Evil Dead (2013) + Beyond the Hills (2012)

EVIL
DEAD

***½/****
starring
Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas

screenplay
by Fede Alvarez & Rodo Sayagues, based on the
screenplay by Sam Raimi

directed
by Fede Alvarez

BEYOND
THE HILLS

****/****
starring
Cosmina Stratan, Cristina Flutur, Valeriu Andriuta, Dana Tapalaga

screenplay
by Cristian Mungiu, inspired by the non-fiction novels
of Tatiana Niculescu Bran

directed
by Cristian Mungiu


Evildead

by
Walter Chaw
SPOILER WARNING IN EFFECT. The greatest irony
of Fede Alvarez's
otherwise laudably straightforward reboot of Sam Raimi's
Spam-in-a-cabin
classic The Evil Dead is that the moments where
it references its primogenitor
are actually the movie's weakest. I'm thinking, in particular, of
handsome young hero
David (Shiloh Fernandez) getting thrown around a wet cellar in high
Raimi
smash-zoom style, which only underscores how much the original films
drew their
tone from Bruce Campbell–and how much this new one misses him. The
danger of
casting a group of beautiful people and taking itself deadly seriously
(and jettisoning the "The," in a gesture that reads as hipster
insouciance) is that Evil Dead might
draw closer to the mainstream and farther from
its grindhouse roots. The small miracle of it, then, is that in both
its
absolute glee in finding the line of how much gore to show and then
crossing it
(a pair of glasses stop a hypodermic needle…but only for a moment)
and its
surprising efforts at locating a deeper thread in a frayed
brother/sister
relationship and the impact of drug addiction, Alvarez's film is a
solid, even
affecting genre piece that allows for an abundance of memorable money
shots. Compare
its intelligence and earnestness, its infernal energy, against
the
disrespectfulness and self-satisfaction of The Cabin in the
Woods
to
see that Evil Dead is not just a taste of the old
religion, it's really
pretty great.

We gather that David is afraid in the same
way The Exorcist's Father Karras is afraid:
afraid that he's been a
bad son to a mother who died asking for him in a mental hospital;
afraid that
he's been a terrible brother to little sister Mia (Jane Levy), whom he
abandoned when things started getting rough at home. He returns as the
film
opens to find Mia perched on the rusted-out husk of Sam Raimi's '73
Olds Delta
88, behind a rotted-out cabin that Mia and their pals (a nurse, a
high-school
teacher) have chosen to hold a weekend intervention/detox party. Mia is
a
junkie, and it's revealed early on that past attempts to make
her go cold turkey have
resulted in her fleeing back to civilization. This has strengthened their
resolve
this time around that no matter what happens, they're not letting Mia
talk her
way out of the woods. It's the first complication of many that
confuses, The
Shining-
like, addiction with supernatural affliction and the
DTs with
demonic possession, making the early going particularly rough when,
after we
see what we're pretty sure is demonic shenanigans perpetrated against
Mia, we
have complete sympathy with her buddies as they doubt her. The notion
that
Mia is that most unreliable of narrators is exploited smartly by
first-timer
Alvarez–enough that a nifty reversal at the end propels Evil
Dead
, with heat, to its conclusion.
Enough that a few faint comparisons to some existential themes
explored in Black Swan are fair and fascinating.

Even better, though, is the closer look at
ideas of love and accountability as our players cheerfully kill their
significant
others, yet choose to die for their sisters and brothers. There's a
conversation about the "beauty myth," as well as a certain exploitation
of the
male gaze in the mini-melodrama between the teacher (Lou Taylor Pucci)
and his
nurse girlfriend (Jessica Lucas) and indeed between David and his
sweetheart (Elizabeth Blackmore)–the two women disfiguring themselves
in front of
their partners before being
murdered by them. ("David, why are you hurting me?") Consider,
too, the events leading up to the girlfriend's death
as she descends into the unconscious, "raped" by Mia, who forces
cunnilingus before forking her tongue (an image burned into my head
by the
instantly-notorious red-band trailer) and offering her brother
fellatio, and
who will later sing David a lullaby taught them by their mother. It's
unbelievably
fertile ground, this Evil Dead, ripe for
excavation for its notions of
love, of the dangers of perpetuating ideas of female attractiveness,
and of the
brutal fallout of rape. And at the end, it's ripe for a conversation
about the difference
between the people you choose in your life and the people chosen
for you. It only helps that Evil Dead is
disgusting and fun.

