By: Heather Seebach
My initial reactions to the announcement of the Evil Dead remake and its teaser trailer can be found here. Today, a new red-band trailer was released, have a look:
It runs just over two minutes long, but there is a lot of exciting material packed into this little trailer! The following is a breakdown of what I saw and what I thought. I screen-captured the quick-flashes in the trailer, so some of this may be considered spoilery, but it's nothing that is not right there in the trailer (and most of it reflects what happened in the original film anyway).
The first thing you will notice about the trailer is Jane Levy's over-the-top acting.
It's silly at first but fans of the original trilogy (and Sam Raimi in general) should detect something very familiar about it. Trust me, it is no accident that she is hamming it up so much. She has clearly taken a cue from the Bruce Campbell school of cheese:
Next we get some quick peeks at the Necronomicon and some Deadite makeup:
Between the teaser and the trailer, it is already obvious Fede Alvarez has a skilled eye. I particularly love this shot:
Based on the teaser trailer, I was very concerned that Alvarez was simply re-using Raimi's Sam-o-Cam and Ram-o-Cam filmmaking techniques. I love a good Raimi homage but I don't want the remake to just copy him. However, in this new trailer, I am seeing a lot less of that and more of Alvarez's own artistic style coming through. I love the above shot so much because it embraces the technique of the evil's point-of-view but it is subtle and menacing, and in the shot that follows, Mia trips and is practically pulled into it.
If you watch VERY carefully, you can catch a nice glimpse of the cabin, which looks pretty faithful to the original:
And some more Deadite make-up, which looks really good:
The next sequence has me incredible intrigued and perhaps somebody can shed some light on wtf is going on. During the tree attack sequence, there are two girls present - 1 victim and 1 Deadite (looks like the one above). Are they both Mia (Jane Levy)? Is she seeing a possessed reflection of herself?
Around this time, the trailer really kicks into high-gear with plenty of nastiness. While the blood in this shot looks a little off (perhaps an homage to the multi-colored blood of the original films), it just is not Evil Dead without a blood flood:
Next there are a couple familiar-but-different homage shots (the bridge gone, this time by water; someone emerging from the mud possessed), but this one especially caught my eye:
"We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound FINE to you?" Anyway, clearly the remake has a lot of influence from both The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. Perhaps the shot that made me most giddy from this entire trailer is this:
LOVE it, that creepy smile is so perfect. The addition of a bag makes it even scarier in its own way. Now, I want to point out how much this trailer makes David (Shiloh Fernandez) look like the Ash of the film. I suspect - and hope - that this is actually misleading. The original film set it up such that the least expected character (Ash) was the lone survivor, and I have a feeling this one will do the same.
I originally believed David would be the Ash equivalent but now I truly think it will be a red herring and there is no Ash, or he has basically been broken up across a handful of characters. If there is a final character, it may even be Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) who we see cutting off her hand (below). The point here is, I have no idea where this will go, and that is great!
My other favorite shot of the trailer is this:
The screenshot does not do it justice, but Levy is TOTALLY hamming it up as the cellar Deadite and it makes me giddy as fuck. I think all these people complaining the remake will have no sense of humor are going to be eating crow. While the original film only had a little humor, this remake obviously borrows from both the original and its sequel. I am very much looking forward to whatever ham it does deliver.
And it just would not be a Evil Dead film unless numerous people were taking money-shots of blood to the face:
Near the end of the trailer we get Deadite Mia singing the song Linda sang in the original - something that made my little geek heart skip beats!
And finally the trailer wraps up much like the teaser did with Deadite Mia cutting her tongue in half. Only this time it is far better without the silly eye-roll. Her looking dead at Natalie as she does this is SO much better, and I hope the eye roll does not make the final cut.
In summary, this is a fantastic trailer full of references and plenty of eerie new material. On my geek wish-list for this movie:
1) A moment where a character refers to zombies and someone else basically says, "Are you retarded? They are clearly possessed!" Okay, my dialogue blows, but maybe the screenwriters can make that work ;)
2) A Sam Raimi voice cameo. Or perhaps someone else from the Michigan Mafia lending their voice to the Unseen Force, or a laughing piece of furniture. If I can't have this, can Sam at least be a Fake Shemp?
As a bonus, here are some more random cool screencaps:
I really think that if this was not a remake, it would easily be every horror fan's most anticipated horror film of 2013. I think these trailers are already un-bunching some panties out there. What do you think of this new trailer?
