Evil Dead (2013) Review

Movie: Evil Dead (2013)
By: Maniac E
Date: April 14, 2013

The most terrifying film you will ever experience.

So after many many years Evil Dead is being returned to former glory, at least that is what the creators of the movie thought. Yes, there is no Ash and yes this is a remake but the creators promised us real horror, no CGI all pure guts and glory! Let's see how it ended up!

The story is similar to the 1981 original: Five twenty-something go to a cabin in the woods and supernatural shenanigans occur. Mia (Jane Levy) is attempting to stop her addiction to heroin with the support of her friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), Olivia (Jessica Lucas), her brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and David's girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore). It isn't the first time she's tried to kick it, of course, but this time the group are going to make sure she gets drug free. When they discover something the remnants of a bizarre supernatural ritual underneath, and the Necronomicon gets read from, evil spirits descend upon them.

Taking in account that Evil Dead was already redone (aka Evil Dead II), Fede Alvarez has crafted a big budget version of Evil Dead. There aren't a lot of improvements when you compare the two with each other. It is mostly slick looking and they didn't end up holding the budget on gore effects. What is great to see how the people of the original Evil Dead have grown into big budget FX teams and film makers. The movie will never bore you or it will never not get you on the edge of the seat. It ended up as a pretty fast pace movie and this is a difference with the original.

With the 2013 remake, first time director Fede Alvarez seems to understand the tone of the original but doesn't know the endgame. The first two thirds of the movie are creepy with buckets of blood, but none of it is really that terrifying. I kept watching mainly because I wanted to see what more could be added to the story. Unfortunately, the film's last third takes a nosedive and makes little sense. And worst of all, the one potentially charismatic actor, Lou Taylor Pucci, is not the focus of the story. After Pucci's exit, the movie really loses steam. However, the movie is done in a way that it is there to please the new generation it can be seen as a good thing but in the end Evil Dead is a movie not only as a statement in horror movie making but also a movie with a soul.

The biggest problem that the movie has against itself is that there isn't a lot of soul to it. You won't care who lives or dies, with the extremely minimal character development you won't be supporting anyone in peculiar. For all the gore and brutality involved, and the film's general intensity, all we're given is snippets of character and nothing more. We're given snippets as the film develops but by then it's too late; you can't force us to care in retrospect midway through the violence.

For me Evil Dead 2013 could have or better said should have done more with really the story, get out some faults or bad scripting but they decided not to do so. Visually the movie is stunning blood, gore, make-up their all very slick looking and is definitely a plus. On the other hand there were a lot of things just not going right like the pace of the movie. It's the outside is every horror fan's dream but the inside is hollow and in the end has nothing really to say. Oh and for the ones thinking that it is no Evil Dead without Ash well you will never watch this in the end then.