Produced by the Dardenne Brothers, Cristian Mungiu's Beyond
the Hills

is neither disgusting nor fun, but it too shows how love and
responsibility can sometimes metastasize into spiritual battles between
good
and evil. Too easy to call it "metaphor"–more accurate to recognize
that most of the terms we use to describe love ("ecstasy, passion,
desire,
consummation") have their root in religion, that John Dunne was known
to
invite his God to ravage him. It's an exorcism movie for everyone who
thought,
after Mungiu's gruelling abortion buddy-movie 4 Months, 3
Weeks and 2 Days
, that this guy should do an exorcism movie, meaning it's
emblematic of Romania's new cinema in its methodical patience. It
starts at a
train station, introducing the women at the centre of its narrative
like those archetypal
melodramas of women in sexual crisis, Anna Karenina
and A
Streetcar Named Desire
. The visitor is Alina (Christina
Flutur); the woman
meeting her there is Voichita (Cosmina Stratan); and the two hold their
embrace
one, two, three beats too long. It's Mungiu's tactic to make us
uncomfortable,
then curious, then invested in understanding their relationship. They
grew
up together in an orphanage–and with whatever limited knowledge we
have of
Romanian orphanages (my own preconceptions are part apocryphal, part
Dan Simmons), we
craft one story for them. Then when the depth and fervour of Alina's yearning
for Voichita is revealed, we suspect another.

Alina's been attempting to lead a secular life in
Germany while Voichita, left behind, has moved into an orthodox
monastery,
where she calls the priest "Papa" and the mother superior "Mama."
Voichita has found a family–a euphemism for God and Church–and it's
clear, or as clear as anything ever is in Beyond the Hills,
that
Alina hopes for God and Church in the undefined bliss the two shared in
the
past. It's a Romanticist film in that sense, this absolute melancholia
feeding
every question of divinity raised in our pursuit of the sublime. The
picture is
also very much concerned with the lie of the past, how memory can
amplify beauty and
allegorize ugliness. In their divorce from one another, Alina has made
a
shining symbol of what Voichita once represented in the middle of their
loneliness, but Voichita has given over her yearning to the promise of
a next
life that has to be better than this one. Alina pleads, threatens,
and when
everything fails, she falls into a palsy and finds herself under
medical care that
is useless in diagnosing her pain. If we take a cue from Paul Thomas
Anderson's The
Master
, the diagnosis is most likely "nostalgia." She's
released
back into the custody of the nuns and their two metaphorical Fathers
(the priest,
their god), who, in their own desperation and
isolation, decide that what
Alina needs is to be exorcised.

What's truly brilliant about Beyond the
Hills
is that no one is wrong, because no one truly knows
the question. The
characters, the landscape, where they live, what they're trying to
escape
physically and spiritually…there's a Sartrean hopelessness to their
situation; the film is saturated with that despair. And yet Alina is
ferocious
in her lust for Voichita, and Voichita is ferocious in her demurrals
and her
own desire to bring Alina into the comfort of her fold. In the end, as
Alina is
slowly tortured to death by the best intentions of the only person in
the world
who loves her, it becomes clear that Beyond the Hills speaks
of a more
universal existential torment. It's about friendship, yes, and it's
about
family, of course, but at its essence it's about the fact that neither
is enough
to provide succour against the emptiness of living and the madness of
loving
something who will die. It's about the search for eternity–and the
irony that
such searches always end in the discovery of it. It's about futility,
and hope
in the face of hopelessness, and immortality in the face of mortality.
The discomfort and effectiveness of the films about possession that
work is that they clarify we're all vulnerable to–and, in many ways,
culpable for–the infestation. When we talk about the victims in
pictures like Evil Dead and Beyond
the Hills
, we're really talking about ourselves.

