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Evil Dead (2013)
67 Plays2 days ago
Rick and Trav continue their demonic trip down The Groovy Road to Evil Dead Burn as they cover Fede Alvarez's 2013 revitalization of the franchise with EVIL DEAD. Warning: Drugs, deadites, and dogs named 'Grandpa' lie ahead.
(00:02:57) - Intro
(00:04:40) - Synopsis
(00:05:25) - Overall Thoughts
(00:21:55) - Production Notes
(00:27:25) - Jane Levy!
(00:31:45) - Box Office, Scrapped Sequel Plans, & Rights Issues
(00:38:02) - Rest of the Cast
(00:40:35) - Scare-o-Meter
(00:43:00) - Highlights
(00:43:07) - Awards
(01:30:22) - Scream Queen or King
(01:32:25) - Next Episode
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Opening Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
I'm so sorry, baby. Daddy, what is that?
00:00:12
Speaker
Daddy, look at me. me It's me. Oh, no, crap. I don't think bad. I just want you to hold me and take me home. Please.
00:00:30
Speaker
Alright, Rick,
00:00:40
Speaker
we are back.
00:00:46
Speaker
we are back We are back. Back in the woods. Movie number four in our franchise series. Again, what's our what's our record for most films done in franchise to date? Because we have four for 28 years and four for The Conjuring. Is that right? Yeah. we I think we'll break the record if neither of us dies or turns into a deadite before Evil Dead Rise because we'll hit five. Yeah.
00:01:13
Speaker
what will We'll hit five next week and then six with the release. Yeah, we'll continue breaking the record. So yeah, this is our longest longest extent here doing a franchise series.
Hosts and Film Introduction
00:01:26
Speaker
um Man, okay, before we jump into today's film, as i always ask, how are you doing? Anything new going on in the horror world we should be aware of? No, I know that we're both pressed for time on this one. So I'm i'm fine skipping our our normal random banter and movie news just to get into this film because I know we probably both have a lot to say about it.
00:01:44
Speaker
um I'm still in New Jersey. that's That's my personal news. Horror news, I have nothing except that um Evil Dead Burn ah continued the tradition of Evil Dead movies in initially getting an NC-17 rating by the MPAA, and then they have to cut something out in order to
Evil Dead Versions and Production Insights
00:02:05
Speaker
get an R rating. I think that's happened to every single Evil Dead movie, ah which is why I was so insistent on us watching the unrated version of this film, because this is the NC-17 version of the movie.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, and talking about Evil Dead trends here, film to film, I forgot forgot to mention last week, because this film breaks the trend that the first three Evil Dead movies, so Raimi's trilogy, all with plus or minus like 30 seconds of an 85 minute runtime.
00:02:31
Speaker
where I think i mentioned in the first episode, I like them short and sweet. This one goes a little beyond it. I think we're we're pushing almost an hour and a half or an hour, hour 25. I guess, no, that wouldn't be right. Hour 25 would be 85 minutes. I think it's ah like an hour 35. The theatrical cut is 91 minutes, so an hour 31. And then the unrated cut that we watched is 96 minutes, just five minutes. Okay, yep.
00:02:56
Speaker
Yeah. Anyways, with that said, this is the Sunday Scaries. I'm Travis Telerik. I'm Ricky Townsend. Today we are covering the revitalization, so to speak, bringing back from the dead. I've heard so many words. That's the first one I've heard. I've heard reboot, reimagination, remake. I haven't heard revitalization, Trav. I'm you've heard anything else in the Yeah, pretty verbose. But Evil Dead 2013, not to be confused with the Evil Dead. And this is, you know, after a two decade hiatus from films, at least in the franchise, where we see Fede Alvarez kind of breathe some new life into the franchise. This was the first one I saw in theaters because now we are fully to our young adulthood. We were 23 when this came out.
00:03:44
Speaker
m So we get, um you know, the we'll talk a lot about this in production notes, but we get our original trio of producers continuing to produce. But Ramey and Campbell step back now just to the producer role. And we get some new blood here. And a young Fetty Alvarez, who has since got on to make some other horror movies, we've really enjoyed ah directing this one.
Film Synopsis and Initial Reactions
00:04:08
Speaker
Yeah, the I'm excited to talk about production notes um for this because the the development of this project is really cool. And i um I think a big shout out to Robert Tappert, who it sounds to me that once the film was up and going, his role was the most pronounced. you know Sam and Bruce are making sure that they're shepherding the property the right way. They're looking at cuts, making notes. But Robert's the one putting in you know the the sweat equity and the you know getting his hands dirty and stuff. Uh, but yeah, I, um, here, I'll, I'll read the synopsis real quick, um, before we get into it.
00:04:46
Speaker
It's going to sound somewhat familiar, um since, you know, we, people call this a, a reboot, a reimagining, whatever you want to call it. I don't think it really matters, to be honest. Some people might disagree.
00:04:59
Speaker
but, but Mia, a drug addict, is determined to kick the habit. To that end, she asks her brother, David, his girlfriend, Natalie, and their friends, Olivia. it went out kate You know what? Letterboxd's synopsis is way too long. I'm going back to IMDb. Five friends head to a remote cabin where the discovery of a book of the dead leads them to
Unique Elements and Themes of Evil Dead
00:05:19
Speaker
unwittingly summon up demons living in the nearby woods.
00:05:23
Speaker
Um, sure. Yeah, I, this is a great example of a movie that I didn't see either at the right time or fully understood the context of this franchise because looking at my letterbox, I gave it a three out of five and didn't have much to say about it.
00:05:37
Speaker
I absolutely loved it. I was blown away. i think I went into that one expecting that synthesis of humor and absurdist, uh, gory violence that you get.
00:05:49
Speaker
ah if you look at the franchise as a whole, But if you go into this knowing that like they're really just taking the spirit of the first one and then putting a spin on it, a youthful spin, somebody that's not from um the States nor from Sam's generation and trying to recapture the terror that they were trying to capture the 1981 original.
00:06:09
Speaker
I think that you can't do a better remake, especially not bringing back Ash, which I think would have been a big mistake. You can't replicate what Bruce Campbell does. And all that being said, it's a huge risk. And I think it paid off by doing something different that I don't think I appreciated it when it first came out. And I absolutely loved it. i' I'm ready to watch it again in the near future. I had a blast.
00:06:32
Speaker
Yeah, I think huge risk is the right way to phrase it because this film starts out, we do not get ah a synopsis or retcon of the prior films trying to catch us up to speed. We do not get a fourth Linda, unfortunately, dying here at the beginning of this film.
00:06:49
Speaker
And i think most importantly, like relative to the three films preceding this, like Fetty Alvarez's vision here is very much a grim, gritty, and gory take on on horror, right? Stripped away is this trend line we had going towards more and more slapstick, Three Stooges-esque humor.
00:07:09
Speaker
And instead, we get a very raw, in-your-face, like, demonic movie here where the yeah the... I don't... I think I laughed once, inadvertently, and that wasn't even that intentional humor, and the rest of it is pretty... ah Yeah, pretty dark, even tough for me to, you know, now as an adult and years later and I watch a lot of horror, like there's some tough scenes to watch. i So I got a little too excited,
Horror Settings and Personal Anecdotes
00:07:35
Speaker
Trav. um I started to watch the movie.
00:07:39
Speaker
I watched it in full last night, but ah last week after our pod on Army of Darkness, I was like, just wanted to jump the gun and watch this one ASAP. So I was in the bathroom of the shared home I'm living in right now with Sarah and her two coworkers slash friends. Um,
00:07:54
Speaker
Olivia and Jesse, they're all on the same Netflix show right now working on it here in Jersey. um And I was by myself in the bathroom and I just pulled up. I was like, I'll watch the first few minutes on my phone, like while I'm brushing my teeth or something. And those initial opening minutes, I swear to God, like once her face changes into a dead eye,
00:08:15
Speaker
And the things that she's saying to her father, i um I swear I saw her in the mirror, like behind me or something. And it it's I was like, all right, you know what? I'm good. I'm going to wait till I have this on the big screen. My excuse was, yeah, i just need to watch it in full. But I think i was a little a little spooked to ah watch it then. Yeah, it stuck with me, dude.
Cringe-inducing Moments and Remake Trend
00:08:33
Speaker
It's gory.
00:08:34
Speaker
It's talking about cringe-inducing moments where you can't, it's hard to look at it or you want to look away. There's my cantaloupe list. So Trav, do you want to recap for any new audience members what the cantaloupe award is? Yeah. actually And you you actually get ah a cantaloupe scene pretty akin to the namesake here in this movie, but it is from the film Bring Her Back, which came out last year. It was our first episode. So we named an award after a very specific scene in that film involving a cantaloupe, which the the take of the category is
00:09:06
Speaker
It's difficult to watch. That could be because of the amount of gore or cringe. um It is deeply unsettling. So a little different than a jump scare, right? Which takes you all at once. But this is going to be a lingering image that...
00:09:21
Speaker
it's tough to come to terms with. so I think we've had some films where guess we haven't covered the substance yet, but i use like examples of like eating the shrimp, the substance, which is just disgusting, makes you feel unsettled in that way. But this film truly is.
00:09:33
Speaker
You have yeah the trope of somebody like that they can't open a door and it's, yeah it's tense. So that's another way that you can win this award. But the one i think we're talking about for this one is it's just hard to watch because it's gory or you're it's,
00:09:48
Speaker
it's It's hitting your nerves in a way that like, wow, if that happened to my body, I would not be feeling great. And yeah my list kept going longer and longer as I was taking this year. Yeah, I also, go ahead.
00:10:00
Speaker
Going back to your point, it's been a while since i I saw this in theaters. I've not seen it since. So we're talking about 13 years here between viewings. um This was my adolescence of, even though i was a young adult, watching a lot of horror films in my late teens, early twenty s And i we were looking at release dates. They didn't come out at the same time, but I must have watched them around the same time.
00:10:24
Speaker
But Eli Roth had a horror film called Cabin Fever. um Just a few years preceding this one, Evil Dead 2013, was also Cabin in the Woods, which is a film I adore. And i your daughter is cabin the woods yeah I think with enough of those horror films where the setting is a bunch of late teens, young adults end up in a cabin and it's scary.
00:10:46
Speaker
They all kind of got a little muddled together. And to your point, I think a lot of what I like is is still true in this one. It had just been a bit, um what's there, a bit diluted by how many films like this I watched back around this time. So it was good to revisit.
