Review of Evil Dead (2013) by Cory T — 20 Oct 2013

A post-credits cameo from Bruce Campbell can't salvage this flaccid remake of Sam Raimi's landmark film. Ever since 'Cabin in the Woods' lampooned the horror genre with a rapier wit, the cliche of oblivious-young-people-reciting-incantations feels like a retroactive step backwards for the evil-possession category.

Even for a midnight-cult movie, the characters have undergone a frontal lobotomy when they elect to reside in the cabin when they could've detoxed Mia in the heavily populated city. Of course, rather than stratifying the ante on terror, newcomer Fede Alvarez heightens the exaggerated gore to sickeningly ludicrous levels without an ironic sense of humor (a nail gun scene and needle-piercing attack are the repulsively gross-out standouts).

The tree-rape is merely a grim reproduction of the predecessor's campy scene. The introduction of a makeshift defibrillator really stretches one's suspension-of-disbelief. Soulless is probably the best word to describe this incarnation of 'Evil Dead' and the low-budget charm of the 1981 paragon has been substituted with inane character actions and disgustingly preposterous buckets of viscera.