224: Return of the Evil Dead

Look, there comes one of them now. My name is George Kosana. I'm with Night of the Living Dead, and I'm listening to Movie Meltdown. They're dead. They're all messed up.

It's showtime. The following feature has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. Our nuclear reactor pumping out one million kilowatts of power. What's up and welcome to Movie Meltdown.

I'm Brian. I'm Phillip. I'm Christian. I'm Ben. I'm Lucy.

I'm Beau. I'm Greg. I'm Alan. And we're coming to you live via digital recording from the Dreamland Film Center. And I think it's pretty fabulous.

How about you guys? Yes, it's wonderful. We're testing things out. Hopefully, we're trying to find ourselves a new functional home base. So I like this, and I.

Like what they're trying to do here. So yeah, I think we're going to try to work with them on some upcoming projects and do our own weird stuff here as much. As we can. This time, before just rolling into the geek activities, I think this takes its place. we, it's not a geek activity because we lost a major geek. And I thought we'll probably come back to our list of dead people next year.

Like we did this time, but this one was a big deal. And I thought we should talk about Roger Ebert. I, for no other reason for me, then I don't know that this show would exist without it. Like to me, that was probably the first time in my memory that I remember seeing people really have a discussion about movies. And I, You know, I mean, there have been critics and they always kind of did their solo thing.

And even there wasn't even a ton of them on TV at that point. It was still mostly written. But that to me and maybe somebody wants to nitpick and find something. I don't care. In my mind, that was the first time I remember seeing people sit down and discuss and argue and like just go at it and really invest time. so much of their life into movies.

And that, again, that planted the seed for something that would surface years later. And I, for that reason, I'm sort of thankful to the both of them. Well, that and me growing up, just growing up out in the sticks, you know, I didn't really have access to many of these theaters. And once I got old enough where I could start driving and. I started finding just different art styles, locations that I could see these films that they talked about that was like my source to find out what film should I be seeing that we're currently out because I started to become a movie geek when I was in high school I've been one for a long time but like really wanting to branch out and that was my source material on where to branch out is growing up and watching them once a week and it almost sort of developed like this checklist as to what do I need to see and or what do I need to avoid so I mean granted you know we've talked about this before And I was having recommendations when I was going to Suncoast all the time as.

Well as school teachers. But that was like, not to. Diss the Suncoast people, but like the overarching professional recommendation as. To what I needed to see. I mean, I'm still thankful that you recommended the car to me.

And I bought that. Well, that's another thing that's kind of interesting is that they, for being on, you know, what was a big TV show at the time, they still managed to put a lot of time into little indie movies. They would do one or two of the big ones that came out that weekend, but they would devote equally as much time to movies that I bet a good portion of the cities that show was playing in, it never even played. It wouldn't play, and they still gave attention to little indie movies. So that's, for that time, almost unheard of, really.

That no one can also not acknowledge the fact that Beyond the. Valley of the Dolls. I love that movie. Is there a show in the past that has actually done Beyond the Valley of the Dolls? On our show?

No. Yeah, I didn't think there had been. We definitely need to work it in. Another recommendation. That's on my top ten and has been for years.

Just because it is so much fun. It's just so much fun from beginning to end. And I can just imagine Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert just in the room cackling with laughter as they're coming. Up with the script for it. So....

If anything, whenever you watch it, it's a shame that he didn't write more screenplays. Yeah. I think he did post on his blog. I guess it was about six months ago. I remember seeing it.

He posted his other screenplay that he wrote at the time and it was never made. It's like Who Killed Bambi or something. Yeah, it was a Sex Pistols movie. We were supposed to be in Sex Pistols in a film directed by Rod. Is that the name of it?

Russ Meyers. Yeah, who killed Bambi. That was the working title. I don't know if they were planning on changing that or not. I had no idea that was written by him.

That's really interesting. He's a hell of an interesting guy, I have to say. As the years went on, just more and more aspects of him that you're just like, man, I don't know. Especially when his personality went online. The way I grew up, I saw bits and pieces.

I grew up in the 90s, so by the time I did see. At the movies, it was kind of the period where Gene Siskel was close to the end. He was not going to be on the show for very much longer. I knew who Siskel and Ebert were. They were still part of the pop culture.

I enjoyed watching when I saw the show, but it wasn't really until when I got to high school where I started going to RogerEbert.com and reading the reviews for whatever was coming out that week. A couple years later, he started doing his journal and his blog. And then I started watching all these archived YouTube clips of all the older episodes that I hadn't seen on TV. And at the same time watching Richard Roper and, you know, all the new hosts. And you kind of got like, the way I was introduced to him, it was kind of like this explosion because the internet added this whole other side to him.

Because, I mean, I knew he was on TV, but like I always thought of him growing up before that, that he was just this TV personality. He was this popular critic. I didn't know like his writing was this good or he had such insight into movies and how much he really loved movies until like, went to his website and just like kind of got that side of it. Especially after he lost almost all of his jaw to cancer. That's where he found like.

His new voice. Yeah. I mean, like going on and reviewing films and sharing that with people. That's the thing that's amazing for him is like, I mean, he'd been a writer, but he'd been a newspaper man, like back when it was really a newspaper job. And the fact that he so late in his life, just, just, effortlessly shifted to the internet and with that I mean how many other 70 year olds are still running a blog every day and tweeting and I mean he was he was like had more of an online presence than most people you know that are a fraction.

Of his age because he wasn't limited by when he could either be published or be on television it's like he can type up anything whenever he wants. And he was brilliant not just in film but in a lot of things he was and he just had talent pouring out of his brain I think most of the time And he had an opinion about everything, which was, but I, it's funny, Ben, you were talking about how the internet, and I pictured you said, well, until then, he was just maybe a TV personality that, you know, talked about film or something like that. And you didn't really, and I was like, oh, so you mean like Gene Shalit? Not quite that bad i mean i knew he was the critic i knew i knew there was something i knew there was something i knew he was a cut above the rest like he was like you know the the go-to critic but i really didn't have that kind of you know second.

Like like oh wow this guy really is amazing until like i i just knew like i saw his writing and But yeah, he wasn't quite... He's a mustache guy. I know, yeah. I know that. I think he still does stuff once a week, maybe.

I think so. The Today Show? I think he's on the Today Show. Yeah, I think so. I just noticed at the last time I ever saw him, I've known forever, if he recommended it, I wasn't going to see it because almost every time.

Well, that sounds nervous. But still, you find that critic to where you really like your personality and movie taste sync up with them. And for me, it was either. Ebert or Peter Travers. One of the two.

Those are always the two that I disagree with. Imagine that. You know, when you hear that somebody's passed away, you have an image of them that pops in your head and it's usually a very affectionate image. And, um, I used to work in film publicity in Atlanta and part of what we would do would be setting up, um, press screenings and our, uh, The folks we did in the Southeast and then the folks, our counterparts in the Midwest office were obviously in Chicago. And this may or may not be true.

I'm choosing to believe it's true. I guess he would demand his own screenings and then would bring in a giant plate of spaghetti and eat spaghetti throughout the film. So that's just how I think of him always. Which person? Roger Ebert.

Roger Ebert? I would do that. So that's how I imagine it. He had a spaghetti show before we did. As long as he always referred to it as bisketty.

This very educated man still refers to it as bisketty. He walks into the theater, looks the usher in the eye, holding the plays like, I've earned this. I'm just thinking he sort of beat Austin to that whole thing. He sort of invented that. He's like, I'm also bringing a beer in here.

Stop me. I'm Roger Ebert. I'm Roger Ebert. He says that first. I don't know, but that is one of those that he wrote so much anyway, but then when I saw, like you were saying, how much he really found his voice when he didn't literally have one anymore, they said he had been, for 46 years, he'd been writing reviews, and they said he was writing like 200 reviews a year until this last year it's last year he's quoted and said last year I wrote the most of my career including 306 movie reviews a blog post or two a week and other assorted articles That's amazing.

Like, really, that was all he did. The most introspective, like, writing was, like, I mean, it started, I think, I don't know when he started doing his, like, great movies. Like, I don't know when exactly that started. I think he's been doing it for a long time. I think he started compiling them in the 90s.

In the 90s. But, like, I mean, those were just really reflective and just kind of went deeper into his personal taste and how movies affected him. And before that, like, when you read his really old reviews, I guess, like, from the 70s and 80s, like, when I would just look up random stuff, They just felt like, you know, very strict movie reviews, you know, and there wasn't, they were still very well written and interesting, but I felt like, you know, after reading, like, his great movie series, and then, you know, he went to the internet and started doing his blog, and especially after, like, you know, he got his cancer, like, he just went into, like, Superman mode in terms of just, you know, his writing quality, I thought, at least.

I think he just focused. Like, there wasn't anything else at that point. Yeah, the focus just intensified, I think. Yeah, yeah. I'm just amazed at how many movies he saw.

I mean, yeah, I mean, I'm sure he has access to them. That's the, that's the most important part, I think for me. But I was like, I was looking recently at the things that he's written. I was like, he's written a review on everything. And it's, that's the whole thing is dedicating so much to like modern films.

Cause I just have trouble prioritizing what's in theaters. There's always have. I mean, it's, I usually see about 200 new movies a year, but it's, In the way of what's actually in theaters, I see maybe 25 to 50. And usually then I'm mostly seeing the Oscar stuff because it's nominated and I want to have an objective opinion having seen all the films. But I don't know.