00:11:03
Speaker
I think it also got caught up in a wave
Reboots vs. Remakes in Horror
00:11:06
Speaker
of the... you know I know this was made in the 2010s, but the 2000s is pretty much known for like a lot of ah ill-received remakes of classic franchises. you know You have The Hills Have Eyes in 2006, think. You have ah Nightmare on Elm Street 2010, Friday the 13th of 2009.
00:11:25
Speaker
There's probably a Black Christmas somewhere in there. And think that the... i i think that the when the news came out that they were quote remaking evil dead without ash, a lot of groans, uh, were felt, uh, and doing some research on like the, the,
00:11:44
Speaker
the public's ah reception about the news, not the movie itself, but the news, it seemed to be like, Oh, this again. um and so I think it's so neat that not only did it make the most money out of any evil dead movie up to that point, 97 million, but it also has cultivated because it critically it was pretty warm. I think it got like 60, it's like a 65 or a 50 or 56, 50 to on Metacritic and a on Rotten Tomatoes.
00:12:12
Speaker
I've only seen think pieces and retrospectives on this movie increase in merit over the years ah in doing something really original um with with not original in the sense that it's a it's a reboot, a remake without doing too much of a nostalgia play. But I will say our our deep cut section, I think, will be longer
Character Motivations and Addiction Themes
00:12:36
Speaker
than normal traffic. Because I wrote down every little nod to the original franchise. awesome.
00:12:43
Speaker
So I think it's still paying oage ah ah homage to original franchise. Homage. But yeah, and I also, you know, I also noticed something too, you know, we, we haven't had a lot to say about themes in these movies, ah because as we've both read and seen this, Raimi is, is interested in entertainment and it's yeah not usually a message. I'm not saying that Fede what set out to make a message ah burdened movie here, but I did feel that he was pretty, he and his co-writer, um, uh, Roto, uh, Sayegues, I think I'm saying his name right. They were very intentional with like with with each of these characters' motivations. you know Eric is a curious high school teacher, which is why he's interested in excavating the mysteries of this book. you know He probably teaches history or something. um Olivia is a nurse with something to prove. you know the The very first time we meet her, she seems to have a chip on her shoulder because... David's girlfriend thinks she's a doctor and she's like, no. And then she's kind of the leader in trying to help Mia in this, in this withdrawal period. And i think she has a lot of pressure on herself to perform and show that she knows what she's talking about. David needs to stick it out to the end for his sister. And then Mia literally needs to face her demons um and does so.
00:13:58
Speaker
Jessica, ah i think Jessica is just David's girlfriend. But I just think I felt that there was a lot of, ah character motivations that made this feel like a ah fully realized movie with with people whose arcs you know were self-evidential and completely within the know This is the 2010s, right? So you could definitely get the taste of it's a little more elevated horror, a bit more trauma and grief interjected.
00:14:25
Speaker
Some parts I really
Practical Effects and Cinematography
00:14:26
Speaker
like of that. I really like the drug addiction or really trying to break the cycle, playing a key role in Mia's character arc. So there's a lot of that where you didn't get that in Raimi's films and it's it's nice to see a little more drive behind the character's actions.
00:14:44
Speaker
But you also get kind of layered on like, well, what about our mom? She was in a mental institution. She was insane. I'm like, okay, sure. Yeah, add a little more grief in there. Maybe that was a bit more heavy-handed than I needed.
00:14:58
Speaker
I think they were just trying to lay like really hit the nail on the head about David having something to prove. like David has abandoned his family in some ways and his friends because of some – some job he had at a garage in Chicago where they must've taught him some really cool shit. Cause he made a defibrillator out of a car battery. So, uh, yeah, whatever garage that was, that was like, no hesitation. It's like, I know what to do.
00:15:22
Speaker
ah Um, but yeah, it's, uh, I also, i do think the drug addiction, um, subst, uh, the drug addiction undertone of the movie or the, that layer was really well thought out because, It's it explains so many things. It it it explains why she has a weaker spirit for the demons to take over it ah It can it can push along the disbelief of the friends thinking that something actually nefarious is happening because they can just say, oh, she's probably having withdrawals. um
00:15:54
Speaker
it it just adds, it it fills in a lot of holes for like why this might be happening, um which you don't necessarily need because everybody understands the score when you see a movie like this. But I do think it helps it feel more realistic and you kind of get more absorbed in the movie.
00:16:09
Speaker
Yeah, completely agree. And again, it's also just ah a trademark maybe of the decade of horror films that we saw in the 2010s where is kind of becoming the norm and it it's probably on the better side of even though i made that jab about like layering on stuff about the mom, like I think they did a better job of interjecting theme into the movie without it feeling too, too heavy handed.
00:16:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah.
Director's Vision and Production Challenges
00:16:35
Speaker
um I was, i also, i was so appreciative of the dedication to practical effects here.
00:16:44
Speaker
mean, yeah, it is I didn't know if you want to talk about this or, or production, but One gripe with a lot of films, like a lot of these remakes we're talking about were, you know, cash grabs, right? They use cheesy CGI and nostalgia. And at the end of the day, you leave saying, okay, maybe it paid a bit of fan service, but wasn't doing too much for me. Fede Alvarez was insistent on practical effects in this movie. And that's what I think makes it stand out over, like we're saying, a lot of these other remakes or reboots of other franchises that were coming out around the same time.
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah, just to just to give the VFX crew a little bit of credit here. Fede does does fall into the trap that I think a lot of filmmakers do in the marketing machine that is movie making, where he's said this now twice on two of his films, this and Alien Romulus, where he says there is absolutely no CGI in this movie. There is no CG. It's all practical.
00:17:38
Speaker
All right, well, that depends on your definition of CG, because there is a hell of a lot of VFX ah enhancements and digital touch ups to make this seem real. He might be he might be right in the sense that the the central thrust of these stunts and set pieces were all practical, like that actually blood rain. Or, you know, red rain or the disembodied or sorry, the dismembered limbs are are not composites. They're real. But he's doing things like when the woman in the beginning of the movie is set on fire.
00:18:12
Speaker
ah That's not a stunt person being set on fire. That's a that's an image of actual fire against a blue screen and then composited onto her. So he's being a little misleading when he says there's no CG because some of those images are computer generated. But I guess you could also count it as just VFX enhancements it's and digital touch ups, which makes it seem like there is no CG.
00:18:38
Speaker
And more of a reliance yeah on practical effects than a lot of other films coming out around this time. Yeah, definitely. um I think he's pretty regretful of the way that a that one character who we will not name in case people are hasn't haven't seen Alien Romulus. But there was a character, a legacy character rendered in a pretty. un ah A way that was hard to believe and didn't look as great. And, you know, it's not going to sour my taste on the movie itself, but it was it was kind of a part of the movie that I was like.
Humor in Horror and Cinematography Appreciation
00:19:11
Speaker
Did we need that? And he's even said so. But moral of the story here is that he was really insistent on this being practical and shooting at night. A lot of times, too, they did like like 70 days of night or something like that, which is insane. um So, it all amounts to what I think is just a fantastic, gritty, gory. And you know what, Trav, you mentioned that you didn't laugh and until a certain you said you laughed a few times inadvertently.
00:19:39
Speaker
My laughter came when ah the movie started to get a bit more absurd in its violence and terror in almost a winking way, but it it didn't seem cheap. It was like, oh I'm just laughing about how metal this is right now. You know, like this is I can't believe they're doing this. um Yeah. One of those moments was when Eric slips on a piece of cheek of ah Olivia, when she's slicing her cheek off her face and he slips on it. That's that's like an example of that's the kind of laugh I'm getting. Like it's it's still brutal, but it's it's funny that that's what motive like caused him to fall and hit his head.
00:20:16
Speaker
Yeah. And then the other thing, and again, where we're about to go into production notes, so this is kind of, you know, splitting the difference between what we like about it and production notes, but we've talked a few times with the original trilogy about Raimi's cinematography style, very a lot of close shots in your face.
00:20:35
Speaker
Fetty has a bit of a distinctive style, but I think to the film's benefit is there's a lot of beautiful shots and maybe wider shots. I think like at the end, you know you have Mia's character in front of a cabin that's on fire um with blood rain pouring all over her. I have a whole segment on that scene.
00:20:53
Speaker
Yeah, and it's it's awesome to look at. Like, he did a great job. Like, there's some beautiful shots in here that ah doesn't feel as much of, like, the bootstrapped indie film ah type that Ramey had to begin with because, again, these were his first films he made, but looks more professional and and well done, right? And so... ah I really enjoyed that as
Film Development and Director's Breakthrough
00:21:15
Speaker
well. Seeing kind of Fetty's touch on that and in the direction they went with cinematography as well. Well, we got a shout out Aaron Morton who did the cinematography there, uh, who's has a phenomenal touch is able to do the nods to the hurling camera. You know, in this case it was on a, on a ah wire, you know, rushing through the woods to the upside down kind of landscape looks at the, um at the at the forest. ah Yeah, I loved be he's done some of your your Black Mirror episodes, dude.
00:21:44
Speaker
um Aaron, Aaron Morton, Bandersnatch and a few other episodes. ah But yeah, we can go into notes because I think the notes tie in pretty nicely into like how we feel about the movie.
00:21:55
Speaker
um Yeah. So development wise, where we left off was our army of darkness. Um, and ever since then, Raimi had been wanting to do an evil dead for, or an army darkness to however you want to look at it.
00:22:11
Speaker
um things waxed and waned didn't really happen. Um, Bruce had ah indicated soft interest, but was not interested in one where Ash came back. It wasn't until 2009 where Fede Alvarez, who I think was 29 at the time, out of Uruguay is where he lives. He uploads a five minute short called Ataca de Panico, which is a panic attack. Mm hmm.
00:22:40
Speaker
Do they speak Uruguayan and Uruguay, Trav, or this speak they speak Spanish? They speak Spanish. Okay. They speak Spanish. Well, that means panic attack is Spanish. Uruguayan is a term you might have just penned, but I like it. I'm sure they have a specific dialect that's a little different. We're all being original here. It's a cute little short that goes viral. It's about his home. It's the capital of Uruguay, which is Monteverio, Montevideo. Montevideo.
00:23:04
Speaker
So it's a sci-fi disaster short set in Montevideo in Uruguay. ah Supposedly only costs 300 bucks to make. It's extremely CG heavy. If you were to watch it today, Trav, you would think, how did this land a 17, you know, a $30 million dollars deal at Ghost House Pictures that is You know, his first movie is so reliant on practical effects that just goes to show that Sam Raimi sees something that we don't. OK, so I don't know what he saw in this short, but all I know is that 10 days later, he is flying out to l L.A. to meet with Sam and signs a 30 million dollar development deal with with Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures.
