Not only is The Evil Dead being remade, it is being remade by a combination of a CGI loving 1st-time director (I've said many a time, one probably could pull off a very successful Evil Dead remake, but it would take a director who knew what he was doing to do so), Diablo Cody (The original Evil Dead is, at least to me, a straight horror film, which does not do well under someone known for heavy pop-culture references and sarcasm), and Sam Raimi (who feels Evil Dead 2 is the "real" film despite being a marked change in tone to the silly).
Though I once thought that there was a slim chance that this remake could be pulled off with a truly elite crew, I... have basically given up hope that this will be the legendary horror film to actually top The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in quality/consistency. Evil Dead 1 as it stands gets closer than most horror films, but is a little too weighed down by its flaws to reach the same level. Now, I present for the viewing masochism of the TalkHorror community, a piece of impotent rage against the opportunity so sadly squandered:
(Theorized based on Diablo Cody's style hybridized with the normal remake pitfalls.)
* An opening in the cabin with the doomed professor being killed to make sure the audience knows the movie will be gory and action packed
* An aerial shot of the gang's car cruising over a country rode, probably the only shot of the film without digital tint. Inside the car, they'll have rock music playing and will either be smoking pot instead of drinking moonshine or just talking. They'll be talking about pop culture and their relationships in a way that serves as heavy-handed exposition for the audience. The vast majority of the focus will be on Ash as he clearly shows the audience that he is "one of them," being more articulate/jokey and knowing more about pop-culture than the rest of them.
* Otherwise, Scott (probably renamed "Chris") acts like a jerk, Shelly (probably renamed "Marissa") like a prep, and Cheryl (probably renamed "Amethyst") like a cross between a hipster and a hippie. Linda (probably renamed "Rebecca") is played as the "straight-man" expressing caution and mild distaste with going up to the cabin. Rebecca is either nobody's girlfriend, or bi-curious with Amethyst.
* The scene with the fishermen will either not occur at all, or Chris will do something really mean to them as he passes, like throwing a pee-jar. If it does happen, the normal fishermen will probably be grizzled and dangerous looking rednecks instead for "atmosphere," which leads one female character to comment on their appearance.
* The scene with the incoming truck will probably still occur, but A) it will be even more overdramatic and B) nothing supernatural will be connected with it; it'll be played off as just a cheap shock. After everyone in the car sighs nervously/says 'that was close!,' there'll be a direct dissolve to when the gang pulls up to the cabin at night (or even to when they exit the car in front of the cabin).
* This scene will be accentuated by the "creepy" use of one drawn-out violin note. As in the original, everyone stops and stares for a bit, but in this version they also start talking amongst themselves about how "spooky" it looks, how they "never should have come," and how "bad things tend to happen when a group of kids find themselves spending the night at some old cabin." They all walk up to the cabin door at once. The bumping swing scene may or may not remain in.
* Inside the cabin, there are a lot of arcane, dirty and foreboding objects strewn around. It's pretty much clear some violence and unethical things have taken place inside, but Chris intimidates everybody into staying through being a jerk. For the next so-and-so minutes, there are scenes of characters shooting the breeze and talking pop-culture, pretty much completely removed from anything in the original. Characters also keep finding blood-stains and cryptic warnings all around, but despite Ash and Rebecca telling them they look bad, Chris commands everybody to stay and party. People get drunk and there are a maybe a few shots of menacing silhouettes outside accompanied by overdone orchestral music.
* Despite Ash and Rebecca telling everyone otherwise, the others think it would be a cool idea to play the missing doctor's cursed tapes. After a lot of conversation filmed through closeups on characters' sarcastic faces, they find a tape player and play the tape (this version including a possessed doctor talking in "demon voice" because it's "scarier"). The recording seemingly summons a thunderstorm, which fades as soon as the tape is over, though we don't see its full effects.
* Chris makes a "BOO!" joke, which makes Rebecca scream at everyone for being immature and storm back to her room. At this point if she is bi-curious with Amethyst, Rebecca scolds her especially for going along with such "stupid shyt." Everyone else starts to brush everything off and get back to their individual business.
* Ash feels sorry for Rebecca and follows her to her room in order to get to know her better. Chris has sex with Marissa, and Amethyst goes outside for a smoke. After a "touching" conversation between Ash and Rebecca concerning how stupid and immature everyone else is (and how Rebecca thinks she only went with Amethyst because Amethyst was smarter in relation to everyone else she knew), we visit Amethyst outside.