I just tend to find more time to watch older stuff. Of course, I guess you could argue that near the end of his career he had already seen a substantial amount that was older. But he still would review films. older films that he would discover, too. Or go back and re-review something that he felt like he'd. Misjudged.

Wasn't it, I think, Blade Runner that he panned first time around and went back and reappraised it? It was interesting that he would do that on occasion. Yeah, yeah, I did too. His great movie series. And he did that a couple times on some other movies.

So I was just always, I mean, he still hadn't, you know, he never really did change his stance on a lot of kind of, which I thought was kind of awesome like you know he never really i mean he didn't dislike it but he was never like a huge uh you know he never really got behind the godfather 2 or like like blue velvet like those were kind of his notorious kind of like everyone holds those movies up as a classic and he still like would remind people like i still don't think this movie's very good and i just thought that was kind of awesome like he never really caved in to popular opinion or like. Well, I know we have a lot of horror fans, and a lot of what we watch is horror. He was never big on horror.

And it's funny. But to me, it's not that he was biased against it. He was just really hard on it. It was like he wanted to hold it to that standard. And I know a lot of people in the horror scene didn't like him just because he was always kind of giving it back to you.

Well, just because I think when it comes to both horror and romance, both of them are totally focused on trying to exploit one emotion more often than tell a story. And I guess you could say the same goes for comedy. I don't know. It's just I feel like it's such an. Easy medium to just go with the cheap punches, and so often people do.

And if anything, it's like I appreciate the fact that he's trying to crucify. These individuals that are just doing that. They're just trying to exploit rather than tell a story, which is what I always kind of liked about one of his more frequently quoted films, comments on movies. It's not what a film is about, but how it is about it. I always appreciate that.

It's like, yeah, it can be a very, very cheesy premise, but if they went all out for it, why not give them props for doing just that? I mean, I always kind of appreciated that. Me doing like my. Own goofy little low budgets projects on the side. So, I mean, I always use that as a recipe, even like when he gave a good review to Jackass 2 of all things.

It's like, technically, if you look at it, they do a lot with the money they have, especially at the ending of this huge musical finale. I mean, other points in the film, it's just, let's get this animal to ram someone in the balls. But it was also strange that he was talking about how it's like the natural extension of all the early physical comedy that you had was like, you know, Keaton and Lloyd and stuff like that. And I was like, that's a really weird take for a critic to take on jackass when everybody else is just dumping on it. Yeah, that's one of the other things.

I like that he held horror to that kind of standard. And I like that he also didn't play the snobby critic role. Like there's sometimes when he would pick something totally out of the blue like that and just be like, you know what? I don't care what anybody else says. I like this movie.

I'm sticking with it. And like he would pick stuff that was just weird and things you would never expect him to like and just be totally on board. Or big, you know, Oscar caliber movies and be like, nope, don't thank you. So he didn't just play the straightforward, you know, safe critic mode. He did whatever the hell he wanted to do.

Well, he also told you why a movie did or didn't work. Yeah. You know, what was wrong with the plot, the pacing. Just a really thorough, I guess, reviewer. Yeah.

He was just smart. Yeah. And we, I mean, in our, like, people that get overlooked in the oscars special that was one that at the time really pissed me off that they did not mention siskel when he passed and i'm like that i i understand they like it's everybody in the industry in the industry but i was like i did because i still. Remember that no he wasn't but it had happened like a week before or something like that and i remember whoopi goldberg she was hosting that year and she said incidentally we had a recent loss and she just like gave a thumbs up She got everyone to do a thumbs up for him. Because I remember that during the Oscar ceremony.

It had happened less than a week before the Oscar ceremony. I remember that. Because I guess that would be... I'm trying to remember. I think that would be 2001's Oscars.

I don't know anybody that had an impact on the public consciousness of appreciating film like those two guys. The I mean, nobody, like there aren't any critics that have ever broken through to even to the point of the mainstream and to make people in the mainstream, maybe rethink big, dumb Hollywood movies and be like, Oh, maybe, maybe there is something more. Maybe I should question them a little more. And that's, I think the two of them did more in that area than anybody else ever. And I had an interesting talk with a friend talking about how it might be the day that like professional movie reviews have sort of died.

I mean, you still have people who've been doing it for a while. Like I was saying, Peter Travers earlier, A.O. Scott, you know, folks have been around for a while. But he was the first one to really set that precedent. And now, I mean, anybody who just wants to get on and get a free blogging account can ramble about movies.

We do it all the time. Yeah, exactly. But he actually, like, worked his way up through the journalistic ranks to achieve that success. And there are no names now. I mean, even like, there aren't anybody, like Rex Reed used to be a name now.

It's like, What kids are going to see now. Leonard Moulton has always kind of been a gag name. Leonard Moulton is still fun. He's still out there and he's still doing it. And he's got a good sense of humor.

I like Leonard Moulton. But again, he's not, I don't know, he doesn't have the take on it that Ebert did. He doesn't have the presence that Ebert did. No, he does the guide. And at this point, even half the guide is turned over to his staff.

So, I mean, he just does it. He doesn't focus. He seems like a movie just grader. He doesn't seem like a movie lover. He's funny.

If there's anyone who's seen more movies than Roger Ebert, it's probably Leonard Vaughn. That guy's seen everything. That just reminded me, because I saw an interesting thing on Twitter the other day. After Ebert died, someone made the comment, and it's true, this is the last time there's going to be this kind of public... outpouring of just mourning for a movie critic ever. Like, this isn't going to happen again.

I think that's true of journalism anyway. Journalism is dying and journalists will be dying. There are no more household names in journalism anymore. There haven't been for decades. A long time.

There's no names. It's all people on the internet now. And anybody can do it on the internet. So there's no focus where anybody gets to be a name. There aren't any Walter Cronkites, you know.

Right. Or Andy Rooney's either. Yeah. It's all that stuff is. Going, is falling by the wayside.

I don't know. I just thought it was sort of a big deal. and certainly in our little world here and talking about movies that yeah it's a big passing I think so I thought we would at least address it this. Week like I said I didn't spend when I found out I didn't I actually still haven't read it like any in memoriams I just popped in Beyond the Valley of Dolls and said alright let's roll with this. His one movie. We're sticking with it.

I also have to credit him. He's the whole reason that, you know, I was drawn to, who's now like my favorite director, Werner Herzog. And I also think he really, like the way he championed Herzog, like he was definitely one of his favorite filmmakers. I honestly think he had a big hand in just introducing a new generation to his movies. Like I really do think, like, you know, where you can get, like I have like the box set, like one of his box sets, and you know, even on the cover, it has this like ribbon cover that you... that's bound around it where it has a quote from Roger Ebert about Klaus Kinski and, uh, Herzog.

And just, he would constantly write about it. He always gave them these amazing reviews. He would like always make it a point whenever Herzog had a new documentary on the show to like champion it and to, you know, go back to why Herzog is this great filmmaker. And I just thought that was just really awesome. Cause I mean, I wouldn't even know, I probably wouldn't even have seen her.

I mean, I would have seen maybe grizzly man, but I wouldn't have gone any further than that if it weren't for Ebert. So That was pretty awesome. I won't take any shame at all to say, Roger Ebert, you are my superwoman. And I'll leave it at that. All right.

Well, we've set our piece for Roger. He will be missed by many, I'm sure. We will take a break here and we're going to get rid of some of these bastards because they didn't go see the. Movie this week. So we're going to cut a few of you loose and then the rest of us will be back to watch.

I was too busy cleaning up after you. I threw as much popcorn on the floor as We will be back to talk about the movie. Popcorn freshly popped and buttered. Look good? Sure, it looks good and it tastes even better.

Get some now. His name was Ash. This Halloween season, his tale is taking the stage. Come see when the wrong passages from the Book of the Dead are read. And five college kids pay the price.

Come see Evil Dead the Musical at Clayon Theater every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night until November 5th. If you are the brave sort, get your tickets for the blood rolls in which you are in danger of the carnage. Come see John Johnson's take on the Evil Dead musical and choose from multiple endings that will leave your blood curdling. Let's go. Come, get your tickets at playontheater.org and enjoy death, dismemberment, and dancing.

This is my boomstick! Your audience is advised. Groovy. Want some music for your ears? Doo-Wop Shop makes it easy to rent for any event, business meeting, or special occasion.

From PA systems to karaoke machines to just about anything that makes noise, you can rent it from the Doo-Wop Shop. In Louisville, find them either at their Highland store at 1587 Bardstown Road or in the East End at 2915 South Hurstburn Parkway. And look for them online at doo-wop-shop.com. Doo-Wop Shop. We're serious about music.

I'm Dangerous Jamie. Joining me, as always, is Sarah. And we're going to talk to you about why you should be listening to the Corpus Broadcast. Let's do that. Let's, indeed.

Why should they be listening to the Gold Press broadcast? Well, firstly, because it's awesome, obviously. Obviously. I mean, that's a given, or a given. A given, yeah.

You can expect nonsensical puns like that. Yeah. With zero context. Absolutely zero context. But also, we review horror films.

