I just finished watching
the remake of Evil Dead, and after I
finished watching it, I checked the DVD menu for a commentary, and instead I
found something even better for a laugh: the Video Descriptive Service. Wow,
that’s really jarring and not in the spirit of the movie whatsoever!
Okay, so this male
voice, sounding like he’s on Valium and Lithium, comes on and starts telling us
what’s happening in the movie, and it’s ridiculous! It took me a couple of
seconds before I realized that this must be a male voiced version of Siri; you
know, a computer voice. And of course it doesn’t feel emotion. It’s like having
Robby the Robot tell you a ghost story: it’s simply horrifying, but for all the
wrong reasons.
I mean, come on, people,
blind people are blind, not emotionless automatons who require robot narration!
Holy sh!t: this is a kick-ass horror movie! Shouldn’t the vocal performance
reflect this? I mean, rather than a cold, tranquil computer voice saying: “She
bends over her and regurgitates a red viscous liquid into her mouth…”,
shouldn’t the voice scream: “Oh my God! This freaky-looking zombie bitch vomits
blood into her mouth! Aaaaa! Holy Sh!t I’m gonna be sick!” Wouldn’t that be a
bit more in tune with the viewing experience? And when we get to dismemberment
with chainsaws, the clinical voice starts to sound like a serial killer, and it
gets positively creepy. Is the voice actor Jeffrey Dahmer? This emotionless
voice describing unimaginable horrors is inhuman, and in the worst possible
way!
Hey, how about hiring
some appropriate voice actors to not only describe the movie, but also to tell
the story with the appropriate emotional coloration? Otherwise, it’s quite the
dehumanizing experience. And don’t the visually impaired deserve better than
that? I mean, seriously: this emotionless voice describing scenes of horrifying
carnage and evil is about as inappropriate as SpongeBob SquarePants telling it
as a zany romp. Not that I’m being critical or anything, though, you
understand.
(Oh, by the way, they
didn’t play the Zeke song “Evil Dead”, nor the Slayer song “Raining Blood”, at least in the end credits? The
only fail in this movie, for me. Otherwise, I found this an excellent remake, and I generally hate remakes. But I understand if they didn’t want to break the
spell, I guess. Remember the jarringly inappropriate rap music in the end
credits of The Addams Family? I do.
But shouldn’t these songs have found their way into the movie on a car stereo
or something?)