* By this point, Amethyst is high and does "silly high stuff" like literally hugging a tree in medium-closeup. Suddenly she hears growling from deep inside the woods and goes deeper in because she suspects the others are trying to "Punk" her. After venturing deep into the woods, however, the audience is treated to a jump-scare: a zombie head bursting through the foliage!!! (I mean, it's called "The Evil Dead"... surely the modern audience expects zombies!!)
* The expected bombastic score and super-shaky-cam starts up as Amethyst dashes through the forest to try to escape the zombie (when we see its full body, it is dressed up in ragged tribal wear of some sort). She is hindered, however, by CGI branches and vines, which attack her ankles and attempt to trip her up! Amethyst manages to evade many such attacks, but she is (partially due to her own high-ness) continually cut off in her path by zombies (or the same zombie).
* Eventually, Amethyst reaches the road again and breathes a sigh of relief, only for a CGI branch to whip around and gorily slash her throat somehow.
* By this point, Marissa is worried about Amethyst, fearing that the rednecks which Chris may or may not have flung pee at before caught her and may be doing bad things to her as vengeance. Hearing the wind pick up, Ash and Rebecca are too scared to go outside, whereas Chris is just too much of a dick to do so. Marissa gets angry and ventures off alone to find Amethyst.
* Marissa finds Amethyst's body, then screams and in doing so attracts the attention of the zombies. The zombies give chase to her, leading her on the same kind of shaky-cam/heavy-music chase scene as Amethyst, except taking the route backwards. She makes it back to the cabin, but gets bitten by a zombie just before she enters the door.
* In "homage" to the original Evil Dead:
Marissa: "They bit me, they bit me!"
Rebecca: "Marissa, what happened, where's Amethyst?"
Marissa: "She's... dead!"
Ash: "She's dead? Who killed her??"
Marissa: "Th-...the trees killed her!"
Ash: "Wait a second... you got bit by trees? What's next, saying you got fvcked by trees?"
Marissa: "THE TREES DIDN'T BITE ME! I got bit by... by zombies!!!"
Chris: "Zombies?! Now hold on, zombies?! That's fvcking ridiculous!"
* Shot of Marissa close to the camera with her head bent like she's crying, with Chris behind her looking incredulous, yet smug. Slowly, Marissa lifts her head to reveal to the audience all black eyes and blood dripping from her mouth. Marissa suddenly spins around, roars, and attacks Chris! Everyone does a fake-sounding scream/gasp and tries to wrestle Marissa away, but each time, Marissa breaks free and begins her attack again.
* After a very short struggle accentuated by action music, Chris grabs an axe and decapitates Marissa in one stroke, before immediately saying "FVCK YOU GUYS, I'M OUT OF HERE!" and running back to the car. Unfortunately for him the car won't start, and to make matters worse, zombies begin appearing from the woods! When Chris sees the zombies slowly approach, he tries even more frantically to start his car, but fails time and time again and is eventually surrounded by the ghouls, who drag him out of the car and eat him alive whilst Ash and Rebecca watch incredulously from close to a window.
* The zombies approach and then crash through the window in question, forcing Ash and Rebecca to knock them away with firewood. After so many hits, the zombies begin to regroup, leaving Ash and Rebecca the opportunity to search for weapons. Immediately the two decide on the cellar. Inside the cellar, the duo quickly find a shotgun, as well as a "less cheezy" version of the Kandarian dagger from the original Evil Dead films, which they are mystified by but decide to take for its size.
* Ash and Rebecca decide they are well-armed enough to venture outside (stepping over Chris's corpse and looking vaguely grossed out), and feel they should be able to fight their way out of the woods and back to civilization. Somewhere along their journey, they stab one of the zombies with the dagger, and are surprised to see it react to the wound by flying apart in a CGI explosion of corpse-juices. They soon realize that next to a headshot, the dagger is the best way of dealing with the zombies.
* Despite this, Ash and Rebecca soon find the zombies can overwhelm them with sheer number, which forces them to retreat back to the cabin. Along the way, a trio of zombies nearly gain the upper hand on the duo, but they are saved by a local hunter named Jake (or rather in this version, "Hezekiah"), who is escorting the daughter of the professor from the intro/cursed tapes to her father's cabin (In the remake, the girl is "respectfully" named "Samantha Raimi") to find out what happened to him.