Mostly, we review horror films, I would say. Well, yeah. That's probably the bulk of what we do. Yep. We also look at new releases, top five lists.

Yep. We cover theme months. Yeah, we do some horror news. Yeah, tell us about the theme months that we've covered. We have done Horror Behind Bars.

Yeah, we did Clowntown, where we looked at clown movies. We did. We've done Trash Kings. Trash Kings, where we looked at the films of Fred Olymbray, Jim Winovski and David Ducato. Yeah, we've done a bunch of stuff.

We've got Revenge Month in the works, Trauma Month. So yeah, loads of stuff like that. Loads of stuff. So if you like horror films, you should probably listen to Godfrey's Goldcast. Absolutely.

Where. here, and we're ready to believe you. So that's not all you can get. You can also get extra super bonus content when you subscribe to the feed. Tell them about it, Sarah. Tell them.

Tell them now. We do the Gorepress Gorementry, which is basically us shamelessly ripping off Mystery Science Theatre. Yeah, basically getting drunk, chatting over the top of a film, and hopefully being quite entertaining, I think. There are two ways to find the show. You can find us over at iTunes by searching for the new Gorepress Gorecast.

Or you can go to gorepress.com and read all the great reviews, news, interviews, and everything all there alongside the podcast. So come on, subscribe to the new Gorepress Gorecast. Tune in, drop out, stay. Spooky. I'd recommend this show to anybody.

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Unlike anything you have witnessed, is born. Hi, my name is Andrew Robinson. And you are listening to Movie Meltdown. The unholy is unleashed. Get more out of life.

Go out to a movie. Out of town. Out of town. Out of the night. Out of town.

The possessed must be cleansed. There was something in the woods. What are you doing? Mia put the gun down. You are all going to die tonight.

Something evil is attached to Mia's soul. We're gonna have. To kill her. This is insane. It's three boys.

A live burial. Purification by fire. Why are you hurting me? You're not her. Evil dead.

Evil dead. In theaters friday why don't you just accept your fate and join us ashley don't you want to join the crew you'll be dead and evil too the coolest thing to do is join us your life sucks you know working at smart's gotta blow don't be just a fucking schmo and join us You'll be dead with no remorse and be hung like a horse. You can even bang. A corpse if you're giant. Imagine all the fun if to evil you succumb.

So just lay. Down that big gun and join. Our dark army of evil Kantarian demons as we conquer this land and take over each and every soul of the living. No! No!

No, I'm not! Dad saw three, then one, then two. Two was the first one I saw, but that was only because my friend's dad in grade school was this cool guy who had all these Laserdisc of horror movies, like a whole den collection of it, and he showed it to us, and I was like. Six years old. What's this shiny record?

Yeah, you only had two on Laserdisc. That wasn't my favorite movie viewing experience. It's red. I got the special edition. It's a red Laserdisc.

Yeah, I remember it was red. It had a sticker on it, Blood Red Lasers. Yeah, he had all the stuff collected. It was great. That's kind of cool.

That's one of the reasons I still have it, because I don't, well, that's not true. I just watch something on my desk. So I will technically still watch that occasionally, but mostly I kept it because it's red, and it's pretty awesome. All right, we are back, and we've cut loose a few of those suckers. So to reestablish who is on hand now.

Would you like to reintroduce yourself? Hi, I'm Brian. Hi, I'm Phillip. I'm Christian. I'm Christian.

I'm Ben. I'm Bo. That's a bye. I'm Lucy. All right, then.

You almost had me. I was going to ruin him. I can't believe Bo said that. What a horrible person he is. God.

I liked Bo up until this episode, but it just went downhill after that Ebert thing. So, this week's Out on the Town feature is Evil Dead, the year, obviously, 2013. The director, I'll try to get this right, Fede Alvarez? They plot, according to IMDb, five friends head to a remote cabin where the discovery of a Book of the Dead leads them to unwittingly summon up demons living in the nearby woods. The evil presence possesses them until only one is left to fight for survival.

Spoiler alert! I mean, I guess we saw that coming, but you might not put that directly in the plot. Okay, um... Yeah. My thoughts...

I guess if we wanted to do some sort of intro, it's based on, I mean, it was actually about a year ago we did an entire episode based on remakes, and it was just our discussion of remakes. And at that point, it sort of turned things around for me. I was at the point where everybody else and I just bitched about remakes, and I was like, we'd found so many good ones in that episode that I was kind of like, okay, maybe I'm just being like everyone else on the internet was, just kind of bitchy about it. Maybe we should stop and think about it. And I was like, the basic way to do this is to take the original idea of the movie and not do a shot for shot remake because that's boring.

And why would you do that? And not to completely do a different story because why call it a remake then, but to find some sort of middle ground and to take that original idea and then put your own spin on it and, you know, kind of stick with the basic concept, but not stray too far that it doesn't make any sense. And that would be the right way to do a remake. That was my feelings going in. You guys, I guess, can take it where you want.

If we even want to address it massively as the remake, I specifically didn't go back and rewatch the original. We were talking about that yesterday. Right. We kind of wanted it to stand on its own, this new one. So, yeah, you guys, where would you like to begin after that little breakdown there?

I think some people weren't as thrilled as others, so we'll get into it. Yeah, am I the only one that didn't like it? I thought it stood on its own and it sucked on its own, and that's all I've got. I was very disappointed in it. Hopefully you'll have more to back it up.

I mean, not just the fact that it, I mean, because, you know, it's not like I was like, this has to be as good as Evil Dead, because the first one isn't my favorite. I was actually introduced to the Evil Dead with the, you know, the 1981 version. like, pretty late. Like, I had seen Evil Dead 2, then Army of Darkness. Then a couple years later, I bought the DVD of Evil Dead and finally saw it. And, like, I admired it.

I was like, yeah, this is entertaining. This is fun. It has some really cool, gross effects in it. And the campy bad acting without, you know, trying to be good but still bad acting was fun. And I was like, yeah, this is cool.

So I heard they were remaking this one. I saw the trailer. I had my reservations. I was like, maybe they could do... They have an angle with this.

They're being very... It could be this... I can see they're not going to have a lot of humor. I'm fine with that. A lot of people want the Evil Dead 2 kind of goofiness.

I'm fine with them not having humor because the first one didn't necessarily have this outrageous sense of humor to it. It was just all... The humor was just unintentional. But this one was so. I don't know.

It was so by the book, not by the book, but just like, we have to like, here's now there's, here's the, uh, the demon in the cellar and here's where some gross thing happens. And it was just this, then this, then it just never really had a sense of purpose. Like it did not need to be made. That's kind of my general is just that it just was unnecessary. Pretty much.

It couldn't, if it were a better movie, I maybe would have... I still probably thought it would have been unnecessary, but it would still have been like I would have appreciated it. But the movie still wasn't particularly good, so it was just unnecessary and just not a movie I liked very much. See, I'm very confused by the tone, and maybe you guys... Maybe I just missed it, but I didn't understand...

I mean, I don't, I remember the first one having a sense of humor and a sense of joy to it that I felt this one didn't have. The first one, yeah, it did have, like, a sense of, like, play to it. Like, it was like, you wanted the audience to have fun. It didn't want you to be like, oh, that's fucking terrible. Like, this is so gory.

No, the sequel did. No, I just rewatched it. Well, even the first one, no, no, I think Lucy's right. Like, there really was this kind of, like, you could tell, like, they were having, like, Sam Raimi was like, oh, this is going to be, like, you know, this is going to be a real, you know, experience, like, It's going to be crazy. There's going to be an audience participate.

This is going to be this kind of fun. Horror can still be scary and intense, but it can still have this sense of uplift. And I think he was going for that uplift. He wasn't trying to beat the audience with these seriously intense... I mean, the gore was probably way more intense at the time, but at the same time, I don't think it was the same kind of violence...

Or this sense of self-seriousness that this one had. That wasn't there in the original. And I don't know. This one did have some... There were a little bit of comedic.

Especially just how outrageous it got. But overall, the tone was just... I felt it wasn't quite right. And it's not what I was expecting because knowing that Diablo Cody worked on the screenplay, it felt like that's why she was brought in, to give it this sort of self-awareness and this sort of playfulness that I just didn't think was there. It was, to me, just boring.

Yeah, that's the worst thing. What were you going to say? No, I was just bored most of the time. I just found it very boring, and I couldn't wait for it to be over. There was actually a spoiler.

We do that. Okay. Okay. The sequence where the girlfriend gets dragged down the stairs. So it shows her being pulled into the stairway and then it goes black.

And I was like, thank God we're not going to dwell on this. She'll just be dead and we can move on. And then it cuts to like in the cellar. It's like, oh, seriously? It's like we have to have, yeah.

And it's like we've seen this. I mean, and this kind of, you know, sequence can be well done where like someone's wandering around in the basement. If it's put in the right context and the direction's right and you're really, there really is suspense there, you can have, the scene where the person's holding a flashlight, looking around. And so that can be scary as hell, but it's just, it felt so boring in this movie. Like it was literally, I'm talking about like this, particularly the scene, um, where, uh, the, the brother, uh, it's like halfway through the movie, he's going down into the cellar with a flashlight and he's looking for his possessed demon sister.

