Evil Dead

Evil Dead is a 2013 USA horror by Fede Alvarez.
With Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Jessica Lucas.

UK: Passed 18 without BBFC cuts for strong bloody violence, gory horror and very strong language for:

• UK 2013 cinema release

The director Fede Alvarez has revealed that his remake of Evil Dead received an NC-17 rating from the MPAA when it was first submitted for consideration. The director noted that they indeed made some cuts to secure an R-rating, but I imagine we'll get to see the full unrated cut when the film hits Blu-ray and DVD.

Evil Dead director Fede Alvarez spoke of his experience of film censorship at the MPAA:

The MPAA is actually a bizarre thing. You don't have to try to understand it.

We didn't butcher any scene or anything. We just had to trim. We took out frames here, You know, when she cut her tongue, we were showing a lot. You see the tongue, you get to see the tongue moving. Probably there was a version where we showed more frames. We've cut about 20 frames here, that kind of stuff, where you take that out and you get your R rating.

They were very nice to us. They were very nice to us because they were saying it was supernatural horror, which means it's not real, like the other is real. It's kind of a fantasy universe, so that makes it more friendly. Don't ask me.

...Read the full article

The box office returns for the weekend are in. While many expected G.I. Joe to hold firm in the top position but Fede Alvarez's reboot of Sam Raimi's beloved 1981 classic, Evil Dead chopped through the competition over the weekend.

Evil Dead , which was reportedly shot on a $17 million budget, pulled down $26 million domestically, to clear the top slot by a clean $5 million.

Alvarez's thrilling rendition pretty much disregards the comedy that Raimi's original infused, instead leaning on a very dark mood. The film moves at a terrific pace, offers outstanding loads of gore and, in the end, proves to be a completely unforgiving picture. In short, it's the horror film we've all hoped for.

Director Fede Alvarez was interviewed about work on the sequel. During the Interview Alvarez explained that the cut Theatrical Version of his Evil Dead remake is now considered to be his 'Director's Cut'.

Alvarez : It's easy to come up with crazy, violent scenes, the hard part is to get an R rating and not an NC17. It's a crazy game of standing right on the line, on top of the line, juggling the ideas, and not falling on the NC17 line. Because nobody puts an NC17 movie in wide release these days. So basically that's the real challenge, how we managed to be violent, and crazy, and outrageous and keep it inside the R-rating, which is basically timing it right.

Collider: Did you end up having to cut a lot to make that rating?

Alvarez : I think all we did to get the R-rating was basically just cut down the frames, the amount of time we exposed the audience to certain images. Like when Mia was cutting her tongue or Natalie was cutting her arm. There's a lot of graphic violence that instead of showing it for two seconds we have to just show it for one second on the screen. So that's what we lost on the editing floor when we cut it down to an R-rating. That was it basically. There were no scenes that were cut out just for that reason.

Alvarez : Do you have any intention of ever putting those seconds back on the film and releasing a director's cut?

Alvarez : Eventually if they do that. I don't know it's really not up to me. Usually you always see first cut is an extended version, because it's basically everything you shot, and you have that version and then you start cutting stuff out. Just to pick up the pace or sometimes stuff didn't work out the way you wanted it to so you cut it out. Definitely my favorite cut is the one that got put out. That's my favorite version of the film, the one that I put in theaters. That's my directors cut, there's no question about it. The producers that could have come in and said, We're going to cut this a different way . That never happened. Sam saw my cut and said That the version that it's supposed to be. The cut I showed him was the cut I put out there. So what everybody saw in the theaters is the director's cut, and this first DVD is the director's cut.