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30 Comments

  1. John

    I have not read this review yet, but I am just calling in advance that Walter takes some pointless, petty jab at Cabin in the Woods somewhere in there. Time to find out whether he’s the predictable psychotic grudge-bearing egomaniac I already know he is.

  2. John

    I have not read this review yet, but I am just calling in advance that Walter takes some pointless, petty jab at Cabin in the Woods somewhere in there. Time to find out whether he’s the predictable psychotic grudge-bearing egomaniac I already know he is.

  3. John

    I have not read this review yet, but I am just calling in advance that Walter takes some pointless, petty jab at Cabin in the Woods somewhere in there. Time to find out whether he’s the predictable psychotic grudge-bearing egomaniac I already know he is.

  4. Wayne Frazer

    Can you ever really put “rape” in quotation marks?

  5. Wayne Frazer

    Can you ever really put “rape” in quotation marks?

  6. Wayne Frazer

    Can you ever really put “rape” in quotation marks?

  7. Chad

    That’s a great point. I think that because it’s not clear that there has been sexual contact, though the intent is clearly sexual contact, that the intent is to portray rape even if it stops short of actually portraying it… if that makes any sense…maybe I should let Walter answer.

  8. Chad

    That’s a great point. I think that because it’s not clear that there has been sexual contact, though the intent is clearly sexual contact, that the intent is to portray rape even if it stops short of actually portraying it… if that makes any sense…maybe I should let Walter answer.

  9. Chad

    That’s a great point. I think that because it’s not clear that there has been sexual contact, though the intent is clearly sexual contact, that the intent is to portray rape even if it stops short of actually portraying it… if that makes any sense…maybe I should let Walter answer.

  10. Maximilian

    How can someone who is supposedly psychotic be predictable?

  11. Maximilian

    How can someone who is supposedly psychotic be predictable?

  12. Maximilian

    How can someone who is supposedly psychotic be predictable?

  13. I think you are out to lunch on Evil Dead, Walter. The crime of this remake is that it is boring.

  14. I think you are out to lunch on Evil Dead, Walter. The crime of this remake is that it is boring.

  15. I think you are out to lunch on Evil Dead, Walter. The crime of this remake is that it is boring.

  16. Alex

    I’m not a fan of the original EVIL DEAD, but this movie is my second most anticipated for this spring (after SPRING BREAKERS, of course). But knowing that the original was a seminal experience for Walt, the fact that this remake has his vote of approval is all the more exciting. You know he would be the first to call bullshit on something like this.
    John, CABIN IN THE WOODS is shit.
    Wayne, I’ll have to see the movie to understand what Walter means, but I think you can put anything in quotation marks. CABIN IN THE WOODS put “rape” in quotation marks, so to speak. Turning a woman into a “whore” and underlining that this is a constructed archetype is kinda worse (i.e. more dehumanizing) than turning a woman into a “whore” simply because you have personal power and control issues. I’m not even meaning that the first can be an excuse for the second, but yeah, that too.

  17. Alex

    I’m not a fan of the original EVIL DEAD, but this movie is my second most anticipated for this spring (after SPRING BREAKERS, of course). But knowing that the original was a seminal experience for Walt, the fact that this remake has his vote of approval is all the more exciting. You know he would be the first to call bullshit on something like this.
    John, CABIN IN THE WOODS is shit.
    Wayne, I’ll have to see the movie to understand what Walter means, but I think you can put anything in quotation marks. CABIN IN THE WOODS put “rape” in quotation marks, so to speak. Turning a woman into a “whore” and underlining that this is a constructed archetype is kinda worse (i.e. more dehumanizing) than turning a woman into a “whore” simply because you have personal power and control issues. I’m not even meaning that the first can be an excuse for the second, but yeah, that too.