And of course you're like, okay, well, you know, he doesn't see anything at first. And, you know, at some point she's going to jump out. It's just a matter of when. And, you know, in front of me, uh, like some woman had her phone out and was texting. I was like, I might actually like, I might break my rule of not having my phone out in a theater.

Like if this, if this scene doesn't get to the point, like it's just dragging. It's so boring. Like I just checked out it. I don't know. It's say I, I enjoyed the movie.

Um, I wasn't bored by it. Was it a quote unquote good movie, but no, I don't think so. But at the same time you could argue that the original one, wasn't a technically good movie, which I'm a huge fan of the original, don't get me wrong, and I tried to do the best I could to separate the two movies, which was really, really hard to do because there's so much built up about the original Evil Dead. I think, you know, did the movie have its flaws? Yes, it had tons of them, but again, so did the original one.

And I kind of think that they, you know, I think the filmmakers knew, look, we've got a lot to live up here, got a lot to live up to. If we make it a good Polished movie. Everybody's going to bitch about how, well, you know, the original one was just a bunch of kids making a movie, which is what it was. And they created something special. But if we, you know, if the same time, if we make it look like we're slacking off, we're going to have a crappy product.

But I think overall, I mean, it was just. You know, it didn't... Passable? It didn't try... Like, say I enjoyed it.

Yeah, I totally get it. And I kind of agree with people who are saying it's solid, it works, it gets the job done. I'm like, yeah, but. I totally... does, but at the same time for me, having seen this kind of movie so many times, the novelty that the original had when it came out, how that novelty overcame the many flaws of it, the polished aspect or the direction of this one does not overcome those flaws in the same way that the novelty of the original did, and that's why this doesn't work. Well, I think, you know, because especially if you're familiar with the original Evil Dead, there's nothing.

You shouldn't take that movie seriously, just like this one. I mean, it's just a splatter film with a supernatural element from beginning to end. And I think if you look at it that way, if you don't look at it to try to, you know, exceed any sort of expectation, I think it more or less works. I felt like this film was trying to be taken seriously. Or that maybe some of the actors thought this was a serious film.

I couldn't really. The. Actors did not... Yeah, that's one thing. The actors did not seem to like...

I felt like the lead felt like she was trying to make it way more... She was actually one of the better... I mean, I think Jane Levy, she was really good in the movie. But at the same time. I really liked her in it, actually.

Yeah, she. I mean, you really bought into her performance. But. And maybe it's just, I think all the actors did fine, really. It's just, I think all of the, whatever you would call bad acting, that's all pretty much the fault of a really, really underdeveloped script that literally has dialogue that's just all exposition for 30 minutes, where they're just like, I'm your sister.

Just like, oh, she's your sister. Yeah, okay. And it's just that kind of dialogue that you have to get past. And some characters just aren't given that much to say, so they just seem like, you know... people might confuse bad acting with just like, no, they just didn't say much. You know, they just were there and everyone did a good job.

Like the actors were fine. They're way like miles and miles better than the, you know, as far as acting job or ability, you know, than the original. I didn't care for the actor who played David, who is basically the character of David has replaced the character of Ash, who of course is played by Bruce Campbell, which I thought that was a good idea to kind of change it up a little bit. Cause I think that did help to separate it. The other thing, though, that I wasn't really crazy about was they tried to give you a little bit of backstory to what had happened in that area before the kids got there.

Because I think within the original, they just kind of show up. They're just there to party. There's no big super reason why they're there. And I think that in the original kind of helped move the story along a little bit because it's really not much of a story. I don't know why they felt the need that they had to address, like, why are they at this cabin?

It's like, does it matter? Like, people just go, like, this happens all the time with college. Like, they just go out to a cabin to have fun. Like, why does there need to be this dramatic... And then it's just, and the fact that the whole thing with the heroin detox is not followed through, like, it's not addressed, or, like, there's no change in her character.

Like, there's no... It just, it's totally just pushed away, and it's like, now people get possessed. All that, all the heroin thing was there for, apparently, was just to explain why they're at the cabin. It's like, well, why did you need this crazy convoluted heroin thing when you could just been like they're just up there to have some fun like if you're not gonna push if you're not gonna if you're not gonna develop it later into the film then why have that kind of they. Did kind of they did kind of touch on that earlier with how they talked how you know they had gone through it before with her and she'd given up and they needed to make sure that she didn't try to escape this time yeah.

I think that was the main thing they wanted they really really. Wanted to like address critics and i'm not one of those critics i think it's dumb if you're like why don't If you watch a horror movie and you get mad at people who make dumb decisions, then you're just not watching it for the right reason. You know what I mean? Like, why don't they just leave the cabin? Well, it's like, I think the bridge thing is enough of a, that's all you need.

Like, the fact that the bridge is out, that's, like, fine. I don't need to, a strict reason why they can't literally leave the building or the cabin itself. Like, you know, that the heroin thing apparently is there for that. Like, you know, we're not going to let you leave this cabin. I don't think you need it.

That was just trying too hard to really address those kind of critics. It was trying to reinvent the movie. They were just looking at the wrong areas of the movie in terms of reinventing it. Addressing that kind of criticism just seemed pointless to me. The heroin thing did set up the fact that she had died and been brought back to life.

It actually does fit in in a number of ways. It also explains her crazy appearance and I mean, it takes them a really long time to figure out that she's actually possessed. Like, they think it's the withdrawal symptoms for so long. Pasty and sweaty. Right.

That's my favorite part. And especially to convince her brother. Like, you know, it took him a really long time to finally admit that it wasn't just the withdrawal that, you know, being the reason that she was acting the way she was. That really is my favorite part of this version of it. Well, that's the thing.

Why do they feel the need to have this slow... possession where it's just like someone starts to act funny it's like what's wrong with me why couldn't she be instantly possessed like in the original why couldn't it be that kind of dead eye like boom you're a deep like that could have been fun you know i mean they had to have this realistic not even sam raimi dead eyes like it was the sense of like trying to be this exorcist like you know extra you know like you know last exorcism or whatever like they start to act funny and then they slowly become this possessed person and it's like that's not really evil dead that's like That's trying to be this... I don't know more of a... Not subtle, but it's going this...

Like an exorcist route. That doesn't really work. The sense of Sam Raimi's deadites was not in the movie at all. I mean, that's fine since I know it's not Sam Raimi's movie. But it just made me realize how much that aspect is crucial to an Evil Dead movie.

Because it was lacking that. And also. I mean, the fact that a lot of the movie's focus was on... It made me think to the scene in The Evil Dead 1 that really made... People think of it as this movie where you have to hide your eyes.

It was the scene where the pencil stabbing in the Achilles heel. That kind of really... I feel like this director saw that scene. The movie was really drawn to that scene. He's like, that's what my movie's going to be.

It's just a bunch of that. Like a bunch of people getting hit with nail guns. People getting beat. It's really just like, ah, with just needles. It's not going to be really about demonic possession.

It's not going to be about devils or witches. I don't care about that stuff. I care about the fucking nail in the arm and stuff. And that's just what the movie felt like to me. And I just felt like it just focused on that.

The drug aspect is actually my favorite part of this version. I think it was. Yeah, I think it was. And I think because it just gives it could have gone in an interesting direction. Like I thought it could have really.

I was like, yeah, I like that they're doing this. But the fact that it didn't pay off for me like they didn't. I don't know. I mean, maybe like maybe if there was a shot at the end where she's just. I mean, I guess you just assume she's just done with heroin forever.

I don't know how you finish that plot line. I'm pretty sure that's when you start doing heroin. I would go straight back to it. I'm like, yeah. For me, it's like if you're possessed by a demon, you don't really worry about the detox anymore.

You've got bigger problems on your hands. So for me, that wasn't even an issue that it went away. To me, there was a much bigger issue that came about. But what I thought was like, kind of amazing the way they put it in there was the fact that it gave them this way to make the plot escalate and to make everything get worse and worse and worse without actually going what the hell's going on like you didn't have to ask that question of is this supernatural because it like the horrible things that go on during drug use and detox and all of this are so evil in and of themselves that like that is the evil. And they're buying into all of that, that they're like, okay, she really looks this bad because of that.

She's throwing herself into walls because of that. She's saying these things because she's coming off the drugs. And like, it lets it escalate well into the movie where normally you'd have to have this stupid conversation of like, why is she doing this? And it doesn't force you to do that. It lets it slowly sort of escalate to the point where, okay, now she's so far gone.

She is, yeah, I mean, There's nothing you can do at that point. She's already killing people by the time they realize, oh wait, she's not on drugs anymore. That was my favorite part, was the fact that it just sort of let it progress that way. That you didn't have to play that horror movie, something's going on thing. And I know a lot of my critics, most of my problems with it have been because just me comparing it to the original, but... as a movie on its own, like it, like I said, it does like work.

It's bad. It's definitely better than like most of the really, really bad horror remakes that we've had in the last couple of years. That's, that's for sure. But decade or more, it just, it just never really like, I thought that it was going to have this like really amazing, crazy, just bat shit. Like we were going to see some really wild, like demonic monsters or something was going to happen in the final act.

That's kind of the sense I was like hoping for. Like, this movie was going to go into places you wouldn't expect. And it never really went to that next level. Like, you know, the final scene where like the, the, the demon person is summoned up from under the ground, like, Oh shit, here's going to be this crazy, like, you know, Mott skeleton or some kind of crazy, like demonic thing that's going to attack her. And, you know, it's going to get really scary or really, you know, nuts, but, It was just this, I thought like, is that just one of the possessed friends?