* Ash and Rebecca realize that to escape their nightmare, they have to work together with the newcomers to find out how to undo the curse. All four walk back to the cabin (and the audience gets a closeup on a bandage on Hezekiah's hand). In the cabin, Samantha works through several cryptic notes and volumes to try and find out how to kill the zombies. She discovers that "the book" contains both the key to awakening and sealing the dead(ites), and begins to search the place for it. Ash meanwhile guards one half of the house whilst Hezekiah and Rebecca guard the other.
* Whilst Rebecca converses with the crude Hezekiah (both offending eachother with their confusing new-age lingo and outdated views respectively), the former notices the bandage on the latter's hand, and also notices that he has been acting strangely. Rebecca believes that Hezekiah may be infected, but Hezekiah refuses to remove his bandage. As Rebecca takes a grab for the thing, Hezekiah becomes the same kind of creature Marissa did!
* Rebecca begins trying to fight Hezekiah off, only to be bitten herself! Ash hears screaming coming from the other room and runs in to find Rebecca and Hezekiah fighting. Desperately, Ash distracts Hezekiah from Rebecca, lets the possessed redneck charge at him, and stabs him in the head with the Kandarian dagger. Instead of the usual blowing apart, blood comes flowing from Hezekiah's eyes and mouth and he dies.
* Rebecca begins to change into a demon as well, which leads to Ash telling her to "fight it" in vain. Rebecca lunges at Ash, only for Samantha to knock her unconscious and restrain her. Samantha remarks that the dagger is the only way to purge the evil spirits, and tells Ash he must stab Rebecca to "free her." Ash, after protesting for a bit, takes Rebecca out to a toolshed and prepares to impale her with the dagger (illustrated by several shots of Ash looking upwards and occasionally glancing down whilst pointing the dagger vertically at Rebecca's belly whilst hyperventilating through clenched teeth), but realizes he does not have the heart to do it. Rebecca suddenly wakes up and bites Ash's hand. Ash screams, grabs the dagger and tries to keep Rebecca at bay with a chainsaw before slamming the door and running back into the cabin.
* Ash realizes that his hand is turning bright red and ugly like those of the infected. To try and stop the infection from occurring, Ash slams the Kandarian dagger into his own hand. This stops the possession cold, but is painful and leaves his hand temporarily useless. Ash explains to Samantha what happened, which leads Samantha to develop a "workaround." Samantha takes the chainsaw Ash had in the shed, places it on a splint and bandages it to his injured hand. For good measure, Samantha also duct tapes one of the shotguns to the chainsaw and attaches an elaborate firing mechanism. Heroic music plays as Ash looks at his new weapon and remarks:
"this looks... ...pretty groovy"
* Samantha then informs Ash that if the evil dead aren't dead again by dawn, the dead shall rise across the Earth and conquer the living, as they did long ago. She then says the only way to stop them is to recite "the incantation" backwards. Thankfully, Samantha found "the book" in question sometime when she was absent.
* Samantha begins to read the book backwards, but is cut off when the possessed Rebecca appears behind her, plunging a demonic hand through her stomach! Ash screams "NO!" loudly, but then remembers the tape player, which Chris took with him when he tried to turn tail. Desperately, Ash runs outside and starts picking off zombies left and right with his "shotgunsaw," until he finds Chris's bag, with the tape player stuffed in it.
* Ash runs back inside and flips the switch which plays the tape backwards, stating
"Thank God the professor didn't upgrade to iTunes!"
* before pressing "play." As the tape plays, all the zombies clutch their heads with their hands and in not too long, crumble to dust (save for the possessed Rebecca, who just passes out). Outside, the ground opens up in a display of CGI and the zombie remains are dragged to hell before the ground closes again.
* Rebecca awakens un-possessed and touchingly embraces Ash. As the sun rises, Ash and Rebecca leave the cabin, smiling. The two find where Samantha and Hezekiah parked their car and begin to drive off.
* WHEN SUDDENLY: A zombie sits up in the back seat, drooling blood and screaming!!!!
* Freak on a Leash plays over the ending credits.