MPAA Gave The 'Evil Dead' Remake A NC-17; Will Be Re-Cut For R Rating

Vomiting blood, severed limbs, slicing tongues, everything we've seen from Fede Alvarez's remake of Evil Dead has been gory enough to make some people queasy. After watching the red band trailer, many questioned how a film with that apparent level of intense violence could get an R-rating. Turns out, they were right to ask. Alvarez took to Twitter to reveal he has submitted his first cut of the film to the MPAA, and that it got an NC-17 rating.

That rating forced him to go in and recut down to an R before the film's April 12th release.

Here's the tweet from Alvarez.

@WoozyTribe Was proud of scoring a NC17 when submitted! But we had to cut stuff out to get an R and get the film into theaters.

— Fede Alvarez (@fedalvar) January 28, 2013

Don't necessarily think this means the film will be any less disgusting than the trailers make it look, though. It's a fairly common practice for filmmakers to submit a version of the film that's way over the top, knowing it'll get the NC-17, so as to desensitize the MPAA to the R-rated version they really want. There's no confirmation that Alvarez and his team, including original star/director Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, did this. But you'd have to think they expected the first rating, especially with Alvarez saying he's "proud."

Does his editing of the film worry you at all?

Five twenty-something friends are holed up in a remote cabin where they discover a Book Of The Dead. An archaeologist's tape recording reveals that the ancient text was discovered among the Khandarian ruins of a Sumerian civilization. Playing the taped incantations, the youths unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the nearby woods, which possess the youngsters in succession until only one is left intact to fight for survival.