00:23:44
Speaker
Um, and so the idea initially was that, Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna support you to make an original
Script Revisions and Franchise Classification
00:23:51
Speaker
sci-fi film. And maybe it's panic attack. Maybe it's this movie about, you know, uh, robots from space attacking a city.
00:23:59
Speaker
It goes into development hell. It never happens. Um, and then Fede has these other other original concepts that he's running by Sam and Bruce and Robert,
00:24:11
Speaker
But in ah in what will be kind of a continuing theme of his career, sadly for him, his original ideas often get shot down. And that's when Sam Raimi's like, you know, I've been wanting to do this Evil Dead thing for a while.
00:24:25
Speaker
what about this? And so he gives them that opportunity. Fede pitches him an idea about how he would do it. And then before you know it, July, 2011, they're, they're moving into development. Um, the other name that you won't see often written about, but it, she was also involved as Diablo Cody, um, or Diablo Cody. She penned Juno, ah as well as Jennifer's body. And so she helped do some script, some script revisions. Her first name is Diablo as in devil.
00:24:53
Speaker
As in the devil, yes, Satan. Wow. Huh. You know, those those Hollywood types. tra and they named there I don't know if that's a that's a given name. Yeah. Pretty sure that was a chosen name. um And so then, you know, they they give him $17 million dollars to to make this movie. And ah I think there was a lot of talk about what is it going to be, a reboot, a remake, a reimagining. And like we said at the early ill orrate the episode,
00:25:21
Speaker
It doesn't really matter. um i think Sam has gone on the record saying this takes place in the same universe as Evil Dead, but that it's spiritually it's so connected to what happened in that first movie that you can call it a remake. I consider I consider a reboot. A reboot is when you inject new life into a dormant franchise and you kick it off with a movie that is reminiscent of an earlier installment of said franchise, which is exactly what they did.
00:25:46
Speaker
Yeah, i the only other point I'd add to what you're saying, we covered this on our past episodes, but the first three films are beloved now, but they were not commercial smashing successes in in their own right in in the box office.
00:26:01
Speaker
And so there's a long tail between you know, Army of Darkness to getting this film. And part of that is because of how well the film did after the fact, once it's out of theaters, like we've said before, ah VHS sales, you know, now in this day and age streaming.
00:26:17
Speaker
And so a lot of that, you know, you you don't greenlight in Evil Dead 4 right after Army of Darkness because Army of Darkness did ho-hum at the box office, right? And so it's cool to see how fan appreciation for these films can ultimately to... Yeah, it catches up. And and then we're we're right back at it again.
00:26:36
Speaker
I also think that the... Raimi, Campbell, and Tapper, you know they they took a calculated risk. And I think i it sounds like Raimi was the proponent of this in staying away from trying to recapture all of the original magic that the original trilogy had. And said, you know what, why don't we make this
Casting Highlights and Production Challenges
00:26:57
Speaker
a factory? Why don't we make this franchise a factory for young buddy and filmmakers to take their own spin on this and do away with the shitty things that we did and amp up the things that weren't available us now, whether that be prosthetics or intensity or what have you. And i think... The result is exactly that because you have a unique eye again, somebody from a different generation and a different nationality taking what he loved about that first one and put it in a spin on it.
00:27:26
Speaker
I also think he landed a hell of a win in ah Jane Levy as Mia because yeah, so much dude. what she does is something she does here is unlike what happens in any other Evil Dead movie or many other horror franchises, dude. She plays the victim, the antagonist and the hero all in the same movie. Yeah. And that's like three completely different uh, approaches or or tonalities that you have to bring to a role. And she sells every single one of them. I thought she was fantastic. I just like Bruce Campbell carrying the original three films. Like she easily carries it on the cast with, I like the rest of the cast, but they're doing serviceable jobs and she really makes the movie when it, when it comes to acting here. And just like you said, playing, wearing a lot of hats, just like Bruce Campbell had to do for the original, uh, films.
00:28:16
Speaker
Yeah, she ah you know, it's funny. She she she goes on record saying what a tough time it was, but she's very careful to like give respect and tip of the hat to Bruce Campbell because Bruce was very involved. He's like sending emails to the cast. And one of the things he said was, look, ah an easy movie to make is a hard movie to watch.
00:28:37
Speaker
meaning if you cut corners and it's easy, it's probably not going to be great in the end. And I think Mia or sorry, Jane was both real realistic in her own expectations and then experience of how difficult it was having to have blood drenched on her, having, you know, tubes shoved down her throat to do the vomit, having to shoot at night, having to have those horrible contacts in.
00:28:59
Speaker
But in the back of her head, because Bruce is such a looming presence over the set, knowing that he went through much worse with much less money and that everything's probably going to be all right. But what she did do with that budget, ah I just thought was I thought it was fantastic. um Yeah.
00:29:14
Speaker
ah And then you have, ah like I said, Rhoda Sayaguayas as the co-writer. He's Fetty's guy, man. Everything he's done is Fetty related because he's co-written on every single one of Fetty's movies except for ah the the one on, what is it, the Girl in the Spider's Web?
00:29:32
Speaker
um But he co-wrote Evil Dead, Don't Breathe, um Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And Alien Romulus. Which I guess Fetty wasn't involved in. He just yeah was a producer on it. And then Alien Romulus. um But then he also directed Don't Breathe 2.
00:29:49
Speaker
the the or The writer. Oh, I haven't seen the sequel. I didn't know there was a sequel. um But I brought this up because I segwayed back to Jane Levy because she goes on to star in Fetty's next film, Don't Breathe, which is his first and at this point only original feature film. um But she hasn't done anything really since. And I don't know why. She's fantastic in both those movies. She's some roles.
00:30:13
Speaker
She's had some TV roles, but a lot of TV series that she she was on the first season of Shameless.
Director's Artistic Aspirations and Franchise Future
00:30:18
Speaker
She was one of the main characters and then decided to leave, chase other opportunities. And since then, it's been a lot of series that you know go like one season and then don't get picked up for a second.
00:30:29
Speaker
Right. um But yeah, i I think she's fantastic in this. She's great in this. Yeah. This is the pinnacle of her her career. Tell me, so i said what's your what's your relationship with Fetty Alvarez like?
00:30:41
Speaker
i So I really liked Alien Romulus and that's probably my favorite of his films that he's made. I think this movie and Don't Breathe are both very good movies. so I recommend them, but not to the same degree of Alien Romulus.
00:30:56
Speaker
And I like when you see a director maybe putting out better films, the more he makes because it gives a little promise for, well, what's next for him, right? I see his star as still rising.
00:31:07
Speaker
And so I'm excited for where he goes from here. But yeah, now this was his first film, like you said. And and from here, he's one of those directors who I love Ari Aster, probably my favorite working horror director right now.
00:31:20
Speaker
But Ari's pivoted from horror. He's still making great films, but left the genre. Yeah, and social satires. Yeah. And Fetty's just like, this is my thing. This is my niche. And I'm going to make good horror films. Yeah.
00:31:34
Speaker
And I respect that as well because I love horror. It's my favorite subgenre. Yeah, he's other I brought up his like continuing ah push to make more original content. So after Evil Dead 2013 did so great. I mean, we'll just step on box office real quick. $17 million dollars budget did $54 million domestically and $43 million internationally for a $97 million dollars haul, ah which is incredible. Yeah, it's a success. they did like some fan vote.
00:32:03
Speaker
Um, and I guess this was years after, you know, and that now that I think of it, it was, um, years after, ah Don't breathe. it was but It must have been short left. Don't breathe. Because he put out a fan thing. Ghost House did. I said, hey, do you guys want to see a sequel to Evil Dead 2013 or don't breathe? And everybody obviously voted for Evil Dead. And he commented like, you know, sadly, you guys picked Evil Dead, which I understand. But I was excited to explore my own original franchise. Yeah. um And it's like, what do you expect, man? I mean, don't breathe. was great. And, you know, he ended up getting a s sequel off the ground. He didn't direct it. But ah but I wanted to get into...
00:32:39
Speaker
what happened after this film because it to me it is it is interesting where the franchise goes from here because it it could have gone in many different directions and instead now we have this kind of anthology loosely tied installments um that I think Sam had intended from the beginning but they toyed with doing something completely different so after the success of this one um the initial idea was for Fetty to do a Evil Dead 2, meaning a sequel to his 2013, and Sam to come back to the director's fold and do an Army of Darkness 2, effectively an Evil Dead 4. And then if those did well, and that one would have Bruce Campbell as Ash. And if those did well, they would then combine forces in a third movie where Mia and Ash team up against the Deadites together in some big crossover.
00:33:31
Speaker
That obviously never happened.
Anthology Series and Storytelling Potential
00:33:33
Speaker
um Evil Dead 2 kind of goes away and Fetty ends up doing Don't Breathe. Evil Dead 4 or Army of Darkness 2, that's what turns into Ash versus Evil Dead, the stars show, which you and I have not watched. um I've seen clips of it. It looks great. I want to get into it. um But yeah, so that's that's what could have been is this weird crossover. And instead, and they stick with, you know, um we're going to keep Ash over here in a TV format because of all the stories they want to tell. um
00:34:04
Speaker
And then years go by and you get Evil Dead Rise, which we'll talk about in our next episode. But I just thought that was interesting that they had they did have plans to make it more of a through-line story. And they scrapped it for this.
00:34:16
Speaker
And now it's more almost like an anthology, right? Where each film is... You know, there's similar source material, the Necronomicon, the Deadites, but very different, right? No plot continuity typically between characters or or through lines there. And i I do like that going back to your point on now it's been a good breeding ground for young directors to get into horror, similar to how I like the VHS films. You can see um that's a true anthology, right? yeah a lot of like 20 minutes.
00:34:44
Speaker
or so shorts, but you can see the promise of up and coming directors there. But then Trav, it's not weighed down by lore. I do think horror franchises, especially ones that deal with like demonic entities, you should have a sturdy understanding of where this lore is from and the books the dead and all that.
00:35:02
Speaker
But we don't have to have a marvel marvelification of it where we're so preoccupied with tying everything together and everything making total sense. I really do like the incubator model they have. um But i I did want to talk about how much I think that the rights issues influence some of these decisions because you just mentioned Necronomicon.
00:35:21
Speaker
But do you know they never mentioned that name in this movie? And do you know why? point. I'm assuming it's a rights issue. It's a rights issue. So they didn't use the name Necronomicon, full name being Necronomicon Ex Mortis until Evil Dead 2.
00:35:35
Speaker
ah And then they expand on that in Army of Darkness. Well, ah Dino delet delo De company sold the rights to Evil Dead 2 to MGM, which is now the current holder. um Army of Darkness is still owned by Universal.
