EVIL DEAD remake--Not so Funny (2013)

Ack, I have no time to work on my blog.  None.  But in an effort to avoid grading, I have to let my vitriol fly and say a few words about the Evil Dead remake (Fede Alvarez, 2013).  This waste of time was produced by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, who obviously have to send their kids to private school, so they decided to milk their dead horse from 32 years ago.  Also, I demand that Diablo Cody turn in her feminist card.  Unlike some, I don't believe that everything a woman does is "feminist" because it's a woman doing it.  In sisterhood, I wish her every success.  I just don't want her adding her two cents to what she thinks is feminist horror anymore. 

I was really excited to see this film.  Based on the hubbub all over the internets, and interviews with Campbell and star Jane Levy at comic.con, rumors flew that this film's "Ash" just might be a woman.  While this move is playing into the fashionable Final Girl schtick, still...it changed the game a little.  I had a full day of work and responsibility yesterday, but I wanted to start it off with a bang, so I went to the first showing of the film in my area.  Whoo!  When I walked out 90 minutes later, all I could think is "Stop Making These Utterly Pointless Remakes!!"  Watch out, ahead are spoilers.**

The film starts with a brutal sacrifice of a young woman by what looks like a mild mannered teacher and a band of illiterate, slobbering rednecks.  The fact that actors with clear physical disabilities are being used here as demon worshiping nutballs is the first sign that this film is going to be thoughtlessly offensive at every turn.  Also, this first scene creates the formula for the rest of the film: stuff happens, women are by turns humiliated and mutilated, and nothing makes a lot of sense.  Heh, the more I write about this film, the angrier I get!

This time, the cabin in the woods is a site for drug intervention as Mia, her brother, David, and their friends try to help Mia quit some habit (meth? heroin? unsure), and even one of the characters, Olivia, is a registered nurse with all the goodies that will help with withdrawal.  No vacation away from it all for this group.  Already, this visit is fraught.  Not only is Mia (Jane Levy) an addict, but she took care of their psychopathic mother as a kid while David ran away in order to not deal (really, a wise move on his part).  So there may be a hint of hereditary insanity lurking in Mia's blood.  Mia's issues lay the ground for everything to come, because any concerns she might have about staying in this evil place can be chalked up to the ramblings of either insanity or acute withdrawal.  Conveniently, everyone at the cabin thinks that odd events are due to Mia "losing it" rather than blame that a-hole, Eric, who decides to read out loud from a book that shows the graphic torture of women and is covered in human flesh. Eye roll.

WHAT I HATED

30+ years after the first Evil Dead, the people who remade this film decided that they couldn't lose the "offensive-the-first-time" forest raping scene.  This version does its best imitation of tentacle porn, and adds wet, viscous sounds to Mia's violation by supernatural vines.  The scene in the original film is worse; it's longer and revels in the character's helplessness.  Nevertheless, this rape scene is still bad.  It reminded me of the Cape Fear remake's rape scene where Robert De Niro breaks Illeana Douglas's arm and bites her face before raping her.  Something about the graphic nature of that scene ruins you for the rest of the film.  So does this early scene in the Evil Dead remake. How do the filmmakers think this scene is empowering, I wonder?

All of the women are possessed first, each of them lovely long-haired beauties.  Thus the film proceeds to take great pleasure in forcing them (under the guise of possession) to mutilate themselves.  Burning by boiling water, slitting one's face open, cutting one's tongue in half, or slicing off a limb with an electric knife or chainsaw.  This film revels in every scene of female mutilation in luscious close-up detail.

The film even manages to slip in an unnecessary woman-on-woman kiss, because women kissing is always hot, even if one of them is a possessed evil zombie.

Oh, and if you do not include the ridiculously tacked on last 12 minutes of the film, guys are the only heroes here.  Even though ostensibly Eric caused this whole mess, he and David get to explore their bromance's potential as they kill all the women in this film in order to finally be together.  Alas, like any good zombie, if you die, even nobly, you'll come back as "evil dead," so David sacrifices himself and zombie Eric in order to allow Mia to live. You see, Mia is ALIVE after David buries her alive, breaking the curse, and then he brings her back with a makeshift defibrillator, which looks like a car battery plugged up to wires directly injected into her chest.  Yes, I wrote that last sentence, and no matter how I write it, I can never fully explain how utterly ludicrous this plot twist is. But the film's not over until Mia can use her phallic weapon to brutally choke the original woman monster, graphically illustrating death by chainsaw blowjob.

This film is NOT FUNNY. I'm not just some "humorless feminist" here, and I'm not going to debate about whether the original Evil Dead from 1981 was intentionally or unintentionally funny.  That film has a cult following because it's funny, and the rest of the trilogy including Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992) are also deliberately comedic.  Alvarez's Evil Dead remake eliminates any traces of humor in order to make the film more frightening.  It keeps the splatter but removes the splatstick.  Not good.

