot about the vivid and fully realized makeup effects – they are so much better than you could have ever imagined, and are light-years ahead of the minuscule CGI effects employed during the film.

For how enjoyable and loving a tribute this re-imagining is to Raimi's work, there is still plenty wrong with it. Roque Baños' score, although tense throughout, is way too serious and overbearing for the film. It helps create plenty of frightening moments sprinkled generously throughout the film, but I feel like it belonged in a much different film. It never gels quite properly with the tone of the film, and feels off even in the minute sections where it does work. Much the same goes for the prologue that opens the film – a totally new invention of Alvarez and crew. It tries to set the tone for what is coming, and tries its very best to totally set itself apart from the original films (even going so far as to introduce an actual "identity" to the demons possessing the precocious young adults), but ends up feeling totally out of place. About halfway through the film, I forgot it even happened because of how little it affects what comes after. Why bother adding it in the first place?

While I take issue with a number of idiosyncrasies involving a bizarre third act twist I should have seen coming, my bigger concern is with the characterization of everyone except Mia. Their driving force is to help her get better and rid her of her drug dependency, but they seem to have no other motivations outside of that. Lou Taylor Pucci's character Eric unleashes the demons in the first place, but he never really gives any hint of why he commits this act of malice or even how he can read it so well. Elizabeth Blackmore's Natalie is a glorified stage prop, frequently disappearing for whole scenes at a time, only to reappear when the film suddenly needed her to be on hand for reaction shots. The only reason I had any idea of who this character is supposed to be was because she shows up with Fernandez at the beginning of the film. Should she have already been hanging out at the cabin, I do not think we would have been afforded that luxury.

But I digress. For what it is, and for what I can only assume most people expected, Evil Dead is a satisfying, albeit bloody mess of a movie. It does enough right, and does an admirable job being its own film – as opposed to coasting along on the tail of the original film. With a little bit more work, this could have been a significantly greater film. But whether you look at it as pieces or in the sum of its parts, it is more than worthwhile to see.

7.5/10.

I only had one thought on my mind for this Christmas: see Django Unchained. Quentin Tarantino's latest opus, a Western set two years before the Civil War, concerns a former slave named Django (Jamie Foxx). He is freed by bounty hunter Dr. King Shultz (Christoph Waltz) in order to help him with a bounty. Quite quickly, Shultz takes Django under his wing and trains him as his partner. But he made him a promise: that he would rescue his wife from a plantation owned by the ruthless Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio). And rescuing her is not going to be all that easy.

What pains me the most about Django Unchained, as a die-hard Tarantino fan, is just how sloppy it all seems. I enjoyed every minute of it, but I could never shake the feeling of how messy and thrown together it all feels. Portions of the film feel episodic (the search for the Brittle Brothers, mentioned heavily in the trailers, begins and ends practically within minutes), and some scenes just seem to play out just for the fun of it. Another scene from the trailers involving a lynch mob with bags covering their faces seems added for comedic purposes, and has no real point of actually existing. More than any of his films before it, Django feels like Tarantino simply making a movie for sheer pleasure and with no outside motivations or controllers.

The film threatens to go totally off the rails at any given moment, and lacks any real sense of direction or focus. It may sound ridiculous, but the loss of editor Sally Menke confirms a sneaking suspicion I always had about Tarantino – he needed a steady right hand to help encourage him as to what was needed and what was not. I do not want to criticize Django's editor Fred Raskin, but it is obvious he is no Menke and that works against the film heavily. It lacks the polish we have come to expect, and is practically stripped of the glossy/cool texture so prevalent in Tarantino's work up until now.

But then maybe that was his intention all along, and perhaps Tarantino is airing out his frustrations with life and film in general. Django is deliberately shot on film (or at least from the print I saw), and looks very gritty and messy at all times. It is significantly more brutally violent than anything he has worked on before (the borderline cartoonish Kill Bill included), and has a very go for broke attitude about itself. The film seems to revel in how brilliantly it can splatter all the blood and gore (done through the use of squibs and no digital!), and how uncomfortably numbing it can make the violence. I know he does not care what people think of his films, but this movie especially seems like an emphatically raised middle finger to the establishment. And for all of my complaints about how messy it all feels, I was never once bored or felt like the movie was dragging itself out. The staggering 165-minute running time shockingly flies by faster than you might ever imagine.

Acting wise, Tarantino stacks the deck with a number of recognizable character actors young and old for roles that vary in size. Most have very few lines, if any at all, and seem to just stand by, just as content as the audience is to watch the action unfold. It is a little off-putting, especially with how important some of these characters are initially made out to be. Washington as Broomhilda von Shaft (one of the most subtle references he's ever dropped) does well as the helpless victim and frequent dreamlike object – but she never really gets to show off any of her acting prowess outside of her facial reactions. They are increasingly effective, especially during horrific flashback scenes. But her work here feels ridiculously stunted in comparison to the other leads. Samuel L. Jackson, much like Tarantino himself, seems to just be having fun in his role as Candie's adviser Stephen. He plays on every ridiculous stereotype he ever has been associated with and then amps it up to a near ludicrous state. He is frequently hilarious, but the role seems to border on parody more than anything else.

Surprisingly, Foxx takes a very long time settling into the leading role. It may just be the character, but it is quite clear from the on- set that he is not very comfortable in Django's shoes, and leads credence to why Will Smith, amongst so many others, dropped out of the picture so quickly. But once he finds his footing, he does a fantastic job walking the thin line between empathetic and sadistic. It is not an easy character to play, but Foxx makes it his own, bringing a sense of style and grace that are virtually absent from the rest of the film. And of course, he gets all the best lines.

Waltz and DiCaprio are the clear standouts however, nailing every nuance of their sadly underwritten characters. While Waltz plays the straight man, DiCaprio is delightfully unhinged and vicious. Both are playing directly against type, yet are strangely comfortable in the roles. Watching them act circles around the rest of the cast, Foxx included, is the true highlight of the film. I just wish they were both given additional emphasis and more to do.

For all of its numerous faults, I had a blast watching Django Unchained. It is hilarious, it is a lot of fun, and is wildly enjoyable. I genuinely think it could have been a lot better if there was more focus and direction, but this is very clearly a picture Tarantino wanted to make on his own terms. And for that, I applaud him for the effort. It is not his best work, but certainly not his worst.

8/10.