Who is, it just looked like a person like came out of the ground. It was just like an Amazon. It was just like, yeah, it was like, it was like something out of the ring. I was like, that was kind of underwhelming. I was like, okay.

And the blood rain was cool. Like I liked that a lot, but it just, at that point it became clear to me, like by the end, I was like, this movie is not about demonic possession. It's about closeups of people like having their arms and hands torn off and stuff, which was only a small kind of really when you think about it, that was only a small aspect of the original films. I mean, that is a lot of this movie. It does become sort of a focus is each person kind of gets the most gruesome way to go out.

But isn't that horror movies? Like, isn't that what almost all of them have become at this point? Is like, what new way can we find to kill somebody? A better two-word title for this movie instead of Evil Dead would just have been self-mutilation. I mean, it's more accurate.

The people who get possessed aren't really dead, so it's not like they're zombies. So that's not even... But that's true of the original. I don't know. I mean, it's...

Just the focus was, for me as a person, it just felt like the focus was on all the wrong things, I guess, is the best way for me to sum. Well, I kind of think, too, because if we're talking about the remake, because of the cult that has built up around these movies, if the original version of Evil Dead came out today exactly as how it was made in the early 80s, I think the majority of the people sitting at this table, myself. Included, probably would be like, what is this piece of shit? Exactly. Well, of course.

Yeah. So, you know, for my, for, for just dumb mindless entertainment, you know, I, I enjoyed the movie. I, yeah. But you could say the same thing about any like old classic movie that, you know, you know what I mean? Cause, cause it's the time, you know, with the, just the technology and the, what movies have been made up until that point, you know, um, also the reason you if we were to see the original evil dead now we would think it'd be all because we'd be like we've seen this before right when that came out it hadn't been done before so it's a lot of it a lot of you know you have to give credit to the you know a movie that breaks ground you know does something new and you know the first evil dead was really audacious in terms of just how visceral and crazy it was for a whole like most horror movies just really i mean they didn't dare to just have that straight up kind of just visceral violence like that kind of in your face right sensibility up until that point and that's why it was so awesome but i mean yeah i mean as i guess yeah and this movie is it does is a good kind of like b movie gore fest you know that for that it is definitely a quote-unquote gore fest for sure.

But it is it just wasn't it it. I say this like I'm this rabid Evil Dead fan. People are like, does it earn the title of Evil Dead? But if I had to say so, it doesn't quite... It just wasn't quite an Evil Dead movie.

It was more of the self-mutilation kind of torture. It wasn't quite torture porn. It wasn't on that level, which I hate. It didn't go there, but it teased with that too much. I like what it...

Did? It's one of those I think it does kind of work as the Gorefest thing, and as new remakes go, it's definitely more solid than most of the other things that have come out that are just bad knockoff versions using the title of the previous ones. But I think it doesn't do what that first one did. I think when I saw the first Evil Dead, I was not prepared for it. And I think that's why I still... hold that one in a whole different area than the other two.

The other two are silly and, and I like them a lot, but they're not the same thing. Like the first evil dead to me is actually legitimately creepy. Like it is, it's scary in a way that I hadn't seen at that point. And it does things that I, I don't know. It was one of those things that I will still to this day list that at the top of my horror movie list and not for schlockiness and not for, you know, fun silliness. just for being creepy, for it legitimately being creepy.

Yeah, something about when the budget's lower and just kind of a crappy camera or whatever that films the woods, you feel more like you're in the woods in those kinds of movies than a higher production movie like this. You don't get a sense of you really being lost in the woods like you do with, say, the original Evil Dead or the Blair Witch Project. And that sense of atmosphere goes a long way. The original really did have that kind of... cold sense of like just cold atmosphere that you're just out in these dark woods by yourself and that was another thing about the original evil dead that really worked that i didn't really i just now kind of thought up but just the sense of darkness like no one really went out in the woods at night in this one they kind of stayed in the cabin i just felt like i haven't seen the original in a while i didn't watch it but uh before i saw this one but i felt like there were more I think there were more scenes where they were just wandering out in the woods in the original.

That was really scary. And in the second. At night. Not during the day. There were a lot of, like, wood scenes during the day in this one.

Like, where there's a bunch of fog and stuff. But as far as, like, night wood scenes where you just can't see shit, you know? Like, it's, like, realistic. Like, there's no moonlight. That's just scary.

That's true. There isn't. And I did think that. That for something that built itself so much on the evil in the woods, we get the very... Like, that's sort of her initial thing is, like, that she sort of gets... attacked in the woods, which they recreate that scene.

But other than that, they really don't go back out in there. They go to the woodshed and that's about it. It's like right in front of the cabin as far as they go after that. So they really do kind of lose that lost in the woods and the woods itself is evil and that the presence in the woods is part of what the evil is and what is attacking them and what is destroying them as it goes on. You really don't get that sense in this one.

But. I think there's still a lot of stuff that it does relatively well. And I think it also introduces things. Like, again, I think the drug thing is a new aspect that kind of needed to be there. The other one is I like that at one point they question the evil as a virus.

So in a world where we are nothing but overrun with outbreak movies and zombie movies where everything is sort of put in that context now, it's like, it almost seems rational for a second. You're like, well, wait, okay. There was blood here. Like you actually do start doing the math and going, is that plausible? Hold on.

So, I mean, it's not, but it. Is kind of interesting. Yeah. Like this one was kind of like, it was like the sense the evil was more in like a medical sense. Like it was this virus that was spread around the cabin and like they all caught it.

Like in the original, it was kind of like the book was this, was the heart of evil. Like you had to destroy the book to destroy everything. And, This one, it wasn't so much the case, but that was kind of interesting because it just felt more like evil was a disease that everyone caught. Like she got bit in the hand. It really did sort of follow that.

I like that that was interesting. That was a new way to kind of do that. I have a plot question because I didn't fully understand the five souls, and I'm not awesome at math, but I can count to five. Okay. The dog.

Well, yes, but. The dog, David. That was my. I thought about the dog. Okay, sorry.

I won't interrupt you. The registered nurse, Eric, and then David's girlfriend. So that makes five. I wasn't even counting the dog. Good question.

So that's what I thought when I walked out. I was like, well, there was the dog. But then all of the other ones come back. Why wasn't there like an evil dog that came back? Yeah, I did question that too.

It's where did he go? Because you see, we've just given away a lot of the movie right now. They should have already seen it. It's their own fault. He doesn't have as much fun with the dog.

He's like, ah, this is lame. You see the dog dying. And then that's it. He's never resurrected. I think David may have buried him, or at least they alluded to that, or something.

See, I wasn't even counting the dog. And David kills himself. Well, not that I don't think dogs have souls, because I do. They all go to heaven. That's right.

But I wasn't even counting that. I was counting her as the last body, because she dies. But then she doesn't. He brings her back to life. It doesn't mean she didn't die.

But she still has her soul. She can talk still. He doesn't have her soul. Does she? Does she?

But I don't understand. I mean, David killed himself. Right. So why? I mean, just if anybody in the world dies, five people, then I get to come back up?

It just didn't make sense to me. I thought it was silly. I'm trying to remember. I think he, because he was attacked at the end of the movie, basically. Yeah.

And, I mean, yeah, it's a bit of a stretch because, you know, you would have had to assume that he was, at some point, he was dying with all the, you know, the nails that were in him. What else happened to that poor bastard? Got stabbed in the neck. Everybody in that movie, you know, except for the nurse, she was the only one who had a pretty clean death. Yeah, and I didn't understand.

Her death was horrible. Her death was horrible. Sort of quick. But, you know, you've got people chopping their arms off with, you know, the electric carver. You know, you've got all this stuff going on.

I gave her a sedative, so she should be up for a couple of hours. We should have left when Mia wanted to. Baby, please. Okay, let's not lose our heads. Okay?

With any luck, it'll stop raining in a couple of hours. And we'll be able to cross the creek in the morning and we'll take her to a hospital. Mia? Mia? Mia?

Mia, put the gun down. Mia? Mia, put the gun down. Put the gun down, please. I'll die!

You are all going to die tonight. I don't know. I felt like the movie was trying so hard to be serious, but then when it was shitty, it would just be like, well, this is campy. We're evil dead. Yeah, it tried to go the campy route in random scenes, and it didn't really get laughs.

Scenes like these one-liners, I was supposed to have laughs. Where Mia gets possessed and she says some pretty crazy shit. I thought it was funny. I laughed, but at the same time it was kind of out of place with the tone of everything before it. I thought the funniest shot in the movie, and I think it was supposed to be funny.

No, the funniest shot that nobody in the theater laughed at at all. I mean, I chuckled a little. he's trying to, David's trying to leave. He gets to the bridge. It's washed out. And clearly right there in the foreground is that sign that says danger, high water.

And to me, I thought it was brilliant, but I think it just kind of passed over. That is really funny. I didn't, I didn't catch that. If I had to catch, I would have, yeah, that would have been good. I would have laughed.

And yeah, there was just, yeah, I felt the same way too. Like I was laughing at the parts that no one, like it was just little stuff. Like, It's just the fact that they kept using duct tape. By the third time, they kept using duct tape. That made me laugh, too.

