This year’s Oscars saw the Coen Brothers receive their sixth screenwriting nomination for Bridge of Spies. It was a solid effort, mostly remarkable for being the first time in 30 years that someone else has directed one of their works and it not being a major letdown. But then again, Spielberg could turn just about anything into a Best Picture contender by his reputation alone.

The first attempt by the Coen Brothers handling just the screenplay credits was for Sam Raimi’s 1985 film Crimewave, which limped out on a limited release 30 years ago. Critics were not impressed. Vincent Canby of the New York Times tried to be nice, but couldn’t help noting that it was “not funny” and “dimly humorless”—and no-one went to see it. The film made just over $5,000 against its modest $2.5 million budget. (For comparison, the highest grossing film of 1986, Top Gun, made around $386 million versus a $15 million budget).

So now that Crimewave is three decades old, how does it stand up over time? I approached Crimewave aware of its reputation but hoping that it would play better now that we’re attuned to the Coen’s sense of humour. Unfortunately, it hasn’t aged well. All early Raimi movies have the same cartoony aesthetic, but Crimewave looks particularly cheesy, as if shot on left over sets from Police Squad. It has received some retrospective turd-polishing in certain circles—Slant Magazine awarded it four out of five stars, the same rating they gave The Big Lebowski.

Back in 1985, Crimewave must have sounded like a good idea at the time. Raimi was still hot after his debut (now cult classic) The Evil Dead, and Blood Simple announced the Coen’s as a remarkably precocious writing-producing-directing duo. Sometimes match-ups that look good on paper turn out to be stinkers—see the putrid chemistry vacuum of Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie in The Tourist.

Raimi’s hyperactive visual style would seem a great match for the Coen’s stylized dialogue, and some of the former’s directorial pizzazz bled over into the Coen’s earlier work. Yet the combination also failed in the Coen’s highest profile flop, The Hudsucker Proxy, where Raimi co-wrote and served as Second Unit Director. Tellingly, the Coen’s were working on the script for Hudsucker while Crimewave was in production, and both films share DNA with Raising Arizona at the zanier end of the Coen’s screenwriting spectrum. All three are postmodern spins on old Hollywood movies of the ’30s and ’40s that the Brothers love so much.

Crimewave starts well enough. Like Hudsucker, we meet our protagonist just as he is apparently about to meet his demise—Victor Ajax (Reed Birney) is a typical Coen-esque schlub dragged from his cell for a midnight date with the electric chair. Meanwhile, a carload of nuns race through the silent city streets to the rescue. Via flashback, we find out what led Victor to his perilous state. Ajax was once a regular joe installing security cameras for the Trend-Odegard security company. One partner—Mr. Trend—employs some repulsive contract killers to whack the other, Mr. Odegard. Through a series of woefully unfunny scenes Ajax falls in love with a femme fatale, butts heads with his love rival Renaldo (Bruce Campbell, a frequent Raimi associate), and ends up taking the fall for a series of murders committed by the unhinged exterminators.

Coen aficionados should enjoy some of the characters in Crimewave. The hitmen are the first in a series of big man-little man combos that would serve them so well, from John Goodman and William Forsythe in Raising Arizona to Goodman and Steve Buscemi in The Big Lebowski. This links in with a less appealing Coen trope, that of fat men screaming, hollering and shouting, which they like to work into any movie when they get the chance.

Otherwise, it’s a pretty juvenile and ugly exercise, and the pace of the film suffers from the studio’s intervention. Raimi was denied the final cut, and the editing is at odds with the director’s usual dynamism—even at a trim 83 minutes it plods terribly. Scenes drag on forever because the editing is so slack, exposing the weakness of the script. The screenplay is the real villain of the piece, with barely enough dialogue to get the characters from point A to B in a scene. It feels like a rough draft dashed off to set up the story’s structure, and got made into a movie by accident before the Coen’s could revise.

If it played faster they might have gotten away with the “jokes”, which are about as sophisticated as Stan and Ollie getting their hats mixed up. An example is a character walking into a broom closet instead of his apartment…that’s it, that’s the joke. These gags have whiskers on them, as someone in Hudsucker might say.

The only truly enjoyable part of the film is Bruce Campbell, making the most of slim pickings. Campbell was still a few years away from becoming a B-movie idol, but delivers the lines with his typical cult hero drollery. Raimi wanted Campbell for the lead, but the studio insisted on someone more “Hollywood”, resulting in the baffling casting of Birney as Ajax. He’s a completely insipid screen presence and the action grinds even further to a halt as he bumbles through his scenes. It’s the film equivalent of watching a stand up act die onstage.

After Crimewave flopped, Raimi retreated to his cabin in the woods to create Evil Dead II, one of the greatest sequels of all time. He would pare back his Loony Toon instincts to make his best film to date, A Simple Plan, and also helm one of the most emotionally satisfying superhero adaptations, Spiderman 2. Of course, the Coen’s career as filmmakers grew immensely over time, though it’s fascinating how they stuck to their guns with the same vein of wackiness in their next feature, Raising Arizona.

Crimewave is perhaps best remembered as a cautionary tale, carrying the whiff of hubris from three young filmmakers who perhaps felt they were too cool to fail. Careers have been ruined by less, and we can be thankful that Raimi and the Coen’s managed to survive after the unwatchable mess of this collaboration.