Before watching this piece of misogynistic crap, I happened to see the trailer for Carrie, which looks to be terrible.  While I am in huge support of Kimberley Pierce's continued directing career, this trailer did not make this upcoming remake seem appealing or necessary.  Please, stop the remakes.

31 Days of Horror--Day 26 EVIL DEAD remake

I have a soft spot for Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films, especially I (1981) and II (1987).  I'm not a fan of Hollywood Remakes, as you can tell from my post on COMA and its remake.  So I was a little upset to find out that Evil Dead was going to be remade, even if Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are producing the bugger. I guess they have to send their kids to private school.

What's worse?  Diablo Cody worked on the screenplay.  As a feminist horror scholar, I am all for more women in horror, but with this particular screenwriter, I have been previously burned (I'm looking at you, Jennifer's Body (2009)).  I fear for this film's dialogue.

The Old Ash

I also cannot imagine an Evil Dead film without Bruce Campbell as Ash.  From what Campbell has admitted at a panel on the remake at this past New York Comic.con, Ash is now a woman, "Mia," played by Jane Levy.

The New Ash

What else did I glean from the panel?  That Mia is the New Ash AND is raped by a possessed tree.  I guess Raimi and Co. thought that if they stuck in a Final Girl, then they could get away with something so violently misogynist and outdated.  Did Ms. Cody write THAT scene?

Still, like my rant about the Carrie remake, I know I'll still see this film, and while I can complain all I want, this film is a done deal, and I'm going to have to talk about it.  Here's a couple of unfunny images from the new Evil Dead.

Yikes.  I do like horror films to scare me, and I will admit, this Red Band Trailer for the Evil Dead remake looks pretty damn scary.

The original film, with its wonky special effects and hyperbolic acting, is positively quaint in comparison.

31 Days of Horror--Day 12 Remaking CARRIE (1976)

This year, Halloween falls on a Wednesday, and every Wednesday I have a screening for one of my classes.  We were supposed to watch Luc Besson's La Femme Nikita (1990) on Halloween, but I decided that for the first time in at least 5 years, I was going to celebrate Halloween and force all of my students to do so as well.  So, I canceled the screening, and decided to screen Drew Goddard's The Cabin in the Woods (2011) instead, with a reception open to Film Students where people could dress up--as their favorite monster, perhaps. This decision begged the question:  what would be my costume?  I thought immediately of Mrs. White from Carrie (Brian De Palma 1976).  Frizz my hair, find a white nightgown, wear a cross, grab a bible, and I'm rockin' it (haven't figured out the knives yet).  Then I was reminded of this unfortunate set of circumstances:

Yep.  Like every other horror movie, they are remaking this one.  I guess that the 2002 TV movie, scripted by Bryan Fuller, was not enough.  I like Chloe Moretz.  I love Julianne Moore.  But I'm still freakin' pissed off that Hollywood cannot create something equally iconic and NEW, but would rather go to the same damn well again.  As one can tell from my Coma post, I'm not a remake fan.  Granted, I don't have much to go on regarding the remake beyond these pre-release publicity shots, but I'm going to tear them apart just the same.

First, Moretz's Carrie: she looks like she tumbled into some paint in a mall parking lot in this shot.  She doesn't have that demented Bambi look that Sissy Spacek does so well.  Spacek's Carrie is in command of her space, while Moretz looks much more the sad victim.  Part of the fun of Carrie's transformation in De Palma's film is that she goes from timid lamb to full force virago.  Wooo!  Moretz is feeling a little tepid, kind of meh.

Then there's Julianne Moore as Margaret White, Carrie's Mom.  She seems like she heard a noise and now sees that her cat left her a dead mouse as a present, as cats are wont to do.  Moore looks slightly worried, a little sad, but ultimately very, very soft.  Piper Laurie's Margaret, on the other hand, is channeling her Saint Sebastian here.  She's ecstatic and glowing, and deeply, deeply fervent about her "sinning" daughter.  I think Julianne Moore is a wonderful actress, but Piper Laurie is inimitable in this role, and why f***ing bother??

I'm also all for Kimberly Pierce getting more directing gigs.  She's talented and deserves them, but this kind of situation is just setting her up for failure.  She's going to be shredded by every fan of the original film, including me.  I want to champion women directors, damn it!! 

I'm also thinking about Steampunk Vampire Mina Harker played by the always amazing Peta Wilson from the crappy The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Stephen Norrington 2003) as an alternative costume choice.  Although paler with obvious fangs.