That made me laugh. I do that. I tape myself back together all the damn time. Here's what it was. He was like, here, hold this.

He has this gaping wound in his chest, probably in his aorta. He's like, here, hold this. It was just funny that he kept making him do it. His first command before asking for anything else, he's trying to stop the wind. He's like, give this man some sugar.

It's like, what? Did anyone else catch that? He needs water. He needs water and sugar. Yeah, I was wondering.

He said, like, get him some sugar. I'm just like, okay. Because he's obviously part hummingbird. But that's all I can think of is hummingbird food. But yeah.

Yeah, like at the end where the demon's coming after her and she goes into the shed and she has to fill up the chainsaw with the gasoline. And the demon, I guess, is just waiting in the tunnel for. Her to get done filling it. And it's just like those moments are so lazy. It was just like, really?

I don't know. Well, the demon was going to give her a sporting chance. It's like, come on. Okay, she's going for the chainsaw. Let's see what she does.

There were a couple of things I thought were... a bit obvious. Like they had the trap door in the, uh, in the shed that led to the tunnel where, you know, they find the dog. Which again, why would that really be there? Right. Exactly.

Yeah. I didn't understand why we just, we get that it's there, but yeah, but I don't know. I think that's, it's one of those things you're going in and you already kind of know those key moments that they almost have to work in or people are going to complain. Um, But at the same time, the one thing I'll give them credit for is they don't do it by the book. They find a way to hit those moments, but do it kind of differently.

They change it up just enough that you're like, okay, well, that's not what I thought was coming, and then they'll still find a way to do it. That's more credit than I expected going in with a remake like this. I just don't think... It seems like the only time you should ever remake a film is if it's a good film that has plot points that don't work that you can correct. And I feel like they, instead of doing that, just made more complicated plot points that didn't work.

I mean, the actual mythology of the thing didn't work in its own universe. I just didn't see the point. Yeah. Done. I definitely agree.

I don't think this was a movie that needed to be remade. But given the source material and, again, the way it's been built up over the years, I think they did a decent job at it. I think they did as best that they could do, but it's one of those... There's so much apologizing for this movie. Really, I felt bad for the guy because I think visually it looks good and they did great special effects, but think how much the deck is stacked against you going into this.

Not only are there three movies that are huge, just in three movies they built a franchise that is as big as damn near any franchise out there. And on top of that, then you get that fan expectations going in. So you've got that stacked against you. Then you've got, like, the fact that the movies themselves change within the trilogy. Like, they become an out-and-out comedy as they go on.

So now you're like, okay, wait, do I stick with this? Or do I have to do the comedy or are they going to get mad? And then on top of that, they make a musical out of your fucking story that, like... is now equally as popular and touring the country that they're singing songs about it and they're throwing blood all over the audience and it's all a joke. And then, as if that all wasn't enough, in the last couple of years, they make a movie that the entire point is to completely just dissect and take apart the basics of this story. That everything is supposed to be decoded by this movie that sets everything up almost exactly as the movie you now have to make.

That guy was screwed going in. I'm just like, how could you make... What do you do with that story after all of that has come before you other than don't make this movie? Yeah, I think if I were a screenwriter or director and were handed this assignment, I would probably have a nervous breakdown. Yeah.

I mean, there's so much to live up to there. And again, just the fact that they just did Cabin in the Woods and the entire purpose of that is setting up this same scenario and then... taking a very specific look at it, really trying to break it down. And now you're not supposed to do that. You're just supposed to go, and then it gets scary. I mean, you can't take that because they already did that.

So you can't, all you have to do is be sort of earnest about it and go, well, she's possessed. Like, I don't know. Like I just give him credit for the fact that he makes it kind of work as best as he could. It's not great, but it's pretty solid for what it is to me. And if we're going into the gore fest and, They tried to be completely CG-free.

I appreciated that possibly more than anything in the movie. Well, okay, here's the thing. I do appreciate that as well. I was very impressed with how everything was practical. But I think there is a little bit of over-appraisal in this whole it's CGI-free because there's plenty of horror movies out right now that not all horror movies are strictly using CGI blood.

I remember the real shitty Texas Chainsaw remake that came out. That didn't have any CGI stuff in it. Neither did the sequel... Or the remake of Hills Have Eyes. It's not like it's this new thing that they're using real blood.

So I didn't know why they were saying this movie was so great for that. I mean, a lot of the smaller budget stuff, they build themselves on that. Well, no, not even that. A lot of the guys at conventions, everybody in that area hates CGI. So the really indie directors...

Are using real blood. In practical effects. I feel like when I was reading all the reviews, they were like, oh, practical, it's crazy. I was thinking, okay, if you're that impressed by practical effects, this movie must be dead alive gore. It must be this showy, operatic.

Just like bloodbath but it wasn't really that it was moments i feel like it was maybe i mean it wasn't it didn't it wasn't cartoony enough for me to be like fun dead alive gory it was. More she vomited on the nurse was. That was the one moment that was actually the one moment where i was like okay i saw because i saw that in the trailer i was like oh wow this could be pretty crazy and then it turned out to be just the kind of grimy kind of self-mutilation kind of deal Which. I kind of like just because, again, the way that the evil was, it was using them against themselves. It didn't even have to do the work half the time.

But the chainsaw through the mouth was awesome, I'll say that. I mean, that was crazy. That was a great finale. Again, I like the nurse thing. I think it's horrible, but it's one of those that that effect was good and just the setup of her. sitting there doing that to herself as he comes over is kind of creepy it was one of the more creepy moments in the movie.

Yeah and what made that also that shot of the chainsaw through the mouth like bet like way better than what they like they how they would have done it say in the like i keep saying that takes a chance on remake but that's the only you know any of the horror remakes that maybe would have done that also it's like they made it a wide shot like they took it to its most extreme so you saw like The body just flailing back and forth. You weren't missing anything. You saw the profile view. The literal, this chainsaw is going through this body. It just felt kind of humorous the way they did that.

I liked the way that Fede shot that. Particularly gorse the first couple seconds of that shot i was like what the hell just happened and then then it kind of sinks in and you're like wow you know wow that's it was it was an awesome kill don't see very often. It might i mean i it still might i mean it could be the you know the best kill for 2013 i would definitely i would put it on my list it was pretty crazy Well, I think. Again, I think just the way that he does the gore is pretty good. But even just the way that it looks, like it's a very specific thing.

Like you couldn't get more wood grain in a movie. Right. It is just wood on wood. Like it is almost like perverse how much they invest them. in the wood and the fact that they're in this cabin and everything, like just the way that it's, everything looked about it was, I mean, like it's not by accident. Like he went out of his way to give it this very specific look.

And I think it, it works because it's, it's almost obvious that it's, it's made to look that way. I will say it did seem like there were a lot more rooms. The cabin was definitely bigger on the inside than it was on the exterior. The old one was like that too. The old one definitely had all these back rooms.

I was like, what? It seems like when you go look at that cabin, it should just be that one room that they walked through. That's it. Which is kind of the fun of it. Yeah, exactly.

The fact that, especially once you get into the cabin in the woods, that it really goes all. A lot of haunted house movies are like that too. I think that's just a thing. And they also kind of put in a couple places, you know, props in the background that were like a nod to the original series, which normally I kind of think is kind of, kind of silly, kind of cheesy, but they're subtle. I like, but they were, they were pretty subtle.

And there were a few, there were a couple of. Times where they'd show the same thing four or five times and finally be like, Oh yeah, yeah, that was so I did like that. But it also works in that, you mentioned there is a mythology to it, and it almost uses that to its advantage when setting things up. You know something's coming. Because you have so much built into this history with the series that when you see the shotgun sitting there, you're like, well, there you go.

You already have things going through your mind. Shotgun, chainsaw. Shotgun, chainsaw. You've already got all of this. But even like some of the other stuff, just like as it goes along, it's got such a mythology built into this series that in one way I think you're right that it doesn't do it the same deadite way it did the first time.

But it does it in a way that, again, for me almost delivers in a way that's different. And maybe he is taking it in a different direction and maybe obviously they're setting it up to do another one. And it did pretty well this weekend, so they're probably going to get greenlit to do another one. So I would be interested to see if he continues and does his own thing in another movie, assuming they give it to him again. Or, I don't know, if it just becomes another hacky series and just gets a bad sequel.

I mean, they definitely really are. I mean, from the ending, it just seemed just perfectly clear to me. They're making her into the new Ash. I mean, they severed her hand. They had the close-up like, okay, she has the chainsaw.

She doesn't have a hand anymore. Evil Dead 2, she's going to be like the new Ash, and that was pretty cool. So despite my disappointment in this one, I am kind of excited to see where they take that. It's kind of funny because I was thinking the same thing. I was like, okay, so yeah, I wasn't too crazy about this one, but I did think that was really cool that they made her the new Ash.

So it'll be interesting. Which I thought that's what they were doing when they started setting up the cast. I thought they were just recasting Ash from the beginning. Right. Changing him to female, making it a very different setup so they didn't have to follow the old plot very closely.

But they kind of just switched it up on you. That David's the Ash through most of the movie and then she comes back and becomes Ash. She was, honestly, she was the character I least expected to survive the movie. Even at the end where it looks like, well, maybe, you know. And for a second there, I thought, okay, this is going to get silly because there's no chance of her coming back.