00:35:51
Speaker
Sam and Ghost House Pictures owns completely the rights only to Evil Dead 1. That is the only one they own. They use the the term ah for the that book of the dead, Natronom de Manto, which is what they use in this movie and what they use in Evil Dead Rise.
00:36:08
Speaker
ah It's the same reason that we don't have any reference to, you know, why why why Ash versus Evil Dead doesn't reference Army of Darkness, because there's no overlap. ah Universal is especially sticky to work with.
00:36:23
Speaker
um And so, and and and Sam doesn't even really own all the rights to this movie. ah Sony was the distributor and and financed most of this. And so they have to be really careful about what they do and who they have to appease and get the and approvals from in each of these movies. But um there's a lot of conjecture online about how many books of the dead there are. And where the way I see it is like,
00:36:48
Speaker
I think since Evil Dead Rise came out, we could talk about this more in the next episode. ah Sam has since gone on record saying that, okay, in Army of Darkness, when you see those three books of the dead, i know we made it seem like those two were decoys and maybe at the time in our writers' heads and they were.
00:37:05
Speaker
it's probably better to understand it that the whole tome of them are called Necronomicon or Natronum de Montos. But each there's different volumes.
00:37:15
Speaker
There's three different volumes. And the one from the original trilogy is one. There's one in this movie because it looks different, right? There's not a face on it. And then there's another one floating around that we might see in Evil Dead Rise. And the way that Bruce Campbell describes it in an interview is like, look, these movies are rooted in the book of the dead. That's the the germ that infects everything that that brings these entities out, but they have different rules. Each of them, this one is about ah a taker of lives. It's not the same Kandarian spirit from the first couple. yeah ah And so I think it gives people a lot of creative license to tell different stories from these three different brooks three different books at three different times that do three different things. And I think that makes it springboard for the rest of the franchise.
00:37:59
Speaker
Yeah. All right.
Supporting Cast Contributions
00:38:02
Speaker
Anything else production note specific before we talk about cast just a little bit more giving a shout out to the the rest of the cast outside of ah um outside of Jane Levy. No.
00:38:13
Speaker
So similar to the previous installments here, you have Jane Levy, who, like you said, her she was fantastic in this movie. Her star doesn't rise a ton, but she she has had a successful working actress career. um Outside of this, not a lot of very notable names here in Shiloh Fernandez that plays Mia's brother, David. Then you have Lou Taylor Pucci playing Eric, the high school teacher um who is good friends with David.
00:38:40
Speaker
You have Jessica Lucas playing Olivia. She was actually in um ah She's the Man. She has a supporting role. How could I forget? somewhat rememberable yeah And she's also in Cloverfield. I didn't know. I'm looking that up right now.
00:38:54
Speaker
is Lily, and I don't i don't remember her. ah Okay, she's wow, she's like the supporting actress in Cloverfield, so she's done a few horror movies there. um And then ah Elizabeth Blackmore plays maybe the more forgettable Natalie. She has some unforgettable scenes, though. I mean, her character has written not as much, but like, yeah.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yes, I'd agree.
00:39:20
Speaker
um Yeah, but but I did have a note on Shia. What's his name? ah David's character. Shiloh Fernandez. In the first scene, he sounds like he has an accent and then it goes away later on. Did you notice that?
00:39:38
Speaker
No, I again, his role was serviceable, so maybe I wasn't. Yeah, I must have given him a pass. Did you think, though, when the when you were I guess I'd have to ask 23 year old Travis in watching this, did you think that this was going to be another like Ash stand in? Because up till the beginning of the third act, he is the lone survivor. And so he might not be the soulful through line of the movie, but he is like the only able bodied person still alive.
00:40:07
Speaker
Yeah. I mentioned it before when I think we covered our first two
Scare Factor and Standout Scenes
00:40:13
Speaker
films. I saw this film with no knowledge of the evil dead before I'd seen any other prior films. So I did not know who Bruce Campbell's Ash even was here. So um to your point, no, I did not.
00:40:24
Speaker
Cause I wasn't familiar with the, you didn't which more tra you didn't know what you didn't know. guys Exactly. um Well, Hey, I'm, I'm good with going into ah our awards.
00:40:36
Speaker
All right. Well, let's start it off, as always, with our scurometer. I'm assuming this will trump the the prior three films. um yeah But yeah, on the count of three, counting down from three, three, two, one, six. Eight.
00:40:54
Speaker
Ah, damn. thought you might say eight. i I was kind of between a six and a seven. I wrestled with this a bit. Were you strategic here trying to guess what mine would be? Well, no. oh I was just waffling that.
00:41:06
Speaker
I like the lewdness of the deadites and how they speak to the characters. But i think when you get to demonic possession and you have the demon entities like taunting you like this,
00:41:17
Speaker
It doesn't scare me as much as the ah the mute or untalking entities that you might see in like possession type films. And so thats that's really the difference in my scale. i i So to remind everybody, this is not how much we like the movie. This is how scary we think the movie is. And it goes into dread. It goes into gore. It goes into like lingering feelings of being disturbed.
00:41:42
Speaker
So I looked at our numbers. Okay. Ring is nine. Conjuring is eight. Bring her back at 7.5. I took issue with it being a seven because look at these other movies that are sevens. Long Legs, Conjuring 2, and Weapons. I think this movie is scarier than all three of those.
00:42:00
Speaker
Man, those films were pretty scary. I mean, again, I said it has this. I think I was higher on all three of those. Like if you if you want to slide it somewhere in the middle, I will appease you. But personally, um i would find all three of those films still just slightly scarier. do You think weapons is scarier than Evil Dead?
00:42:16
Speaker
I think I think weapons had some all time scary moments for me in the theater, especially when. Oh, yeah. like in the in the cars and she gets her hair cut. um There's no moment in this Evil Dead film that I think compares to that.
00:42:30
Speaker
I can't put it below weapons, but I will go down two rankings that I'd like to go ah below Conjuring 2 and above weapons.
00:42:41
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, that's that's fine. Like said, I'm willing to appease you here because we we have to be in the middle somewhere. So that's fine. All right. So you gave it a six. But if you want the Travis cut of scary rankings, you want to be truly scared. I don't. No. first before this one This is a communal ranking.
00:42:57
Speaker
We're communists in this regard. All right. Highlights. Highlights. um I touched on one already and we're getting firmly into spoiler territory here.
00:43:13
Speaker
But the end of the film shot where she's fighting the final dead eye. Travis, of course, in Travis fashion, opens highlights with the end of the film. Yep.
00:43:24
Speaker
Yep. Let's jump straight to the end. Wow. All right. Can't get over how cool. I forgot about the blood rain. The cabin is on fire. David's just torched it. Mia's outside fighting the final deadite.
Opening Scene Analysis and Narrative Techniques
00:43:35
Speaker
And she's taking the chainsaw, which is iconic, right, for Evil Dead. She's taking the chainsaw straight through its face. She has now lost her hand, again, akin to Evil Dead. And blood rain is just pouring all around. It's this wide shot of her finishing off the deadite. And it was...
00:43:51
Speaker
gnarly it was cool it was beautiful to look at and yeah there's a lot going on for me yeah yeah there's there's a lot of great parts of this film but that was just a chef's kiss to a good ending that is where jane levy becomes a sex symbol to me uh with her dismembered hand raining in blood a cabin on fire and putting a chainsaw through a demon's head it's pretty hot Um, I'm going to do a one 80 on you here. don't want to talk about the opening scene.
00:44:20
Speaker
Um, yeah, I loved it. It threw me off. i didn't know what was happening. I didn't know if this is Jane Levy or not. Um, I won't spoil the quote cause it's one of my favorite quotes, but the exchange between this, uh,
00:44:33
Speaker
poor daughter who is tied up in a basement as a bunch of burn victims and a father with a a shotgun and then a Welsh witch are all looking on while they read out these incantations with a bunch of dead cats everywhere.
00:44:46
Speaker
ah She's just confused and she doesn't know why her dad is pointing a gun at her and lighting her or dousing with the gasoline. um And they have an exchange where you realize, oh, this is ah this daughter is not completely his daughter. And it's, you know, throwing her, up you know.
00:45:08
Speaker
Puts she's engulfed in flames, he blows her head off and then you title title just cuts to the title, Evil Dead. And I just love it. Good title card. love It's just a great it's a great cold open ah and sets the tone for what we're about to see. And I do think it was some clever filmmaking later to when they show the basement of the cabin. They do a quick flashback to that scene. And that's what put me at ease. I was like, oh, OK, this happened before. I didn't know if this was a flash forward of what's going to happen to Mia because like the actors look kind of similar.
00:45:41
Speaker
But I just love that scene, the way they open it up. um Another highlight I had was. ah Mia versus Natalie.
Key Fight Scenes and Franchise Homages
00:45:50
Speaker
yeah them fighting in the basement and yeah it resulting in hand that a hand a possessed hand, which is very, again, tribute to Evil Dead 2, which results in her having to cut it off. But she doesn't cut it off at the wrist like Ash does.
00:46:12
Speaker
ah It's one of two hand dismemberments in this movie. Well, three, if you include her other arm that gets blown off by a shotgun. Yeah. And she takes a turkey cutter and is, you know what? Most movies, the moment that she gets to her bicep, which is the unpossessed part of it, it would cut away.
00:46:29
Speaker
But she just gets in there and saws that thing. And again, and another, another, like a left turn where another director might do something different.
00:46:39
Speaker
We cut to something else and the character outside and then they come in and they see her and you think you're just going to see her with no arm. No, it's there. It's just hanging literally by a frame by a few tendons. Yep. And then just falls off.
00:46:51
Speaker
And then it just falls off. And and again, that's like one of those weird comedic moments that isn't overtly funny, but you have to laugh at it. It's just so ridiculous. And Rick, I hate to correct you, but Eric also gets his hand pretty thoroughly dismembered by a crowbar being taken down on it. Is it dismembered is it just like split open? It's kind of split down the middle.
00:47:10
Speaker
Yeah. It's very not off it's minesque member and men. in men, Alex Darla's movie? Yeah. scarless Yeah. Oh, I do. same That's just prior to the ah repeat pregnancy. Oh yeah.
00:47:23
Speaker
Now that's the hottest scene of the 2020s. That's, um, if you want a ah baffling movie, uh, I don't dislike that one, but it's not one of my favorites at Garland's works. And it's, it's very interesting to watch. I'll say that.
