The Evil Dead is one of my favorite movies and I am very much of the opinion that imperfect movies can be remade ‘til the cows come home but movies of a certain calibre or ones that are just well respected enough should be left to stand on their own. (I do like the Rob Zombie Halloween remake but my life would be just as full without it.)
So needless to say I was skeptical of an Evil Dead remake to begin with. The idea of making the lead a female is, to me, stupid (oooh, a slasher movie with a female protagonist, that’s never been done) and apparently she’s an alcoholic who went out to the woods to sober up or something? I don’t know, it’s not sitting well with me.
Worse than that, it was written (or co-written, I guess) by Diablo Cody. (very large, calming breath so I don’t scream) I hate Diablo Cody. I am basing that solely on Juno, since it’s the only one of her movies I’ve ever seen, but that was enough to make me despise her for life. That movie’s entire script was one long, whiny, desperate plea for people to think she’s cool (“Look, I name dropped the Melvins! I’ve heard of mildly obscure bands! Please like me!”); it may as well have been written by a fourteen year old girl who pretends to listen to punk music because the dude she has a crush on owns a Ramones shirt.
I loathe this woman and she’s been put in charge of a large aspect of the remake of a movie that I felt should not have been remade in the first place. So it started with points against it before it was even cast.
I kept telling myself I’d give it a chance but I have something a lot of other people have, which I’ve always described as “reactiveness” because I don’t know what else to call it. Basically, the more hype or promotion or even word-of-mouth-good-things I hear about a thing, the less I want to hear or see or know anything about that thing. I think humans just have a natural desire to discover stuff for themselves. (The problem is, then they want to share and that causes the people around them to get reactive and not want to be shared with.)
If I had stumbled upon a trailer for the Evil Dead remake on my own, on accident, it might be a different story. But I heard about it well before it started filming and now people all over the internet are posting and talking about the trailer (and making little GIFs of gory special effects shots; where are they even getting those?) and every time I run across one of these things it just makes me more and more angry and skeptical.
Yeah, I admit the makeup they did on New Cheryl looks pretty badass but that’s not enough. My grasp on “I’ll give it a fair chance” was already tenuous thanks to their choice in screenwriter and it slips away more and more each time I run across another post about the movie.
Also, based on the trailer, the only things they really kept from the original are the tree rape (which I’ve read Sam Raimi wishes, in retrospect, that he did not include) and Linda’s “we’re gonna get you” chant (which always annoyed me more than anything else). Things are not looking up.
I sincerely hope I can go into that theater with an open mind and a willingness to accept the Evil Dead remake for what it is. Too bad most things I hope for never actually happen.
Be seeing you.
-Sally
No comments:
Post a Comment