But I do feel like in the confines of what they were doing, they did make that work. They made it, I don't want to say believable, but somewhat plausible. They set it up plot-wise. They were like, just don't ever leave me. And they really did.

If they hadn't put that in there, it might have seemed random. But it's like, once again, no, this was all orchestrated. It's very obvious he's got to do that to make this kind of work. And then to have her take, you know, to balance out the big finale there. So it kind of had to end that way.

Listen, you've got to get out of those clothes. You have to get me out of here. Yeah, look, nobody said this was going to be easy. You don't understand. There was something in the woods, David.

David. I don't know and i'm just so impressed with her like i again it's i don't watch much sitcom wise but i've bothered to start watching that because she's so good on her cheesy sitcom and it's pretty good actually as sitcoms go but um what the hell is the name of that thing suburgatory yeah suburgatory and um i mean she's she kind of makes it like I think that's the only reason it works. Everybody else on the show, even the dad, they're all decent, but I think it would just be sort of run-of-the-mill, and she sort of elevates that. But again, that's a very sitcom world. So when she got cast in this, I was like, what the hell are they doing?

I like her, but that seems like miscasting. I totally buy her in the beginning as the messed-up drug girl. I like her as the sort of medium-level shit's going wrong, and I'm going to screw everybody over just to get out of here. And by the time she's evil, she is creepy as hell. She, again, as the rest of the cast, you can kind of take them or leave them, but she kind of proved herself for me.

I think she's really good in this. What I liked about her performance was she was creepy with minimal makeup. I mean, yeah, they made her dirty. They darked out her teeth, put contacts in her. But her performance still came through as she was just terrifying.

You know, she was... Just something you wouldn't want to run into, basically. Which is how that first one was. That was one of the creepiest things in that first movie was the whole cellar setup and her being trapped there and still talking to them. That's what made that so creepy, I think.

The closest thing they get to this, I guess, is her performance. I think that's probably the best they get as far as being as creepy as they tried to do the first time around. I agree. I liked her performance. I'm trying to say something nice about every movie now, and I really liked her performance a lot.

The scene where she's telling her brother and she's sitting on the bottom of the bunk bed, I mean, she's scary as hell in that. I didn't really care about the Diablo Cody girl power gender reversal thing at the end. It kind of made me roll my eyes. But if anybody is going to survive this cast and be in the next film, I am glad it's her because she actually could act. Yeah, that's kind of why I was hoping that plan would work of his.

Mostly because that means she'll come back. I don't think Diablo Cody... I don't think she wrote the... I think she just punched up. I don't think she had the decision to go in this direction with how the female...

Yeah, I would have been literal. Yeah, yeah. Maybe that's what attracted her. In a way, at first I thought I didn't sense very much Diablo Cody in the movie. But now thinking about it, maybe...

Like, maybe that line, like, I can maybe... It kind of makes sense, because I saw Jennifer's Body, and it was bad, but... I loved that movie. It was interesting. I wanted to hate it.

That was one of those movies I was like, oh, my God, I'm going to hate this. I'm going to enjoy hating it. I was like, no, this. Is actually really good. I might have to watch it again.

But after thinking about it, I was like, yeah, you know, I can see, like, the same person did Jennifer's Body. Like, I can see her... I can kind of see her... her presence shining through moments in this movie. It did have a little bit of Diablo Cody. I can't really say how, but I kind of feel it now, the more I think about it.

I didn't even realize that she had anything to do with it, and knowing that now, I still don't, I didn't really pick up on that a whole lot. It doesn't feel like her. Stuff, most of it. I guess the lead actor was on The United States of Terror, so I don't know if, she brought him in or he, I don't know what the situation is, but that seemed unlikely casting too. He was so bad.

I mean, he really, he's. Just too weak to carry that movie. And he becomes the main character through most of it. And I wish I get more, you know, hearing it to, you know, this, guy with the chiseled chin and. I really wasn't again that i was keeping pretty separate i was trying to keep because you can't be bruce campbell you just can't you know so it's like i was trying to look at it very separate and almost more of like the way that they do movies now with all the other horror remakes and like i'm like no he's he's still just not really a strong enough character to carry this.

Movie i don't think he was bad i just think his performance was really really uneven yeah because the times where he seemed To show compassion towards his sister, I thought he did great. But when he had these moments where he had to stand up and take charge, he just kind of fell flat. See, that's the thing. I didn't dislike him overall. I think maybe in other stuff he might be okay.

I just didn't think he carried this. Again, when you've got none of them there, I really could have carried the whole group. Yeah, that's a weird group of people. Yeah. The girlfriend was a waste of space.

She really was. Totally. I kind of. I don't know. I felt like that was actually an acting choice that she made because she was so terrible at the beginning and then she was actually really kind of great once she got to like ham it up and then I was like, oh, she knew she was in a campy horror film and she was going to be the disposable blonde girlfriend and then...

I didn't hate her also. You remember too. She was kidding. She was. Yeah.

I think she might have had the best line in the movie where she just turns around, her arms fall out. She's like, I feel much better now. That was so great. But yeah, I definitely, yeah, the brother, I wish, I wish they kept him as a weaker, like maybe a more realistic, like, you know, if this, if they just made him a weaker character who would have buckled under all this pressure because he's already dealing with all this whole baggage with you know his sister and her heroine and like their mom and like he probably in real life that kind of guy he probably would just kind of he'd be like i can't handle this shit i can't be the one who i can't immediately be the jock who has to take charge in these moments like that I wish they kind of cut out that kind of sense of the character and maybe given it to the other guy with the beard or something because he was really good.

I at least bought that guy. That guy was awesome. He seemed right at home in that role. But I like how he opens the book and it says right on there, leave this book alone. He's like, eh, anyway.

Nope. I think I will not. Because we need to have a movie. And I did like that he finally owned up to the fact that, hey guys, I screwed this. Up for everybody.

Yeah, it wasn't the same where they're like, did you read from the book? He's like, no. He just went to them and was like, look, I read this book. And even then, with everything that was going on, and he was like, this is my fault. I read from this book.

They're all just. Kind of like, no. I don't think that's it. It wasn't that I outright hated the movie. It was just that I was bored a lot.

Is it because you'd seen it before in other movies? I think so. I think that's what it was. And I was just like, okay, it was a gore fest, but even that just seemed boring to me. And I was just like, okay, what does that say about me as a person and the kind of things that I like to watch?

Because I don't feel like I watch a lot of gory movies, but I think it's just so expected. I wasn't surprised by anything. And, you know, I didn't watch, you know, the first Evil Dead, you know, before going into it because I did want to, you know, come at it from, you know, just like its own thing and I didn't want to compare it too much. But I don't know. I just, I was just bored, you know, and I was just waiting for something good to happen and it just never did.

Like I said, I didn't outright hate it. I just didn't necessarily like it. So in a way that's almost playing into exactly the reason that these keep getting made though. Just the idea of, of I've seen this before is all they're waiting for is the new batch of kids who haven't seen it and aren't going to know the difference. And obviously it worked cause it made a hell of a lot of money.

Which for those group of people seeing, uh, some guy at the end of credits, look at them and say groovy. They'll be like, who the fuck was that about? Can you imagine how weird that will be for like people who see that and have no idea like who Ash or what the, They just go into this thing and it's a horror movie and that just shows up at the end. I think that's funny just because they have no idea what that's about. I love Burn Notice.

Oh, I do too. I have to say, if I was a 19, 20-year-old kid, had never seen the original Evil Dead, and this came out, and I'd gone to see it and then found out about it, it would at least make me search out the original. Yeah, that's good. I think it's good. Enough to do that.

I don't know. I was sitting in front of these people that were discussing these 19-year-old kids that I assume hadn't seen the original, and the girl turned to her boyfriend, and she's like, this really sucks. And he was like, yeah. So I just didn't think it was a good movie. Like, completely divorced from the original.

I just didn't think that it had any merit on its own. There were plot holes. It was tedious. I just didn't... There was nothing enjoyable about it for me.

But to be fair, I'm not a gore person, so maybe if that was my bag, I'd be all about this. I don't know. I just don't think it's that weak, really. I don't think it's great. I don't think it's perfect by any means.

But it definitely, compared to a lot of other bad mainstream studio-backed horror movies, it's pretty solid. Oh, this is such a depressing metric. I don't want that to be what. This is about. But that's what you have to go.

Compared to all the other shit out there, it's not terrible. If you watch a lot of movies, that's the math you have to do, really. I argue that it was a lot better than the Friday the 13th remake. That's not saying too much. Again, the original Friday the 13th 2, not really that good of a movie either, but it has a cult built up around it.

Same thing with the Nightmare on Elm Street. I have huge problems with that remake. They missed the point Of not just that movie they're remaking, but horror in general. They kind of missed the point. I mean, it can go really bad when they try to do this.

