So Evil Dead is being remade or number 4 is being made, whatever you want to call it. Evil Dead is coming back! This should be great news right? Personally, Evil Dead (2) is one of my favorite movies of all time! At least in the horror genre anyways. Yes we can gripe between which was the better, but come on, Evil Dead 2 wasn't a direct sequel, it was just a remake of the first one with a better budget. No you say? Right I know the sequel had a montage in the beginning which recaps the first movie, but then the sequel just does the exact same plot as before, just done better. Remember Evil Dead 1 started from a short film that Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi did for Michigan State. So now that's out of the way, we move onto Army of Darkness, another great piece of cinema horror/comedy history. I'm not going to go into detail of the plots here, as I'm hoping anyone that is reading this has seen these movies, if not, stop reading and go BUY these movies, you will not be disappointed if you're say a Resident Evil (yuck) fan, or a Dawn of the Dead (or insert any Romero zombie film here) fan.
So obviously, enough time has passed, that warrants a remake or another sequel. Personally I do think remake is more appropriate for this than rather doing a straight up sequel, I love Bruce Campbell, but it's time to pass the torch. By the way, before I get further into this, Bruce Campbell supposedly was offered a cameo in the new Evil Dead, but turned it down, which I give him props for doing. Especially with what this new Evil Dead is going to be. So a new Evil Dead movie, I should be excited right? Well I was, until I saw the direction they are going. Now granted, I'm not the most in depth researcher, all the information I'm going off of is from IMDB. So why am I not happy? Simply put, the lead character in this new remake. Let's face it, what was it that made Evil Dead so awesome? Well let's look at the movie. Sure at it's core, it's just another zombie flick, where you could even compare it to Romero's original "Night of the Living Dead," where it's a group of people, diverse in background, culture, race, all stuck in a house, or cottage, surrounded by evil. Believe it or not, this will help prove my point, don't worry I'm getting to it, of why this remake angle is a bad idea, but I'll get to that later.
Okay, so why am I not liking this remake? Plain and simple, it's who they have casted for the lead. Jane Levy. Who you ask? Yeah I had to look her up. If you ask me she looks like a second rate Isla Fischer. And if you're going for a second rate Isla Fischer, man you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel. For those who don't know who Isla Fischer, she was the crazy redhead in "The Wedding Crashers." Jane Levy's previous works include "Suburgatory," U.S. version of "Shameless," and "Nobody Walks." Yeah, I haven't seen any of those either, but that's not my biggest gripe about casting her. It's the fact that the lead in this film, or the protagonist, is a female.
Now before everyone gets all sexist on me, let me just say, I have no problem with a female being a protagonist in any kind of story. "Alien," and "Aliens," are some of my favorite movies of all time. Who was the protagonist in those, a female "Ripley." Those movies never really would have worked as well with a male lead, it just fit to have a female in the role of Ripley. The first "Alien," was all about survival, and it made you empathize with this Ripley character of just wanting to get the hell off that ship and away from that creature. Same goes for the great sequel, and probably the last good film James Cameron ever made without Arnold. The Ripley character wouldn't have worked as well, if you had some macho dude go in there with all those Marines. Ripley was a nice foil to all of that. Also look at "The Night of the Living Dead," female lead in that as well. I know a lot of people will hate me for saying this, but I was more of a fan of the remake in 1990. Patricia Tallman I thought did an excellent job of starting out as this weak girly girl type, and by the end turned into this badass killing zombie machine. But isn't that what they are going for in the Evil Dead remake? Well of course, obviously. But there's where they will fail.
What made the Evil Dead series so great? What made us all Hail to the King? Bruce Campbell. Now like I said before I don't think Bruce should strap on the chainsaw, and load up the sawed off, but to put a female lead is downright a spit in the face to any Evil Dead fan. Let's face it, Evil Dead was awesome because of the one liners. "I'll swallow your soul, I'll swallow your soul!" "Swallow this!" BOOM! Or how about when Ash hooks up the chainsaw to his blood stump and says, "Groovy." That was just cool. Yeah they were all corny, but corny works in that setting! Now imagine, a little red head, who by the way still looks like she's twelve, saying stuff like that. It just doesn't have the impact of a guy saying that. I'm sorry, it just doesn't work. Now granted, its a remake, they want to take it in a new direction, I understand that. I just don't see this "little girl," making the impact that Bruce "Don't call me Ash" Campbell had on the screen. The whole reason, at least me personally, fell in love with the Evil Dead, was because the Ash character starts out as just an average guy. Even kind of stupid if you will. He was just some guy who brought his girl out to a cottage in the woods, to get some, and ended up having to dismember her body, even while her decapitated head talked shit to him. (Wow is that really the first curse word I've used in this blog?) Not to mention in the Evil Dead, especially with number two and "The Army of Darkness," there was an edge of humor, and slapstick silliness to it all. Will Jane Levy, be able to bring that kind of slapstick humor, while still remaining a badass? That's a pretty tall order if you ask me.
Who knows, I could be completely wrong and this new version with a twelve year old Pippy Longstockings reject might just blow us away with crazy new one liners like, "Hail to the Queen, baby!" See, it just doesn't have the same affect. Oh so you're saying I should do better than? Well I'm actually terrible at casting when it comes to this kind of stuff, but I'll throw my two cents in on this. Whom do I think should rise up and take the mantle from Bruce Campbell to be the new badass in Evil Dead? I have to go with Nathan Fillion. Yes, the guy from Firefly. He would do well in that role, he can play the average joe guy, stuck in a bad situation, and come out a badass, while still spitting out one liners and having some slapstick thrown in. Now shut up, and give me some sugar baby.
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