References to Original Films and Nostalgia
00:47:38
Speaker
Uh, yeah. I mean, it's just right between the fingers down to the middle of it. and It's, uh, It's quite gruesome. Yeah, a lot of lot of hand dismemberments. lot of hand stuff and not in the way that you ah usually like it.
00:47:54
Speaker
Awesome. Well, I want to keep mine to one, yeah there's but there's plenty other parts I like about the movie. I'm sure I could touch on them in some of the other awards. Anything else that you feel that we have to highlight before we move to those that we wouldn't revisit later?
00:48:06
Speaker
No, ah the other one I had we can revisit later. Perfect. Okay. Do you want to do you know, do we want to do some of our deep cuts and how it pays homage to the franchise? Yeah. Before we get into our stairs? I can just quickly go through them and if you want to comment on each of them or any of them, you let me know. Talked about some hands, talked about some chainsaws. So I have this in chronological order. The yeah the first thing is Bruce's car.
00:48:29
Speaker
We see the Oldsmobile. Where do you see it? I saw this after I watched the film and didn't didn't pick up on it. When we first are, in after the ah the cold open and then the the title card, um all the friends come meet each other. They're saying hello. And then David's like, where's Mia? And it's this beautiful shot behind the cabin. She's sitting on the hood of an old car. That's the Oldsmobile.
00:48:52
Speaker
Cool. Okay. it's when david It's when she and David have their first conversation. Got it. Her car was like an old Subaru and then he's driving like a Jeep. Yeah, no. the Yeah, his is, yeah, his is yeah yeah Bruce's old car. um She's wearing the iconic Michigan State shirt, which is worn in the first Evil Dead 1 and 2. That's good. Wow, I missed that too. This is great. Yeah.
00:49:13
Speaker
um Sam's almost alma mater before he dropped out after three semesters two semesters. um
00:49:21
Speaker
There's a necklace exchange ah instead of a mirror like in the other the old movies. It's a buckhorn tree necklace which David gives to Mia. um This one, I was proud of myself for catching, but I think it's only because I love this line reading in the furt in the second movie.
00:49:36
Speaker
It's the first or the second. I can't remember, Trav, but Do you remember when it's it's the first one when Linda is is reading is is doing some magic trick and Bruce is like preoccupied with the Book of the Dead and she's like, Look, Bruce, I can do this or that. And he goes, Truly amazing, truly amazing, Linda, like like kind of. a I do. I remember you brought it up on the pod. yeah Right. So Eric, ah there's some character, it's either Jessica or Olivia is trying to convince Eric that David is a good guy and that he's trying to amend ah or you know atone for his abandonment of this family and his friend group. And she's just saying, look, he's here now. you know He's trying his best. And he goes, truly amazing.
00:50:19
Speaker
Truly amazing. So different context, but I- Two ah two line reads as well. This belatedly have brought up in production
Controversial Scenes and Iconic Elements
00:50:27
Speaker
notes. But I saw that Fetty, again, young filmmaker from Uruguay, he wrote his script in Spanish.
00:50:34
Speaker
And so then he did need some help. Oh, so that's what Diablo Cody probably helped with that. Yeah. i did I didn't want to make an assumption. help the devil. Well, i didn't I didn't want to make an assumption because his english he has great English on interviews.
00:50:48
Speaker
um But I did in the back of also been over a decade. Yeah, it's been over a decade since then. Well, no, I watched the i watched the EPK in 2013 when the movie first came out. Oh, OK. But speaking a language can be very different than writing a language. So I did have ah an inkling that Diablo Cody might have helped with like you know normalizing some of these words to be more for an American audience. um But yeah, that's that's tough.
00:51:11
Speaker
ah Another quote, what happened to her eyes? which is it what they say in the first movie. um They, Fetty literally uses the audio from Cheryl in 1981 when she's floating and goes, one by one, we will take you. And ah when Mia walks into the door here in the cabin and has the shotgun and it's wind blowing and everything, they use that same audio track for her.
00:51:39
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. Yeah. She shoots out the window. So the spirit can like essentially rush into the home and you hear that audio. Yeah. Oh, I didn't. Okay. I didn't get that. I didn't get that. That like brought it into the house. That makes sense.
00:51:51
Speaker
um Obviously, again a little less controversially because of how it's rendered is you have another tree, ah scene. Yeah. Where, whereas the first movie, I look, I'm going to try to, going to, I'm trying to talk through this.
00:52:12
Speaker
I think the first movie not defensible because they put in moaning effects and she's like, it's the insinuation that somebody might be enjoying a rape is just like, that's indefensible. It's just like, that's horrible. Yeah.
00:52:23
Speaker
ah In the second movie, they just allude to something bad happening in the woods. In this one, I still probably wouldn't have even touched on it. But how he does it, I think if you're going to do it, it probably lands better. Because it's more of a parasite, right? It's like the the trees restrain her. And then the manifestation of the abomination or the taker of lives, which looks like an evil version of Mia herself, this like...
00:52:48
Speaker
parasitic tree branch looking slug comes out of her mouth and goes up her dress. I appreciate you trying to add some defense to it, but I still think this is maybe one of the parts of the film that has aged the worst. I could completely had forgotten about this. And after we were talking about the original film, like, yeah, you know, Raby was saying should have stayed away from that. I was yeah shocked revisiting this film and being like, no, they went back to tree rape. So maybe it's a, it's a, you know, movies do depict rape and here it's depicting it. And, you know, the only light you should, and that this is not negative or not something to be enjoyed. So maybe the tone was a bit more ah aware of that, but it was still, I was surprised. I was surprised that they went back. I am surprised that he included it again. i wouldn't have, but I think by making it less overtly sexual and more so like an infestation of sorts,
00:53:43
Speaker
You know, maybe that was his way of downplaying it a bit. Either way, that is a nod to the earlier film. um Of course, you have a cellar door, which I love that they include because so much some of the scarier parts of that first movie is that the face of of ah I guess not Henrietta it would be.
00:54:02
Speaker
Is it Linda in the first one? um It was Cheryl. Sorry, it's Cheryl. It was Cheryl, I think, who they put down the cellar. But they call a basement. Yeah, it's scary when you see just the face above it. Yeah, I would not call that a basement.
00:54:15
Speaker
I was thinking of you, Travis, because you saw the layout here. ah You saw the entryway to this place. You're you're sticking to cellar. This could be a language barrier situation.
00:54:27
Speaker
Yeah. i I mean, again, my take on a basement is it is either finished or has been framed out to be finished. That's what we call like an unfinished basement, right? Where a cellar is, yeah especially when it comes to like the flooring and stuff, like there's foundational walls that go past the floor of the main level to hold the house or the cabin in this point upright. But that that ah below grade space was not meant to ever be finished.
00:54:54
Speaker
And so that's what I'd consider a cellar. um Almost done here. Of course, we have the pretty overt nod to the possessed hand when Natalie's hand gets possessed. ah Doesn't end as well as for her as it did. Not nearly as comical. Not nearly as comical.
00:55:11
Speaker
Dude, that was brutal. Trying to push out the black pus and everything. Mm hmm. Yummy. Oh, David having to chainsaw his girlfriend in the same way Ash had to. ah You have the blood going on the light bulb and making it a red light, kind of like in the first no first two.
00:55:35
Speaker
um When the necklace falls into the ground, it makes the shape of a skull, just like in again, I forget if it's Evil Dead 1 or 2. Oh, I missed that. Okay. And then two things in the the, or three things in the credits. One is that they mentioned they have a list of fake shemps, which I appreciated.
00:55:52
Speaker
Oh, amazing. I missed that as well. That's great.
Bruce Campbell's Cameo and Jump Scares
00:55:55
Speaker
um They include ah Professor Nobis, or played by Bob Dorian, his audio by saying, i did the Book of the Dead, yeah inked in blood and bound in human flesh.
00:56:06
Speaker
yeah um And then we have the very controversial, and when I say controversial, I mean to just send the fans into a frenzy about but Bruce Campbell's ah cameo saying groovy. At the very end, after the credits. yeah After the credits.
00:56:20
Speaker
Super close up, very dark, can barely see him, and he just turns to face the camera, says groovy, and that's that. The amount of like fan theories and trying to connect his story to this one that that thing caused is, and i'm I'm sure at this point they're like, wow, I wish we just didn't even do that. Because it was clearly just a fun little cameo Easter egg situation. There was not anything, you know. Yeah. And something similar. the movie was devoid of groovies until the very end too. So maybe they felt no character could deliver that line as well as Bruce had. So they're like, well, we got stick in one groovy here.
00:56:55
Speaker
Well, it helps us out because this continues our groovy road to Evil Dead Bird. I know. I don't think Evil Dead Rise has a groovy if I remember right correctly, but I hope I'm proofed wrong. Me too. But that's all I had. for I know it was a long deep cuts, but I just thought it was, it was, these are clever ways that they nodded to the first film.
00:57:11
Speaker
Yep. Love it. ah Jump scares. We do have some jump scares in this one. Oh, yeah. There was one that really stuck out to me, but what what was what was yours? Did you have one? Okay. Well, I wonder if we have the same. So it is right after um Mia has first seen the spirit and everyone thinks she's just paranoid, but she's like, I got to get the hell out of here. And she gets in the car and she crashs it crashes it into the marsh.
00:57:35
Speaker
And she's just come to and she's submerged in this marsh water, thick fog. And you kind of know something's going to happen, but still cut me off guard and made me jump when you see the ah deadite arise from the marsh right next to her. Yes. So that was a good jump for me.
00:57:52
Speaker
All right. my That's a great one. And I thought the whole forest sequence was... scary and and just great. the The camera movement, like again, sweeping through the woods and the add, the additive nature of having a physical manifestation of the thing chasing her, not just this disembodied thing. I really like that.
00:58:11
Speaker
um When she is in, when David is in the cellar, And he appears in the back in the shadows and she is ah on like one of those airport moving sidewalks times a thousand. Just floats at him.
00:58:28
Speaker
No steps. Yeah. ah ah so A sprinty float or a floaty sprint, however you want to say it. But that, that got me. That was my big jump scare. Yep. Okay. I liked it. um All right.
00:58:40
Speaker
like you say Okay. So there's a lot of cantaloupe worthy moments here. I'd like to keep it short and be succinct, which means already I'm asking you to get rid of some of the ah the ones that and now that you've compiled your list and gone back and thought over it, maybe not as worthy. Because i i have a clear, there's a lot.
00:59:01
Speaker
I have just a clear winner, at least from my side that I'd like to call out. Okay. um I'll keep it to two. How about that? Okay. Perfect. What do want me to go first? Because I might have one of them, I assume. Yeah, you first. And then you can offer an alternative.
