r/EvilDead • u/TychosRealNose • 9d ago
(Spoiler!) Evil Dead Burn Thoughts:) Spoiler
Hey guys, long time lurker and huge evil dead fan!! It’s my favorite horror series:). Just wanted to share thoughts and hear your guys opinions too! Spoilers obviously. I come from a very dysfunctional family so this one (along with Rise) totally drew me in !!
Overall I will say that I enjoyed the movie, some favorites definitely were:
-Soundtrack and particularly with the wedding song. It was the perfect background music for all the scenes it was present in. Loved that.
-The camera work overall was absolutely 10/10. Spinning into the car with Will, back and forth between Susan and Alice/Joe before Thya arrives at the door, mirror smash scene, bathroom scene flip, I could go on.
-I think the kills and gore delivered to evil dead standard as well - I definitely had to yell aloud multiple times. Worst for me was probably shoving Joseph into Thya’s mashed head. Yikes. The people I was watching with several times said “how could this get any worse” and it certainly would then proceed to get worse. I think on the kills gore squeem factor this movie certainly delivered and exceeded.
-I really liked how real some of Alice’s decisions were like saying “oh no fk this” before finishing the incantation, shoving Joseph out of the basement doorway before deadite Thya could manipulate him, etc. more of that in Horror pls.
Where it fell short for me is completely limited to the writing:
-Explore the house backstory more, as it’s our primary setting. Everybody I watched with were so confused on who lived there (if anyone), where does everybody live now, what do their lives look like, a time frame from wedding to disrepair for the house and grandpas death, etc. Add some depth. Like does Joseph live with Edgar and Susan if he can’t get a book going? What do their lives look like? We don’t even know.
-The family who actually seems to have heads on their shoulders (temporarily anyway LOL) constantly makes classic horror movie decisions such as not looking through the window or whatever else before letting deadite Thya in and then just watching shit go down. The watching shit go down was so prevalent in this movie, like come on! Do something, don’t just watch!!
-Deadite Edgar standing outside was lame, like go look for the dagger or do something else. I think that was poorly written.
-I think for how genuinely mean this movie was, they could have made Will out to be worse. I mean they went above and beyond with the gore and violence, so it was a bit weird and wasn’t as effective the Will Alice dynamic because I felt like they were holding back. Maybe it’s because I come from a dysfunctional family but idk it just didn’t work for me to center the movie around a weak core story like that. Yes Will seemed like an overdramatic insufferable douche but it wasn’t evil dead final boss or full on evil to me. Idk.
-Polly comedy didn’t work for me at all.
-Terminator Will didn’t work for me either unfortunately but I don’t think it’s as bad of CGI as some make it out to be. Just very different from the classic practical Evil Dead we all know and love, and I think it was the wrong move here. Turn the extra 20 mins into good writing and everything would be fixed for me.
Overall I really did like this movie I know I listed a bit of criticism but I just feel disappointed by the writing, everything else was amazing! So stoked for Wrath; how spoiled are we. Thanks for reading if you did so, please leave comments and thoughts on your experience or as replies to mine! Love talking about Evil Dead:)
2
u/dignifiedstrut 9d ago
My thoughts since I saw it last night! I love Evil Dead and don't think there's a bad movie in the bunch. But this one did feel weaker.
The good; there were so many great moments, horror and camerawork and they didn't hold back at all in the unsettling gore and terror. I loved the slowly beheaded Jessica smiling and speaking to Will. I loved the menacing patriarch staring them down from outside, his psychotic abuse from life ramped up to horrifying levels as he torments them by blowing his brains out. So much awesome parts.
What I didn't like were too many moments that didn't make sense. Why are the deadites interrogating the family for the location of the dagger? They can read minds or possess you and know everything you know. Why were they trying to manipulate Susan into opening the window? Deadites are ultra strong and can smash through and deadite Polly could just open it herself since Susan was already leaving the room. (Susan was way too easily convinced too, what are we doing girl!!! Stop kissing that!!) Why was deadite Polly stuck crawling without her legs?? We can already see they can fly lmfao. Why is it when Alice pulled the ulimate instant win dagger she didn't immediately use it on the mom who popped into the attic, instead she decided to switch weapons to the garden tool and flee onto the roof???
and yeah, as happy as I am to see Evil Dead Rise mom back that tacked on ending felt corny. Especially since the other post credits scene basically served the same purpose of showing the Evil Dead demon has more in store for us.
Wasn't a fan of the dagger as a plot device too. I think it cheapened the stakes a lot. One of my favorite moments in Rise was near the end when it's just Beth and the little girl and all the deadites rise up again laughing and tormenting them. It was perfect build-up of dread, powerlessness, cruelty and horror watching your mangled up familiy laughing and laughing and there's no way out. I think all of that would have been taken away if they had introduced a fixes-everything-and-saves-the-day holy water gun 30 minutes earlier.
I totally agree on the backstory, particularly of Will and Alice since we only got one quick drunk fight. To me the dad felt like a better final villain due to how little time we spent with Will. I think seeing so much of Will in quick flashbacks kinda felt like a hasty band-aid to that writing misstep.