They’re heeerrree… and some of us may need to go check our underpants. Check out the new trailer for Sam Raimi’s Poltergeist reboot with Sam Rockwell.

Directed by Gil Kenan, who’s known for Monster House and City of Ember, this doesn’t look like any cheesy two-bit horror remake. Kenan and Raimi appear to give the original classic its due while putting a modern twist (with modern horrors) on this tale of terror. Though we’re happy to see they kept the iconic clown doll scene, even if it is something we’re still working through in therapy since the first film.

Rockwell and Rosemarie DeWitt, along with Mad Men’s Jared Harris, make up the most recognizable of the cast. Though, casting unknowns sometimes makes for a more horrifying thriller when nary a face is recognizable enough to shake our suspension of disbelief. They have managed to cast a young girl, Kennedi Clements, that gives Heather O’Rourke a run for her money in the creepiness category. Quite the feat.

The film is slated for a July release.

As I watched a demon-possessed girl split her own tongue in half with a rusty boxcutter, and then proceed to partake in the most disgusting French kiss I’ve ever seen, I was so overwhelmed with disgust that I forgot I was watching a remake of one of my favorite indie horror films ever. That’s the sign of a good remake. Evil Dead, Fede Alvarez’ take on Sam Raimi’s cult horror classic, captures the essence of the original while finding its own blood-curdling voice. Alvarez tones down the silliness, turns up the gore, adds some new plot elements and dumps about 10 tons of blood and guts over everything for good measure—we’re talking truly vomit-inducing stuff here. While it doesn’t possess the same DIY charm as the original, Alvarez’ Evil Dead impressively stands on its own, even with the absence of a certain zinger-slinging, boomstick-wielding protagonist.

Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues, and Diablo Cody (who provided an uncredited last-minute touchup) provide a deftly constructed screenplay that distances itself from the original just enough. In a last ditch attempt to save their friend Mia (Jane Levy) from the grip of drug addiction, three friends and Mia’s brother, David (Shiloh Fernandez) drive her to a remote cabin in the woods to stage an intervention. It’s five kids in a cabin—you know the drill. When one of the kids unleashes a demonic creature by reciting passages from a cursed ancient book (the Necronomicon), the group finds themselves battling something much more sinister and demonic than Mia’s addiction. The evil spirit they’ve unleashed proceeds to massacre them by possessing their bodies and orchestrating a bloody symphony of disfiguration and self-mutilation.

The biggest change made to the original Evil Dead recipe is shown early on, as the role of main protagonist—originally played by the legendary Bruce Campbell—is split between the two siblings. This was a wise choice, as Campbell’s torch is virtually un-passable—his original performance as Ash is simply inimitable. There is a respectably engaging story of abandonment and forgiveness being told between David and Mia, which goes a long way in helping set Evil Dead apart from its predecessor. Smart, smart move. There are unfortunately a couple of new one-liners thrown in to please fans of the original, but they pale in comparison to Campbell’s legendary quotables.

The supernatural elements of the original film are toned down here, somewhat regrettably. Alvarez takes a more modern, grounded approach to the story, which is frankly less entertaining than Raimi’s camp-fest. The demonic presence symbolizes drug addiction here, which is quite clever, but I ultimately prefer Raimi’s otherworldly silliness. However, the fact that this film feels different than the original is certainly a good thing. Something that I found incredibly impressive about the film is how un-sexualized it is. There are no gratuitous sex scenes, little to no nudity, the women aren’t objectified, and in fact, there is virtually zero romance to speak of. It’s a surprisingly refreshing approach for a modern horror film that helps us focus on the core of the movie—the bloodbath.

Alvarez plucks several scenes straight from Raimi’s film—the tree rape, the basement—but ratchets up the intensity and violence to new levels. Watching a thorny tree branch slide up a girl’s skirt is even more revolting in this version. There are plenty of new acts of dismemberment and torture to chew on as well—skin gets boiled, limbs get severed, faces get ripped off, and there’s a nail gun…and, um…yeah, the nail gun. Evil Dead’s tone is dark and twisted, though not so dark that you can’t still have fun. The violence is so inventive and over-the-top that it’s almost dazzling to watch. It’s like a fireworks show, except the explosions are made of body parts. It’s hugely entertaining to see just how far Evil Dead pushes the envelope, and watching the surprising ways in which you and the people around you react is what horror cinema is all about.

Levy and Fernandez do a serviceable job as the siblings, though their performances are largely forgettable. You could insert any decent, good-looking young actors into their roles and come up with the same end result. The standout performance comes from Lou Taylor Pucci, who is one of my favorite up-and-coming young actors (he was fantastic in The Story of Luke, which I loved). He plays the smarmy intellectual of the group and does a good job of instilling a sense of fear while simultaneously handling exposition duties. He takes arguably the most physical punishment of anyone in the cast, and his physicality when being brutalized is excellent. You feel his pain. You feel his pain hard.

While Evil Dead doesn’t surpass the original, it comes about as close as you can get. There is a lot of new, effective material here, more than I was expecting. What makes the film work is that it’s not completely consumed with hitting every single beat from the original. It paves its own gory path, though the spirit of Raimi and Campbell can be felt throughout (them being producers might have something to do with that). Watch with friends, hold on tight, and enjoy what is a cinematic rarity—a worthy remake. Just remember to bring a puke bag.