31 Days of Horror--Day 5 COMA (1978) and its Remake (2012)

Looking at this image, one might think that this woman is experiencing a truly relaxing new-fangled spa treatment!  Her spangly skinsuit is pretty and shiny, albeit a little snug.  Alas, she is someone's "Girlfriend in a Coma," hanging in a storage facility/organ factory where she's experimented on by a gaggle of mad scientists.  This image is from A & E's totally unnecessary, far too long, but still moderately entertaining remake of Michael Crichton's 1978 film Coma, based on Robin Cook's medical thriller (a book I read when I was ten years old).  The book, and the original film, are rife with extraordinary images of the Jefferson Institute--the place where they store the bodies after the nefarious healthcare professionals put perfectly healthy people into comas.

Formerly owned by Xerox, the building is now Stride Rite's HQ in Lexington Mass.

Michael Crichton's film stars Genevieve Bujold as the inquisitive medical resident Susan Wheeler, a talented surgeon surreptitiously dating the cocky know-it-all Mark Bellows, played by Michael Douglas w/ the peacock strutting he would go on to perfect in Romancing the Stone and Fatal Attraction.  Susan is more interested in her career than a commitment, which causes Mark to whine a lot, and tell her she needs a "wife" more than a "lover."  He's upset because she tells him to "get your own beer" rather than running to serve him.  Project much??

Susan's friend Nancy is her closest confidante, as they both really get into their Jazzercise class.  After class, Nancy tells Susan that yes, she is pregnant, and she's going in for a top secret D & C (Abortion) at Susan's hospital, Boston Memorial.  Sounds like it may not be her husband's or she just might not want another child.  These modern women!  Either way, even though Susan reassures her that everything will be fine, Nancy ends up in an irreversible coma.  (See, she was the perfect coma candidate because of her loose morals).

Susan, confused as to how such a routine procedure could end in disaster, starts to investigate.  The men that surround her, including Mark, worry that she's isn't crying enough, but their sexist "concern" only propels her into further detective work.

Of course, no one believes her, especially Mark, who is asked by the head of the hospital, Dr. Harris (Richard Widmark) to distract her by taking her away for the weekend for some sexy time.  Then we're treated to scenes like these:

Douglas does the shifty-eyed ambiguously motivated boyfriend role proud, and one never knows whether he's in cahoots with the likes of Dr. Harris, who intermittently responds "Women! Christ!" just to remind us that all men are total dicks.  Mark has some cryptic conversations w/some of his co-workers that imply he's not to be trusted, especially when he points out over and over that Susan is merely being paranoid.

This film mirrors some similar women's film dystopias on hand in the 70s that feature intrepid female heroines who are talented and career-minded and struggling to succeed within a smothering sea of chauvinists.  Everyone tells them that they are paranoid, and yet, scene by scene, these women (along with viewers) uncover horrifying plots.  In The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes 1975), poor Katharine Ross is forced to move to the Connecticut suburbs where the area is overrun with creepy housewife robots intent on cooking, cleaning, and "servicing" their men; the Men's Association kill her and replace her with a robot in the end.  Brook Adams, as a talented scientist, also investigates the weirdness in Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Philip Kaufman 1978), but because Donald Sutherland and Jeff Goldblum actually believe her, she seems a little less isolated (and crazy); she becomes a pod person too.  Since all of these films were directed by men, one might ask whether the anxieties these directors carried in relation to the 70's Women's Movement might have gotten displaced onto these frightening dehumanizing narratives.  Yet the women in these films are the active investigators with an inquisitive gaze (but they are all severely punished for possessing that look).  Both of the remakes of these films (Stepford Wives 2004 and The Invasion 2007) are beyond abysmal.

Coma places the spectator firmly with Susan, who never really seems crazy or unbelievable as she uncovers evidence that doctors at Boston Memorial are putting patients into comas if they are a match for their black market organ trafficking ring.  The film implies that the conspiracy goes all the way up through the hospital hierarchy to sympathetic parties in Washington D.C.  Susan is a kick-ass action heroine who can really investigate and fight back when threatened.  In one scene she even clings to the roof of an ambulance.  Take that James Bond!

I think that Ashley Judd was trying to channel her inner Bujold in Missing, but we know how that turned out.

The true Stepford creature in Coma is Elizabeth Ashley, who plays an amazing evil automaton/corporate tool with grace and elegance.  She runs the coma farm/Jefferson Institute, and I love how cutthroat she gets when the bidding on organs is underway.  Of course, she does it over archaic phones with big hold buttons, so her cold, steeliness comes off as extra absurd circa 2012.  Love her in this film!

Oh, Tom Selleck has an awesome cameo in this film, giant furry mustache and all!  I guess Tom wasn't famous yet, even though he starred in Daughters of Satan from 1971.  He plays a relatively healthy patient who also gets put into a coma by the evildoers.  One minute he's joshing with the doctors at the hospital; the next, Tom is lying on a slab at the Jefferson, flesh cut open as his organs are greedily harvested.