00:59:15
Speaker
um It's when, again, David's girlfriend, Natalie, is going down the steps and confronting Mia and trying to get away from her. Natalie is holding the box cutter and Mia licks the box cutter and just splits her tongue down the middle. And this is reminiscent, again, of, don't want to say exact...
00:59:35
Speaker
It is is worse and bring her back, um the mouth trauma around the cantaloupe. But this was very reminiscent of the namesake of the award. We're just like, oh man, I i didn't i wasn't aware that mouth pain somehow disturbs me more than almost any other yeah part of the body.
00:59:53
Speaker
It's such a sensitive part of the body that like I just and you know what ah I think it's also we have so many nerves there. We taste from this part of our body. So like it's just you can really imagine that feeling. i think when you bite your tongue or something hot like you see a box cutter go in there. Jesus Christ.
01:00:10
Speaker
Also, I don't mean to step on... Maybe it's a dull knife. Maybe I just misunderstand the lore. But it is funny once ah Mia gets resuscitated at the end of the film. All her it her burns, her vine scrapes, her tongue.
01:00:23
Speaker
all All back to normal. I don't know. Maybe that's just part of the lore of like once you get the dead eye out of you, you're fine. And I guess we do maybe see a bit of that where like...
Gory Highlights and Character Resilience
01:00:31
Speaker
Ash bit beat up and looks possessed as a dead eye to think of his back. But I feel like he always has some lingering scrapes and bruises where Mia was. ah She looked great, honestly, when when she came back from the dead. You wouldn't kick her out of bed?
01:00:44
Speaker
I would. she That was probably the best she looked on movie coming out of the dirt. I started to ask myself those questions, but I thought, you know, this is the same movie where demons are being summoned from hell and and and blood rain is coming out of the sky. i don't i don't have many questions. Okay.
01:01:02
Speaker
Um, I also think that was the clear winner. um there's obviously other grotesque things happening, but that was the one that was truly hard to watch. And, and he just lingers on that shot. And again, I don't have the notes in front of me, the differences between the unrated and the theatrical. So maybe we get a few more seconds of this look, but it is awful, but also awesome.
01:01:23
Speaker
Um, the other one I have, uh, one of the many I have, but I'll just pick with the stick with this one. Cause we don't, we already talked about crowbar hands. We had talked about the arm severance. was... ah Mia is in her mano a mano versus battle with the abomination. It is raining blood and she has, you know, it's not an evil dead movie. You might not have ash, but it's not truly evil dead movie until you have a chainsaw in the mix.
01:01:51
Speaker
And so she finds a chainsaw, but she's got a gasoline in it. She finally gets some, she goes outside and that big abomination, it's, Oh, she cuts off the limb, the leg while under the car.
01:02:06
Speaker
Yes, but that's out its feet from underneath. She does. But before she can really get out of the way before the abomination can react, it flips the car over and lands on her hand. Now, yeah I love the wrong. They really wrong foot you here in thinking that, OK, checkoffs chainsaw, right? She's just going to take the chainsaw ah in the same way that Ash did in the previous movies and cut off her arm or in the same way that Natalie did earlier to cut off her arm with the turkey ah saw.
01:02:34
Speaker
Well, the chainsaw is too far away. And she just says, fuck it. Actually, she says, I'm tired of this shit. And brutally just rips her arm off by pulling it, the tendons and the flesh and the muscles. And it's this extended sequence. And it's, I fucking love it and hate it at the same time. It's such a great callback to, Ashley's in his hand, but they do it in a much more gruesome way. And I, I, that's gotta, that's gotta to be a couple of nominees.
01:03:06
Speaker
Yes, I think you're absolutely right. And I am all for it. So that's why i wrestle with like the dual knives part of it. I just purely had the question like, could you actually just pull your hand off like that if you pull on it hard enough?
01:03:19
Speaker
Like there's nothing to really break the wrist, cut it off. It's just like- No, I think what happened- Give it good tug and the hand's gonna come off. What we're supposed to think, Trav, is that the impact of the car did a lot of damage and already broke some bones and she's just finishing the job. is how I reckon with it in
Creative Gore and Narrative Twists
01:03:36
Speaker
my head. Yeah.
01:03:38
Speaker
That's a pretty soft mud and soil though. So it's like, really? You couldn't like squish it down in the mud a little bit and just pull it out. Maybe she landed on a bone. Yeah. ah But yeah, sorry, I shouldn't be the critic. I love that scene. I think it adds to the movie and that she has to do that and pays homage again to the earlier Evil Dead installments with a lot of hand dismemberments like we've been saying. Hand-stepping. It was gnarly and it's good runner-up. I agree.
01:04:03
Speaker
um Okay, so we talked about scares. Should we talk about deaths? We should talk about death. This is an important part of life. Yeah. Cannon fodder. ah There's just a clear one for me. I think you agree. they They kill a dog. Yeah, that's right. Grandpa.
01:04:19
Speaker
Grandpa the dog. have thoughts about the name, but yes, they kill grandpa. Yeah. I don't think the movie suffers at all if you if you don't have grandpa's death in there. And that's just adding one more death to the kill count, I think, by throwing that in there.
01:04:33
Speaker
I don't know if it was my TV settings. I couldn't really see the injuries of the dog. I just saw blood. Could you see anything specific? Exact same, which I appreciate that. I don't want to see a dog too badly maimed. So funny. Like i I'll watch a character, a human get their hand ripped off or rip off their own hand. But if I see a cut on a dog, I'm like, ah, I don't really want to see that. That's too much for
Significance of Character Deaths
01:04:54
Speaker
me.
01:04:54
Speaker
The only other one I had that if if we didn't, I forget if we allowed it animals, but I was going to say Olivia getting her head bashed in with a toilet was a, another option there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like, yeah, I think that's one the better. There's a lot of great deaths. I was just looking for who's the, what death was felt just like the most adamant death. What is the most throwaway? Yeah, because you could argue that Olivia's death is important because that's the first time one of the cabin members kills the other. And so it's pretty impactful narratively. So yeah, I would agree. It's probably the dog.
01:05:25
Speaker
um ah Best death. Oh, man. I mean, we've already, we know what it's going to be, but it's, it's, it's that shot, dude. It's, it is, uh, the abomination and on all fours, but it's Mia rising up with the blood rain, ah just dripping on her, pouring on her.
01:05:45
Speaker
She puts her stump into the handle of the chainsaw. She has more leverage, And ah what did she say? She didn't say swallow this. Yeah, she said like eat this or something. It was very akin to and close to what Bruce Campbell says to Henrietta when he gives her the shotgun into the mouth.
01:06:04
Speaker
And it was almost a play on that. And she says something like this, feast on this. Oh, I think you're right. Yes. I think it's feast on this because yeah the the abomination says i will feast on your soul. yeah And she goes east on this.
01:06:19
Speaker
I do know i she says feast on this motherfucker is actually what she says. Yeah. I do know that one change between the unrated and the theatrical is that we get a full uncut shot of that chainsaw just ripping through that demon's head yeah and torso because in theatrical they kind of they cut away a little quicker. But that is just, that's one of the most, it's not just the best death in this movie. It's like one of the best deaths in any horror film I've seen because of how metal it is, how many things are happening, the nod to the earlier parts of the franchise, to have so many interesting elements and badassery happening in in like one second is like Hall of Fame. The set piece and the cinematography grabbing that too is just awesome to watch. So yeah, app watch the unrated if you haven't before just to get really that one part of the film. um I agree with you. That's probably best death.
01:07:11
Speaker
But can I interest you in an alternative? Maybe an ah honorable mention. We'll do an honorable mention. We have room for that. Let's talk about my boy Eric and what he had to endure here. okay His death is not quick, nor is it painless. um So here's my list of injuries Eric lives through until he dies.
Character Endurance and Horror Themes
01:07:29
Speaker
And this is pre-turning deadite, mind you. Right, right. He's in the bathroom. He slips on a part of Olivia's cheek, and he I guess, doesn't break his back on the portion of the toilet, but he takes a pretty direct shot to his spine as he goes down, leaving him unable to walk.
01:07:44
Speaker
Yeah, he definitely throws his back out. He takes a shard mirror directly into his heart, which apparently like I laughed at a later part of the film. They, they put like a little patch of gauze on it with some duct tape while it's just like spurting blood from his aorta. Like, yeah, this should cover it. Um,
01:08:00
Speaker
He then gets repeatedly stabbed with a needle to the eye and face. um And he survives all this. Later we see him with David now confronting Natalie who shoots him multiple times in the arm and face with a nail gun.
01:08:14
Speaker
um Then he takes a crowbar splitting his hand down and then gets beat repeatedly with the crowbar to the head. um And he has lived through all of this. It's only when he joins David in the cellar to help save David from Mia that he takes a knife to the gut, the box cutter the gut.
01:08:30
Speaker
And then finally, I don't know if he's dead, but David very quickly writes him off and lets him presumably drown in the cellar water until he finally ah but finally goes. So again, it's hard to qualify for best deaths because it's it's happening over the course of maybe 45 minutes of the film, but he takes quite the beating in this movie. So shout out to Eric.
01:08:51
Speaker
Eric's not having a good time unless he's got a kink for masochism or something. that's ah i did It did get comical at some point that they just kept bringing him in to get his ass beat. which you know what You know what, Trav? Whose fault is it for reading off that damn book? he is He's the clown idiot in this case. like He's the town's village idiot. like he He deserves this punishment.
01:09:12
Speaker
He deserved the most punishment, probably all the characters for bringing bringing the spirits upon them reading that book. What were what was the what were Sam Raimi's three rules of horror again?
01:09:23
Speaker
um we talked about this ah yeah in in an earlier episode. Yeah. I'll look it up real fast, but i think it has to do it. Some of it has to do with punishment, which is why I'm thinking of Eric.
01:09:36
Speaker
Um, he says, okay, the innocent must suffer. The guilty must be punished and the hero must taste blood to be a man. um I think Eric is the guilty that must be punished. He did something wrong, like reading from a creepy fleshbound book and was punished accordingly. He he he was definitely punished.
01:09:58
Speaker
um Awesome. Okay. Shyamalan twists, just to tie into that, because there's not really a twist, I'd say in this movie. It's just the amount of times Eric is left for dead and then you see him come back to like save another character.
Final Girl Twist and Narrative Structure
01:10:10
Speaker
um I would say that's up there. ah Mine is that that if you're the first time you're watching this, that's is that Mia's the final girl. I think you're expecting you're expecting David to be the final man. That's probably a better twist. The Ash character, and then no, she ends up turning, and then, like I said earlier in the episode, being victim, antagonist, and hero all the same time. so To me, that was a ah good twist. I like that. I like that better.
