Ash's Legacy: Evil Dead and the Final Girl

Fede Alvarez‘s Evil Dead is a supernatural horror film and a reboot of the 1981 film of the same name by horror legend Sam Raimi, featuring classical horror genre elements such as demonic possessions, a somewhat diverse cast of horror movie stereotypes, and a cabin in the woods. The film recounts the story of how a former junkie overcame her addiction to heroin by singlehandedly defeating an ancient spirit of demonic evil.

The movie begins in a cabin deep within a dark forest, where David (Shiloh Fernandez), his best friend Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), a nurse named Olivia (Jessica Lucas), and Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore), David’s girlfriend, are encouraging Mia (Jane Levy), David’s sister, to relinquish a packet of heroin and take the first step towards recovery. After a violent outburst due to withdrawal, Mia discovers a hidden passageway to the cellar. David and Eric investigate and unearth a chained book entitled the Naturom Demonoto. Having some knowledge of witchcraft and Satanic rituals, Eric curiously albeit foolishly recites an incantation that invites a demonic spirit into their lives. The film is fast-paced, packed with scares and gore galore, and ends explosively, with blood and sunshine.

As a remake of one of the progenitor films of today’s horror genre, there is no way I can hate Evil Dead. Its elements, though extremely generic, even for the horror standards, are executed well and proficiently. Aesthetically, Evil Dead trumps any of the horror films shown. Alvarez’s decision to tweak the original film and inject a familial ingredient was appreciable. Unlike its ancestors, Alvarez’s take on Evil Dead is humorless, which is understandable in spite of my love for the wisecracking Ash Williams. Still, the movie paced along its ancestral path—it is still, in most cases, utterly profane, and its showcases of gore and brutality remain second to none. Evil Dead is commendable for its ability to induce great fear. It is predictable albeit intense, and is quite the enjoyable film.

Now, unlike many other horror films, the conflict is not a dysphemism for a real-life situation. Ginger Snapslikened the state of lycanthropy to female post-pubescence; Deadgirl’s Deadgirl, and Rickie and J.T. were the embodiments of female subservience and lustful male dominance, respectively; It Follows is essentially an ever-creeping STD; and Grace employs motherly leitmotifs and childrearing symbolisms to tell its tale. Evil Dead is supremely direct—a group of teenagers unravel a book of demonic origins and, quite literally, all Hell breaks loose thereafter. Even the problem of drug addiction, substance abuse, and the effects of withdrawal, things that could easily have been Evil Dead’s euphemisms for the demonic possessions, held little to no hold over the film. Of course, with a movie entitled Evil Dead, it’s a surprise that there even was an attempt to connect the film to something more in-depth.

It is interesting to note, however, that the little Evil Dead has to offer is enough for some discussion, such as the roles that both the male and female characters play in beseeching the evil from the Naturom Demonoto.

In most horror or slasher films, especially the most typified ones, the larger-than-life male characters are the ones wielding the weapons and horrifically harassing the helpless group of teenagers. After the slow, exceedingly barbaric deaths of the four or five young people, it is the modest, conservative, virginal female lead that strikes the final blow, ergo ending the monster or murderer’s killing spree. In addition, before the prudish female can kill the antagonist, a big part of the movie’s plot is furthered by the valiant male lead.

Evil Dead, however, introduces a more complex equation—the evil was brought upon by the “intellectual” male, Eric’s foolish dabbling, entered through and subsequently tormented the females Mia, who was extremely weak-willed; Olivia, who was anxious and confused; and finally Natalie, who was mentally tortured and forced to amputate her own arm, bringing her to the precipice of insanity (in addition, all of these females were alone at the time of possession), significantly weakened by archetypal heroic male lead David, and was completely destroyed by the female, a revived Mia who, as a direct contrast to the modest, conservative, virginal female lead, is tarnished by her drug addiction. In short, she is the Final Girl trope, despite the fact that she is far from clean.

However, she is still subject to a patriarchal representation of what should have been an inherently “feminist” ideal, seeing as Mia still requires the phallic weapon to defeat the final demon. As another subtle “slap to the face” of Mia, she was basically the butt of jokes and subject of cruelty of every single event in Evil Dead, and questions such as “Why was Mia the one sensitive enough to smell the dankness of the dead cats beneath the house?”, “If Eric was the one who first looked into the Naturom Demonoto, why was Mia punished in his stead?”, and “Why did Eric survive every single bone-breaking blow the Deadites threw his way, when a possessed Olivia and Natalie were killed almost instantaneously?” Even if Alvarez tossed the whole sexism only against female characters out the window, a bias against females still exists within Evil Dead, which is most unfortunate.

Personally, I loved David and Mia’s dynamic, even if they shared only a few scenes together. Be that as it may, I was hooked with both David and Mia’s role as both the “Ash Williams” character of the film—David was, like Ash, a maverick who feared not the demons and heroically sacrificed himself for the sake of his sister, while Mia, perhaps embodying Ash’s skillset, ended the true demonic antagonist, even losing a hand in the process.

The film is, in essence, as direct and as straightforward as it gets. The acting is top notch, and the characters’ name acrostically spelling the word ‘demon’ is a subtle Easter egg that etches a little smile upon its audience members’ faces.

I give the movie a 3/5.