EVIL DEAD TV Spots: You’ll “Scream” Because It’s A “Masterpiece”… “However…”


 
Soooo… I just now decided to poke around and peek at some early reviews and impressions and… *ding!* it looks as if it’s up…. annnnnnd… it’s good! Actually, that Redband trailer had me convinced a while ago (although I wasn’t going to do a silly reaction video at all) – particularly the part with the knife and tongue (eek!). Anyway, go see this one if you want to jump all around the theater holding the arm of the person next to you as a handy club. They’ll miss that arm only for the few seconds it takes them to bleed out, but at least you have a weapon now.

 


 
OF COURSE… the problem with all this over-hype is will the actual film scare anyone who hasn’t been all over the internet gobbling up every trailer, screen capture, feature, cast interview and so forth and so on? The original film and its more comedy-focused sequel were memorable to me because they came out of nowhere as “Midnight” movies without a ton of fanfare. I still recall seeing the trailer and initially being freaked out by it back in the day and I think there was even a brief commercial for the original film popping up very late at night that was pretty effective in a “Oh, I really don’t want to see that, but…” manner. I ended up not being that scared at all by the original film because of what I considered too much hype back in the day, so this new version didn’t get my attention until I noted how it took a more serious angle to things, which works well from what I’ve seen.

 

 

Now, every big genre film gets SO much attention that it’s hard to be surprised because you’ve seen half the film on TV or the internet or it’s one of those smaller flicks that’s too weird to show much of and eventually turns out to be less frightening and more disgusting (Yeah, YOU, Human Centipede 2). Eh, as always… we shall see. Except you with the missing arms out there. You’re all dead (but you just might come back for the inevitable sequel)…

Evil Dead Trailers New & Old Bring The Scares (I Guess I’m Sold!)…

 

I’ll have to admit that the original Evil Dead didn’t freak me out that much because the people who’d seen it and told me it was SO scary had built it up based more on their own fears and tried to project that onto me before I went in for my viewing. I liked the film quite a lot (I actually owned it on VHS, DVD and UMD at one point), but I wasn’t put “under the seat” as promised. That said, it’s just an excellent, scary low budget classic worth watching by anyone who loves the genre or wants to eventually make his or her own horror flicks. The sequel, Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn was nothing but an extended Three Stooges episode with gore effects and I laughed more than cringed throughout that one because I got the joke right away. Other than Bruce Campbell’s performance (he’s still one of the more under-appreciated actors out there, I say) I still don’t like Army of Darkness much, but it’s gotten better with age and I’d gather the more mainstream approach also helped Sam Raimi get more work outside the horror genre. This reboot/remake/whatever actually looks more frightening than the first one because it’s being taken more seriously. I may just go and see it to see if it indeed does put me under the seat, but I still I still think someone needs to remake the 1967 – 1970 horror flick Equinox (a big inspiration for Raimi) as the official prequel to he whole series and get it over with just to complete that particular part of the cycle.

 

Instead Of An Evil Dead 4, Why Not A…


 

…remake of the 1970 horror flick Equinox, which can indeed be seen as a prequel of sorts to the Evil Dead films? Hell, it definitely inspired Sam Raimi and I’m crazy enough to see an influence or two in a few other horror films such as Phantasm and The Gate (but I could be wrong). Not to second guess anyone involved in the project, but I’d personally prefer Bruce Campbell to play something er, closer to his age range and not attempt to prance around like Harrison Ford in that last Indiana Jones flick (aided by stuntmen and CG work where necessary). OK, maybe I was a wee bit too influenced by Bubba Ho-Tep (see it if you haven’t – it’s weird and insanely funny) in judging Mr. Campbell’s current state (that Old Spice ad campaign from a few years back shows he still has it going on). Nevertheless, I just don’t want any of the crazier fans to get their hopes up and think there’s going to be a NEW trilogy of Evil Dead films with the new one kicking things off. After all, the movies DID inspire quite a few Duke Nukem quotes and we all know what happened when HE came back recently (and a few too many years late for some folks)…