01:10:38
Speaker
um All right, don't go in there, Ward. ah Back to Eric, sorry. ah But when yeah a book says leave this book alone. Yeah. Written in blood.
01:10:48
Speaker
but And also, so those are all the inscribing saying, don't read this book, but it was also tightly wrapped in trash bags and then bound in barbed wire. And I have no idea why just at one point in the film, he's like, going to start cutting this barbed wire off, take the bags off. see what I have to travel. You bring a lot of industry experience to the pod with real estate. I have to bring some filmmaking experience a little bit here. That that was not your normal trash trash can ah bag. That was a kind of a contractor bag.
01:11:14
Speaker
which is what we, oh yes which you probably know there's some overlap here in our industries. Oh yeah. I have some of those. They're no depot they're great. works They're made, but usually the Husky brand is my favorite. They're a bit more expensive, but you don't have tree branches poking through them or a little glass things. yeah So I think that was a contractor bag on that ah yeah book of the dead.
01:11:33
Speaker
Yeah. um Yeah, i think that's an easy thing go in there. Like clearly someone went to great lengths to keep anyone from reading it. It's also interesting, you know, he tries to burn this book, which we see in the first Evil Dead movie. Ash throws the book of the dead in the fire. Oh, yeah. It just burns.
01:11:50
Speaker
It's not this copy of it. And so I guess that's why they had to just wrap it and... bags and barbed wire because they couldn't figure out how else to destroy it yeah the first one burning the book is key to killing the deadites and this one you can't do that yeah not so much yep um what we got next best lines all right i i kind of teased this one early on but uh You it's from the start of the film.
Memorable Lines and Character Backgrounds
01:12:19
Speaker
Yeah. Mine's also from the start of the film. I wonder if it's the same. It's, it's, uh, the, the dad has his daughter tied up and she's pleading to let him out. And he's like, this is for your own good.
01:12:29
Speaker
And then she goes, daddy, daddy, listen, I will rip out your soul. And I, it's It's such a pivot and it's so creepy and it's she's so earnest when she says it. And I love that she said it before she turned into a dead eye. It's just, it stuck with me the whole movie. I loved it.
01:12:48
Speaker
Yep. Okay, so mine is just prior to that. Exact same scene, but the very first dialogue when she kind of comes to and she's tied up in that cellar and her dad is approaching her and the witch is kind of reading from the book, telling him what they need to do.
01:13:04
Speaker
And she looks around and she goes, who are these people? And her dad immediately answers, these are good people. And then it has a close-up of some, I don't know, I truly don't know who these other people are because it's i can obviously the dad dealing with his daughter, the witch. There's a group of like four other people, one of which is inexplicably, and this is going to sound horrible, but he's he's a horribly scarred burn victim or some type of mutant. You see his face. There's a quick close-up shot of him What's a mutant?
01:13:31
Speaker
Like mutant in real As like, It's in like a sci-fi rendition of like ah a caricature of the characters from The Hills Have Eyes, like potentially inbred, um not normal human anatomy. and i just thought that was so funny that he's like, these are good people. And it just shows a guy where you're like, I don't know. Like I would be freaked out if I saw this random guy like in a cellar with me. So I can tell you who who who this person is. ah okay. Okay.
01:13:58
Speaker
Yes, it is. ah i don't i don't know the name of this person, but through ah another resource, I found that, well, the kid is Robert Tappert's son, the kid in in that little house. And then the person with the burn scars is an individual who has been in not just one, but two plane crashes. Right. Like in real life? Or they gave this character backstory this that he's been in multiple plane crashes? This person that they hired to be in this movie is a real-life individual who has been in two real-life plane crashes.
01:14:33
Speaker
and ah That's incredible is this from to survive. I don't want to downplay that. But what was the point of including him in this one scene if there was really no rule to play?
01:14:45
Speaker
thereafter I'm just telling you what Fetty Alvarez said in the director's commentary. He just said, oh, this is someone we really liked. What what what a brave person. they They've survived two different plane crashes, and I just think they looked right for this scene. yeah it's It's just calling a lot of attention to an extra is all I'm saying to be like, oh, what's going on here? The dad's defending this guy like this is a good person.
01:15:08
Speaker
And then that that was the last we saw of him. Well, maybe that's true. Maybe this was a good person. ah They just had the unfortunate. I'm sure he was. They had the unfortunate ah problem of of having to have been in two plane crashes. Plus, they were doing the right thing. this That chick had to die, unfortunately. um she So there's just like the townspeople there to witness. They're like friends and family.
01:15:28
Speaker
Clearly, she doesn't know them too well because she said, who are these people? yeah just bystanders maybe they're the people who wrote in the book because the the book uh had some very colorful language it was like don't read this motherfucker it wasn't just like please don't open this it was like don't read this maybe this is these are the nice people trying to protect those in the future okay i'm not sure but why they left it down in the basement is more of a question i had why is that but just bury that thing should we go into dull knives i think that's a natural segue i have a few um go ahead um Okay, so David tries to resuscitate his sister by burying her alive and then bringing her back. Like you said, I'll even buy, you know, his prior job gave him experience to quickly make a defibrillator. Holy Out of the car battery.
01:16:17
Speaker
But I don't understand why he had to put a plastic bag over her face if he was already going to try to suffocate her by burying her underground. Okay. So maybe just an maybe he wanted to avoid um a projectile blood vomit situation that Olivia had to endure earlier in the film. Oh, yeah. Okay. Actually, i buy that. Yeah. could Clearly, if the deadite vomits directly into your mouth, you will soon you become a deadite as well. You don't want that. okay Okay.
01:16:44
Speaker
I like it. I'll do one of mine because it's it's on the same scene. he digs that hole in a seemingly pretty short amount of time.
01:16:54
Speaker
Now, Trav, I don't know how often you've dug a grave, but I actually did recently for an animal. So I was visiting Sarah's, uh, great aunt. She's 95 years old and Becky, and she has this amazing little cabin in, um,
01:17:11
Speaker
on a, some property and in, in a Northeastern, basically North, Northeast of Pittsburgh downtown. It's beautiful. about all this acres. And what, every time we go over there, she always asks me to like help out with something. And, and the last time it was to help set up her DVD player with her TV. And i'm like, okay, I can do that. This time it was, Hey, I got this huge ass dead snake in my garden and it is really smelly and there's bugs everywhere. Can you dispose of it in whatever means you see fit?
01:17:40
Speaker
And I was thinking, all right, it'll be a gardener snake and it'll probably be a couple of maggots or something. Dude, I go out there. This thing looks like a python. It is a huge black snake. Its head is completely decomposed. the The skin or the scales are all, it's there's a bunch of movement and bumps underneath, kind of like in The Mummy when a beetle gets under the skin because of all these beetles and maggots and bugs like crawling through it and stuff.
01:18:08
Speaker
Yeah, cantaloupe award. And so i i used some gardening tools to get that thing into a trash bag, but I wasn't about to put that in a trash can because then you have a maggot problem. So I dug a hole to then dump the snake in into...
01:18:25
Speaker
the ground to dispose of it. Well, because it's all tied up with like branches and stuff that I can't disconnect from it. i have to dig a pretty big hole and it took me like 45 minutes. Like a long time. And I know it depends on the density of the soil and how wet it is, yeah but I'm seeing relatively shallow grave, but that's at least like a three hour endeavor. I feel like to dig it as deep as he did. It would have been and daylight in my opinion. So as from one day, from one grave digger to another, i just think it should have taken a lot of time.
Realism Issues and Character Actions
01:18:54
Speaker
Yeah. um I like that. They show up at the cabin, right? Mia is acutely aware of the smell of death right away. And everyone's being like, no you're out of your mind. And there's like dozens of dead cats down the cellar. Like how did no one else smell that? like the Again, that's not a lot of ah smell resistance or anything impeding your ability to smell with just like the the floor of the cabin with that much death beneath it. So I don't know. yeah Like shout out to me. i I am shocked that no one else smelled a ton of dead animals being hung directly beneath their feet. Yeah, that's a good point because those those rafters that have floorboards, they're not really secure. There's a lot of gaps. Yeah.
01:19:36
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That would have been the smelly cat. I think Phoebe from friends would have said something about Smelly cat. Yeah. Yeah. um The only other one I had was I just have, I want to know what garage that ah that David learned how to create a defibrillator. Yeah. um Let's see. I mean, i I mentioned that was like the world's tiniest piece of gauze they put over Eric's wound that looked like it was directly to his heart with that mirror shard and just duct taped on. Only other one. Okay. So I like the opening sequence, like we said, but it comes to be revealed that this is David and Mia's what grandparents cabin. it This is their family home.
01:20:12
Speaker
And that leads me to believe that what, so the people at the very beginning of the film were just trespassing and said like, hey, if we have to do this, it's not even an exorcism. If we have to kill this deadite, we're just going to break into these random people's home and kill her down there and do our whole ritual down there. I think so, because when they first opened the cabin, David's like, it seems like somebody broke in.
01:20:34
Speaker
So yeah I guess they needed to do a ritual that they couldn't get out of the forest because they couldn't do their own place. Like, i mean, that's just like blatantly rude to be like, we're going to break into someone else's house and perform our. So Travis is what you're saying that these good people might not have been such good people.
01:20:52
Speaker
Exactly. They were described, again, going back to twice surviving a twice surviving plane crash victim. Muting. I go back to questioning if these were truly good people, if they're just breaking into people's homes and performing exorcisms. Not only that, mind you, leaving the Book of the Dead there for some other you know innocent victim to stumble across, like...
01:21:11
Speaker
Were these really good people? The guilty should be punished. And I feel like there were some guilty who were not punished in this case. i think you should be punished for calling him beauty. him beauty. mean, he he looked like he straight the hills of eyes. i Yeah, this is, I am guilty as well here. for Time to be punished. For jumping to that rash conclusion. Yeah, either way, not a great move to to occupy someone's cabin and do to do yeah demonic seance ah and then leave the book. At least clean up on your way out. Leaving book is kind of a good move. Leaving the book, leaving the dead cats hanging from the rafters.
01:21:48
Speaker
All right. Winners and losers. Winners and losers, baby. um All right. One winner I had was the term bumping uglies. I have not used that term in probably a decade. It's it's not used enough. And ah off screen when they're trying to figure out who broke into this cabin, I think it's Eric or David. One of the guys says it probably came in here, drank some booze and bumped uglies. And I was like, you know what? We need to bring that back.