Susan's investigation gets too close to uncovering the truth, so she has to be punished.  She subsequently is poisoned in a way that mimics appendicitis, and the evil Dr. Harris rushes her into OR 8 in order to put her nosy ass in a damn coma where she belongs!  Mark/Michael Douglas ends up finally believing her, saving the day, and the cops are waiting outside the operating room door to nab the evil doctor.  Done and done.  Good thing her boyfriend saved her!

Thirty-four years later, the mini-series loving A & E network (who brought us the terrible Bag of Bones) decides to remake Coma with an all star cast including Ellen Burstyn, Geena Davis, Richard Dreyfus, James Woods, and Lauren Ambrose as the super-curious Susan Wheeler.  Steven Pasquale plays Mark Bellows, and after perusing IMDB I know that I've never seen him in anything he's been in, ever; after this show, I'm still not a fan.

I believe without the slightest doubt that this mini-series did not need to be made, and that some of the remake's "improvements" now make the original film look like a serious FEMINIST CLASSIC.  Burstyn and Davis's N.O.W. memberships need to be rescinded because their roles take one giant leap back for womankind.  What did they put in their kool-aid?

The Good

Lauren Ambrose makes a pretty good female action investigator, and you are rooting for her throughout.  In this incarnation, she's only a lowly medical student rather than a surgeon, and the only reason she's perceived as competent at all is through nepotism.  Turns out grandpa was a world famous doctor/surgeon type who became super-rich and put his name on an entire hospital wing.  Susan is curious about all the comas because it's in her blood.  Old farts like Dreyfus and Woods knew her grandpappy and are eager to remind her.

Also, the series sports great images of the Jefferson Institute, which has only become more scarily high-tech and sinister.

The Bad

The romance between Susan and Mark is so-o-o boring.

The chemistry between these two actors is non-existent, and I found myself more interested in the crazy psycho that stalks Susan in a near identical scene to one in the original film.  The back story for the stalker with some weird tree fetish introduces some truly stunning visuals, but the guy's a serial killer who tortures and kills women, so he's not good boyfriend material.  Mark appears to be not only interested in Susan but genuinely concerned for her welfare, which makes the stupid twist at the end even more stupid.  **Spoiler, he tells Susan "it was all just a bad dream" and then gets a text from the Dragon Lady, which proves he was working for the bad guys all along.  Sigh.

and The Ugly

Exhibit A: The Dragon Lady, aka Dr. Agnetta Lindquist, aka Geena Davis

Dr. Lindquist is an evil cougar who sets her sights on cute younger male doctors or residents and helps them climb up the Hospital ladder if they will sleep with her.  She not only is fiercely jealous of Susan, but sics the evil psycho on her in order to get her competition (for Mark's bed) out of the way.  She gives the evil psycho guy bad therapy and bad drugs so that he'll become completely unhinged and go after Susan.  She also seems to orchestrate (behind the scenes) Dr. Howard Stark's near fatal car accident so that she can use his body as a test subject for her nefarious Alzheimer's experiments.  And no, she's not in any way nuanced or even morally concerned about the consequences of her actions.

Exhibit B: The Psycho Baby Lover, aka Mrs. Emerson, aka Ellen Burstyn

Burstyn takes the crazy psycho portrayal way past eleven as she cackles non-stop during her interactions with other actors, and utters some amazing lines when she's not chomping on the scenery.  Turns out that she couldn't have babies, and it has something to do with God's will, and now she has plenty of babies because the Jefferson is not only a human experiment facility and an illegal organ warehouse, but they now also hatch babies from pregnant women in comas!  Yes indeed.  Well, if you liberals keep insisting on stem cell research then this is what you get!!  Ugh, the horror.

Still, my all time favorite moment in the whole mini-series is when Mrs. Emerson pulls some frozen rods out of storage--the better to skewer Susan with--and quibbles about the size saying, "I'll have to use number eights.  These tens might shatter her pelvis.  She's quite petite."  Nice.  All the other people working at the Jefferson Institute are nowhere near as scary as this lady.  Or Davis's Dr. Lindquist.  Even after Richard Dreyfus turns out to be the King of all the Villains, in cahoots with Susan's saintly granddad, and shouting about "culling the herd," he still comes off as not so bad.  I'm shaking my head at the folly of it all.

Scary Hallways!

So I highly recommend a double or triple feature of the original Coma with maybe the original The Stepford Wives and the original Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (John Newland 1973) as a potent cocktail of women-in-peril thrillers where the evil firmly lies in the hands of Men.  Stay away from the remakes, for these days, if women are victimized, they only have themselves to blame.