I think these movies, to be well-made, they can only be directed by the person who thought up the concept. Not Friday the 13th needs to be directed by the guy who just thought up the idea of this guy in a sweater who kills you. Because he thought it up. It can't be an imitation of that. Otherwise, it'll just be like this... this music video imitation thing that's never going to be you know i mean like i think this fede alvarez really did he was passionate about what he was doing like i do think he would try really hard and he was trying to make his own stamp on it but at the same time because he's not sam raimi he didn't come up with this wacky well i mean it was wacky in the original it wasn't wacky in this one but like this idea of like this book possessing these people in a cabin and he couldn't be as imaginative with it, no matter how hard he tried.

I don't think he could reach that level. Are you thinking that you can't do that with a movie in general? Like, you just can't remake it? I think there are exceptions. There's always exceptions.

Because that's what I'm like. No, I mean, like. You can think of so many where they kind of do that. 99% of the time, that's the reason, I think. But, like, you know, with something like The Fly, where the original is just a bad movie, or The Thing, where it's just so hokey.

I mean, if you totally take your own imagination to it, and you just... and it's, you know, I feel like if he really wanted to have this version stand out, it had to be way more different from the original than it was. Yeah. It's not different enough to make it. Yeah, exactly. I mean, separate.

Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't revolutionize things the way that evil that did in my mind, like it really did sort of change the game when it came along the original movie, the evil that this one just seems like another one of those horror movies. And that, It's watchable, it's fun, it's decent for what it is, but it doesn't change the game like The Evil Dead did. I think he's reasonably impressive as a director.

I don't think he ever needs to write another screenplay as long as he lives. I mean, it just wasn't a good story. And if you bring in an Oscar-winning screenwriter to punch it up and it still sucks. This bad, you're... But he also had never done a feature before.

He had done a couple of shorts, and the shorts looked pretty good. Yeah, the new. Director, this is his first feature film. So, I mean, really, to go into this much pressure and have this much budget thrown at you when you've done some, you know, CG-filled robot movie, which was pretty good, actually, for a short. But, again, it's like you can– it was like four or five minutes long, you know, versus trying to do an entire feature film.

It's– I think, you know, going into it from nothing– He's pretty impressive. Again, visually, I think he's got style. I think that was a good idea, too, because the original was made by a total amateur. And I don't mean that in a bad way. In the best way, really.

Right. Because he had to invent things to get the shots he wanted. And I don't think that was quite the case with the new guy, but I still think some of that spirit was... was almost there. And I think it was a good idea to go with a first time, you know, feature director. And at least, I don't know, because yeah, if you go with somebody very established, they're going to bring an already preconceived thing that exists in their other movies where this does kind of give you, he can kind of do whatever he wants from this point on.

And again, I think he could have differed it quite a bit. He could have changed things up even more, but for what it is, it's still, I think it's still pretty enjoyable for, for this type of movie. Well, there were a couple of scenes where if you'd seen the original, you're like, okay, I know what's going to happen now. And it did happen. And then there were a couple of times where it altered slightly, but eventually made its way back to that, for better or worse.

I was surprised they kept the tree thing with her. I was really surprised by that. I mean, that was pretty... I was pushing the envelope in the 80s when you could do whatever you wanted, and this one keeps it in there, and Maybe makes it a little more. Horrifying, actually.

That was pretty intense to see. And I kept thinking, okay, surely they're not going to show the tree raping this girl. And then, sure enough, I'm like, all the way up to the last second, I was like, no, they're going to cut away. But it was probably a little bit more intense. Yeah, I think it was.

And it also, like, it. It isn't just it killing her in horrible ways. It is the evil. It takes it kind of to the next level where it really is like that is the evil possessing her in the most horrible way possible. Gross or perverse or whatever.

I mean, I think what made this version more disturbing than the original was that the tree was more intimate with her. It wasn't just this. In the original, the tree was just attacking her with these limbs from off screen. In this one, it was like this snake thing. I was just like, ah, that's nuts.

Again it was a little it was slightly more realistic was like if you can get that way about it she at first is just sort of caught in the limbs and the trees and like you could get that and then it. I mean the other one's a big puppet tree you know i mean it's a very different thing where this one starts off again like a lot of this stuff it starts off almost like it could happen and then it takes it to another even more horrifying level so i think that's what this movie does pretty well, is it starts off at a very grounded level. Again, you don't like how self-serious it was, but I think, I don't think he could do it any other way. Especially in this time period, like in a time when we don't want silly Batman anymore.

We want Nolan Batman. We want serious Batman. It's the same thing with this. I don't think they could do another comedy version. I think the only way they would even let them remake it is like, okay, we're going to go deadly serious this time.

And for the most part it is. Again, it's, I guess, arguable whether or not it works for the viewer individually, but I don't think they would have let. Them do anything else. I think that's why they had to make a musical out of it. Yeah.

You know, because if you just did a straight play like that, you would have to go serious, which wouldn't work. Or if you tried to go silly, it wouldn't work until you added, until you went over the top. And I don't think theatrically, I don't think. That would have worked. And I definitely don't think they would have let them do that.

I think this is the only way the studio would have gone with it, is be like, okay, none of this joking around stuff. We need it to be serious, like all of these horror movies. So, again, I'm sure that was not even on the table at that point. I do kind of miss the original. There were just these, Sam Raimi just had all these bags of tricks.

Like, it wasn't just the friends getting possessed and attacking them. It was, like, voices, you know, like, taunting him in the cellar. Like, the light bulb filling up with blood and the film projector going. Just little stuff. And, like, the cabin would just, like, have these loud noises, like, coming from all over the place.

And it scared, you know. It just had the... It wasn't just the possessed friends. It was this... It was just this evil attacking from all, you know... around them like constantly.

And it was his style like his visual style and his sense of the framing framing and placing everything like that i remember like the shot. I remember most from the movie is just when he's like walking across the cabin floor and it's like going above the beams and like the beams pass by the lens like just stuff like touches like that really gave it kind of like it gave it this identity and it kind of made this it didn't feel like the movie was this one kind of It wasn't just about this one thing as much. And this movie definitely focused mainly on the possession. I mean, it is, yeah. The original is mostly to me about Sam Raimi and Sam Raimi's visual style and the way that he does things.

And more so even than the Ash character. Because to me, the Ash character doesn't become the character that we all love until the second one, really. He doesn't get to be... the funny, quippy guy. He doesn't get the chainsaw. He doesn't get any of that stuff.

He's such a wimp in the first one. He just is dealing with this horrible situation, and the horrible situation is everything that Sam Raimi brings to it. Again, I think that movie was amazing and changed everything, and it was mostly Sam Raimi's doing, and this definitely doesn't fall into that category, but it does what it can, I suppose. Do we think we've rounded this thing out? I think we've beaten it to death.

I feel like I was maybe too harsh. I'm glad I supported it and I paid money to see it because that way I can see the French because Sam Raimi is supposedly still going to do the next Army Darkness and they're going to merge the two universes. I'm interested to see how that... I want to see that happen. I'm optimistic.

I'll definitely see the sequel to this. Alright. I guess we should wrap things up then. So... Thank you once again to the Dreamland Film Center for letting us come here and put this show together.

We're going to try to work some more stuff together with them to find out what they're doing. It is at LouisvilleFilmSociety.org to find out what they have coming up as far as film showings and other events. We will be back here in the near future, including next week. Speaking of which... Otherwise, that about does it.

We will return here next week. Same geek time, same geek feed. Thanks for listening. Driving deep into the trees. With hot dogs, chips, and cheese.

To make the week go quicker, we packed a ton of liquor. Ryan Tropicana will not totally bananas. Spring break vacation is just bling bling. There's something in this musty air makes us want to sing. Cabin in the woods, ooh.

Cabin in the woods, yeah. We're five college students. On our way to an old abandoned cabin. In the woods. Oh, yeah!

All my friends are here for the best spring break of the year. Away from school and from. S-Mart, a week way off the job. He's so cute and thin And that's why I love him. This will be just like Cam But with a slutty tram.

In a few hours, you will. See me doing the nasty in a tree. Stop looking to get dizzy, but fresh air makes me dizzy. I'm so perfect, girl. Oh, look, there goes a squirrel.

I'll wake up in the woods of pure tranquility. A chance for me to rest in a nice facility. I came up to this cabin. To read and sleep and bake. Hope our headboard rattling don't keep your.

Prude ass awake. Counting in the woods, ooh. Counting in the woods, yeah. We're five college students on our way to an old abandoned counting in the woods. Oh, yeah.

This trip will be wacky fun. Seven days to snuggle my honey bun. A week of drinking. Can't be marital sex. And tonight I'll make some snacks out of Hershey bars and checks.

Listen to us now and make no mistake. We're gonna have fun cause it's spring break. We'll pour, we'll score, we'll fall flat on the floor. We'll do all this and a whole lot more. We're five college.

Students on our. Way To an old abandoned cabin in the woods. We're five college students on our. Way To an old abandoned cabin in the woods We're five college students on our way To an old abandoned cabin in the woods We're five. College students on our way To an old abandoned cabin in the woods.

I've only ever seen the first one. I haven't seen Evil Dead 2. Oh, the second one is worth it. I disagree. My friend and I, we were going to one night marathon the original trilogy and then go see the movie in time for this episode.

Then he's like, hey, so I'm going to go hang out with a girl I like tonight. I'm like, so I watch. This episode is a production of Movie Meltdown, produced and edited by The Oddity Studios, with opening music performed by The Empires. For more on how to sponsor or support the show, email producer at moviemeltdown.com. Talk hard!