01:22:19
Speaker
yeah I do like it. i think that's great. um I have one winner. um so near the end of the movie, the abomination is hunting down Mia. Once Mia's come back is our final girl, tracks her to the shed, pins her in the shed, trying to stab her with a knife.
01:22:36
Speaker
Thank God for ah the homeowners never reinforcing that moldy siding on the back of the shed for so many years. Cause he was able to push against him. Yeah.
01:22:47
Speaker
Okay. Other, other winners, uh, naming your dog, grandpa. just I had that as a lose during yeah loser. Okay. you confused? Were you confused the first time me? I was like, Oh, you brought grandpa. And it was like, Oh, I was confused because she's like oh grandpa. And I thought she was trying to say like, Oh, if that dog's here, does that mean grandpa's here? Yeah. And then I thought, is grandpa's soul inside the dog? This is an evil dead movie. Um,
01:23:15
Speaker
um Another one I had, a nice red dress to be buried in. I thought that was nice. He didn't have to put her in that red dress. but andless get He was like, hey, if I were to bury my sister alive, I'm at least going to dress her up a little bit.
01:23:28
Speaker
yeah Forget how horribly mutilated her body was at that point. like she'll She will look pretty. No open casket for this one. No one's going to be calling her mutie. You know what I mean? so i I don't.
01:23:40
Speaker
I do not. Another win I had was ah a name of one of the VFX people. Her name was his or her name was Meow.
01:23:51
Speaker
Meow Wanasari. The first name is Meow. And like it. I just think that's kind of cool.
01:24:00
Speaker
Okay, last winner for me, heroin. you know These days and age, we're talking about painkillers, fentanyl. It's been a while since like heroin was the drug of choice that we're trying to break the addiction for. so Right, right. like a you know Bring into the Requiem for a Dream fold. Get back to normalizing heroin. Exactly. These are the drugs we should be talking about here.
01:24:24
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. ah More heroin movies. I'm on umm on board with that. Yeah. fun fanl Losers. You already took off my biggest loser, which was Eric. All the injuries he sustained.
01:24:40
Speaker
That's a loser if I've ever heard one. um so Similar to your heroin comment, ah quitting cold turkey. Big loser. not met Not medicinally advised. Withdrawals can be crazy.
01:24:56
Speaker
Cold turkey, not the way to go. You know, it's kind of funny that David thinks Olivia is a doctor and then calls her out when we find out she's a nurse. Cause you do question like how early into into her medical career is she? Cause I, I really don't think she ever evidenced. She is a really professional or knows what she's doing here with this whole, uh, intervention slash breaking the cycle. She was really pushy too.
01:25:19
Speaker
Really pushy on, on letting them know she knew what was going on, which is probably why she died first. not gonna Yeah. Yeah. Um, Loser reading books out loud.
01:25:31
Speaker
i mean, generally annoying, but in this case- Wow. As a father, you're saying this? Well, in the first film, well, okay. If you're reading to other people, that is very different than reading an audience. If you're reading to yourself, shut the fuck up. Like just- read like anyone else does and you're internalizing it as you read it. Like what what is he doing? Like the first films, they play the recording, right? So that like makes a lot more sense. We found this, let's hear what's on it. But if he's just looking at the book, there's no reason when he's by himself to be reading all that out loud. Ash is instructed to read out the things he reads in the Necronomicon in Army of Darkness. So that's an excuse for that. But you're right. yeah This is just a blowhard high school teacher who wants to hear his own voice. yeahp I think that's what he wants to hear. yeah
01:26:12
Speaker
Annoying. Fucking fucking Eric. um All right. Scream Queen or King? Oh, I got i have more losers, my friend. Oh, you have more losers? Wow. Another loser I have.
01:26:23
Speaker
Kind of a copious amount of shots of just self-closing doors. I really liked it the first time or two it happened when a character gets in a room with a spirit, but there had to be at least a dozen plus ah auto door closures here where someone's in a room and the door closes on them.
01:26:39
Speaker
You'd like to close the door on closing doors. Exactly. i could take one or two demons closing a door on you when you're in a room, but I don't need every room you're in. the demons now followed you to that room has to close the door behind you again, especially because the doors weren't really even locking. Like I think we saw instances of the character just opens it afterwards. That's again, just, just demons being annoying here. Not, not really a trapping it so to speak.
01:27:03
Speaker
On a similar note, Trav, I'm in a room, the, the room and that Sarah and I are sharing in this home in Tom's river, New Jersey. um There's some kind of air suction situation where,
01:27:13
Speaker
and And a bad combination of the main door that goes into the rest of the house, not having a fully latched bolt that anytime I open. So this door behind me goes to the garage. yeah Anytime I open that door, the main door over here opens up. Yeah. Yeah. I've seen it before.
01:27:30
Speaker
But today, today something weird happened. I had it slightly open. I shut or closed this or open this door and it closed. Yeah. So as a real estate guy, short of, you know, fixing the bolt, I know I need to just get a better latch over here.
01:27:47
Speaker
What's going on with the door opening and closing on its own? I understand it closing because of air pressure. Can the opposite happen or do I have a demon in this house? Probably a demon. I think that's the technical technical explanation.
01:27:59
Speaker
I'll go get ed Ed and Lorraine Warren on the case. I got some great people i'm going to introduce you to. You're going to love them. i hope i hope I hope they're hotter in the in real life than are the pictures. hate to disappoint you. All right, last loser, but this is a big one.
01:28:17
Speaker
This specific iteration of the Necronomicon, or again, it has a different name here.
Final Villain Critique and Performances
01:28:23
Speaker
talks about five souls needing to be ah feasted upon in order to bring forth this abomination.
01:28:31
Speaker
It achieves that goal. It gets, even though Mia dies and then comes back, the abomination rises from the dirt. And I just gotta say, as far as like demonic abominations go,
01:28:42
Speaker
Kind of weak, kind of underpowered, right? Like it was just regular human sized. Didn't really have any special abilities. guess it was a little strong. It was pretty strong. It flipped the car. They picked up a Subaru.
01:28:54
Speaker
Yeah, but it was slow walking, just kind of slowly pursuing Nia, quickly gets its feet cut out from under it, then it's just slowly crawling around. don't know.
01:29:06
Speaker
Maybe the name means more than we think. It's like it's an abomination. it's kind of an embarrassment. Like, oh, this an abomination of a villain. If you kill five people, you're going to get it like one of the one of the failed demons will get summoned. Like, this was... ah Seems like a bad trade.
01:29:20
Speaker
Yeah. So I was expecting maybe something a bit more powerful where it's really just like on par with the normal deadite gets summoned out of the ground. We needed Bob Flawflovsky whatever. Yeah. The tall basketball player guy who Fetty then hires to be the offspring in Alien Romulus. But i think I think we could have used him in 2013. Although I think he was still hooping then.
01:29:42
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. but I mean, that he might have been playing like high school hoops then if even, um, but yeah, anyways, kind of a weak final, final boss, so to speak. Yeah. I didn't think about that, but you're right. I think we're distracted because the kill is so cool. Yeah. You don't stop and think that like the damage it's doing isn't like, yeah, it lifted a car and slowly crawled around, but maybe it's because Mia is like, she's already gone through hell and back literally that like, she's not too phased by it.
01:30:13
Speaker
And, Yeah. Maybe that, maybe, maybe the abomination is really the friends you made along the way.
01:30:22
Speaker
Scream King, scream queen. Who do you got, Rick? Yeah. um I had Jane Levy. I had Jane Levy. Yep. It's just an incredible performance. Again, she's doing three different things at this, throughout this movie, really, really sells it, which she should be in a lot more after this. Yeah.
01:30:42
Speaker
i And like were saying, Fetty, I really like this film. I don't love it. I think he's made better movies since that maybe if we ever cover Alien Romulus, like I think he's well in contention for Scream King there or future projects still like he is still a working director. He's very young.
01:30:57
Speaker
uh jane levy here this this was the pinnacle i think for her career and does it's sad like you said she didn't get more opportunities from this but she shines in this movie especially amidst the cats where the rest of the players are are good but not great so i'm with you yeah jane's jane's dope um all right so we have one more existing Evil Dead movie, Evil Dead Rise. Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise. Lee Cronin's The Mummy. right yeah
01:31:32
Speaker
What did that Lightbox review say? It was a review on, again, he titled it Lee Cronin's The Mummy. I don't think he did. I think he did the studio.
01:31:45
Speaker
Okay. And the review just says, no, he's not.
01:31:50
Speaker
I was also almost under the impression that like, this was his personal mummy. Like this is a movie about Lee Cronin's mummy. Yeah. That's his own. i I would love if his brand just becomes like every movie from here on out. It's like, if he's remaking stuff like Lee Cronin's the evil dead.
01:32:06
Speaker
Lee k Cronin's Toy Story 6. Wait, did you see the mummy? Lee Cronin's the mummy? I haven't seen his. Some people say that it could be in the Evil Dead franchise.
01:32:19
Speaker
Like the way it's rendered and the the the ancient rituals that they do is a little Evil Dead-y.
Conclusion and Upcoming Episodes
01:32:25
Speaker
um Trav, next week is 4th of July. You're right, so we're off next week. So we'll be back in two weeks with Evil Dead Rise. Correct, correct. if If we were to do an episode, we would be on track to release Evil Dead Burn same release weekend, but we are going to probably take this week off so everybody can chill.
01:32:49
Speaker
We'll do Evil Dead Rise after we'll let people go see Evil Dead Burn because we're going release Evil Dead Rise the weekend that Evil Dead Burn comes out. And then after everybody's had a chance to see it, we will give our thoughts a week later for Evil Dead Burn.
01:33:04
Speaker
Yep. So with that said, enjoy your 4th of July weekend, everyone. our Our 250th birthday here for the US. We'll be back shortly thereafter to wrap up our franchise series with Evil Dead Rise and then Evil Dead Burn.
01:33:21
Speaker
How long do Empires last usually, Travis? Is it... 250 years? 250 is pretty good, I think. Okay. So it's all downhill from here. Yeah, we got maybe a few more good years. So enjoy it when we can. Wow. All right. A few more, huh? ben How can it get better than this?
01:33:38
Speaker
All right. Thank you guys for listening. We'll see you in two weeks. ah Bye.
01:33:55
Speaker
Oh, I have someone entering the office and I can't see who because I have this power of pillows. Is it Gemma? Can you still hear me? This is kind of scary. One sec. I don't know what's happening. oh it's but That was scary. You could crawl up my debt ah between the two legs of my desk. My four-year-old Margo snuck in here, didn't make a sound, and I just looked down and she was at my feet. She had crawled under the desk.