Review of Evil Dead (2013) by Derektripp — 14 Apr 2013

The original Evil Dead film is now commonly know by the members of it's wide spread cult, as one of the most influential horror films of all time, and that is one of the main stepping stones to modern horror, an extremely violent film with a bite for comedy and satire. many forget that when it first came out, the only intentions that the film had were to frighten you senselessly, with a unflinchingly grotesque imagery of blood and gore. much of the humor and surreals often associated with the film did not show until the legendary evil dead 2. the new film, from first time feature film director Fede Alverez, doesn't try to compare to the comedy of evil dead 2, but to go head to head at increasing the violence of the original, and at that, the new film succeeds.

Setting up a story that you will instantly recognize, with a few slight differences, 5 post college students go to an abandoned cabin in the woods to wean on of the members of of their drug addiction. prepared for the worst, the group braces themselves for the withdrawal from the drugs to kick in, and make a vow to not leave until the drug addict has recovered.

The slight changes to the typical story work to the films favor changing the characters from the 5 caricatures of horror films (look into "the cabin in the woods" for an example of them), and, while not exactly crafting fully believable people, it at least avoid to many of the stereotypes that plague the genre. Placing one of the characters as a drug addict also explains the reason why they are so situated on remain there, even when the situation goes bad.

While these enhancements may flesh out the story a bit, that wouldn't matter at all if the film itself wasn't scary and intense, which, thankfully, it is. once the violence and demonic possession start, the violence of it never lets up. constricted th a tight 91 minute running time, the film never slows down, always setting up the next violence set piece to come just a minute later. The violence itself obviously wishes to live up to the originals brilliant use of all kinds of gore, and at that the film also excels. by far this is the most extreme horror film to hit wide releases in quite some time, with all kinds of violence to quench the appetites of horror fans, and to nauseate the people who weren't expecting it. frequently, the films violence is so over the top, that it stops becoming frightening, and just becomes almost cartooning in the amount of blood that is splatted through the film.

Overall, the film is an intense, uncompromising horror film, set only to terrify and nauseate, which is exactly what the original would have wanted.