  18. Alex

    I’m not a fan of the original EVIL DEAD, but this movie is my second most anticipated for this spring (after SPRING BREAKERS, of course). But knowing that the original was a seminal experience for Walt, the fact that this remake has his vote of approval is all the more exciting. You know he would be the first to call bullshit on something like this.
    John, CABIN IN THE WOODS is shit.
    Wayne, I’ll have to see the movie to understand what Walter means, but I think you can put anything in quotation marks. CABIN IN THE WOODS put “rape” in quotation marks, so to speak. Turning a woman into a “whore” and underlining that this is a constructed archetype is kinda worse (i.e. more dehumanizing) than turning a woman into a “whore” simply because you have personal power and control issues. I’m not even meaning that the first can be an excuse for the second, but yeah, that too.

  19. John

    @Max – “psychotic” may have been wrong, but “predictable” apparently wasn’t, no? So you can have one of those words back, whatever.
    Good reviews otherwise.

  20. John

    @Max – “psychotic” may have been wrong, but “predictable” apparently wasn’t, no? So you can have one of those words back, whatever.
    Good reviews otherwise.

  21. John

    @Max – “psychotic” may have been wrong, but “predictable” apparently wasn’t, no? So you can have one of those words back, whatever.
    Good reviews otherwise.

  22. Jocko

    Does ANYONE find this remake madness a little creepy, I mean Evil Dead now? Are we so spent that all we can do is keep recreating the past?

  23. Jocko

    Does ANYONE find this remake madness a little creepy, I mean Evil Dead now? Are we so spent that all we can do is keep recreating the past?

  24. Jocko

    Does ANYONE find this remake madness a little creepy, I mean Evil Dead now? Are we so spent that all we can do is keep recreating the past?

  25. Alex says “John, CABIN IN THE WOODS is shit.”
    Brilliant.
    It’s actually one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a shame you eggheads couldn’t allow yourselves to enjoy it.
    I’ve been reading Walter’s reviews for a long time, but I’ve never had a problem thinking for myself, unlike some.

  26. Alex says “John, CABIN IN THE WOODS is shit.”
    Brilliant.
    It’s actually one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a shame you eggheads couldn’t allow yourselves to enjoy it.
    I’ve been reading Walter’s reviews for a long time, but I’ve never had a problem thinking for myself, unlike some.

  27. Alex says “John, CABIN IN THE WOODS is shit.”
    Brilliant.
    It’s actually one of the better movies I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a shame you eggheads couldn’t allow yourselves to enjoy it.
    I’ve been reading Walter’s reviews for a long time, but I’ve never had a problem thinking for myself, unlike some.

  28. Kait M

    What made this remake exciting for me was the physicality of the horror and the effective tweaking of expectations derived from the originals and horror movie cliches…..it reminded me of how Kill Bill made karate fights look like real fights..the horror felt real even though it was also impossibly over the top…
    and who knew that that people hiding in the walls could actually be cut by the bad guy with a knife jabbing at them??
    and the biggest genre busting moment was that the inevitable twist ending was actually interesting..

  29. Kait M

    What made this remake exciting for me was the physicality of the horror and the effective tweaking of expectations derived from the originals and horror movie cliches…..it reminded me of how Kill Bill made karate fights look like real fights..the horror felt real even though it was also impossibly over the top…
    and who knew that that people hiding in the walls could actually be cut by the bad guy with a knife jabbing at them??
    and the biggest genre busting moment was that the inevitable twist ending was actually interesting..

  30. Kait M

    What made this remake exciting for me was the physicality of the horror and the effective tweaking of expectations derived from the originals and horror movie cliches…..it reminded me of how Kill Bill made karate fights look like real fights..the horror felt real even though it was also impossibly over the top…
    and who knew that that people hiding in the walls could actually be cut by the bad guy with a knife jabbing at them??
    and the biggest genre busting moment was that the inevitable twist ending was actually interesting..

Comments are closed