'Evil Dead' remake – Worthy of being Groovy? Not so fast…..Mister Fancypants!

[rating=3]

I’m just moments out of my recent viewing of Evil Dead, and although I’m not 100% certain that it did the franchise complete justice, I will say, I enjoyed the ride. For the most part. Within minutes of me obtaining my ticket, finally, I said to myself “Maybe, I shouldn’t do this…”. It just felt wrong to have an Evil Dead experience without the Bruce Campbell/Sam Raimi chemistry that the original trilogy is known for. As the opening scene and credits rolled in front of me I actually felt at peace with myself for giving this movie the proper chance that it deserved. With all my friends, social media and horror websites hyping this Evil Dead, I still was honestly going in with low expectations. So, what did I think of the movie??

First things first. This movie in no way compares to the original, and that’s where I was let down for the most part. I think I took too much time looking for little homages here in there to completely give the movie it’s “stand alone” approach that I should of, but hell, if your going to title your movie Evil Dead you better damn well deliver the goods! And sadly for Evil Dead, it didn’t. There really wasn’t any hero to cheer for, the cast was bland, the acting was pretty poor and the movie just felt overall cliche. My wife even looked at me and said at one point during the first hour “This is kind of boring.” And at that point I agreed completely. The movie seemed as though it was stretching too much at times for overall shock value instead of entertainment. For the first hour you’re thinking in your mind, blah…blah…blah…don’t read from the book, don’t open that door, don’t open your mouth! Especially when someone is vomiting blood on top of you, and oh yea, watch out for the trees because they will plant their seed inside of you! However, I will say that the atmosphere and directing approach was pretty awesome. They did the rolling fast forward camera shots that Sam Raimi made famous and some of the more original ideas that came from the movie were pretty cool, such as ‘Why is this happening’ scenarios and why the group decided to go visit this particular cabin in the first place. I’m not alone in the argument that without the dark (and sometimes slapstick) humor, clever gags, a wise director and an awesome touch of originality an Evil Dead movie will not be complete.

So, let’s take Evil Dead out of the equation as part of “The Evil Dead” franchise and take a look at just another horror movie. As a horror movie, it definitely delivered on all cylinders. The blood and gore are plenty, the all purpose cast of teenagers to die one after another is there and a somewhat decent soundtrack. I say somewhat decent because I still don’t understand the annoying “Tornado Sirens” that they used in several spots that were laying over the very subtle tension building atmosphere of the original score. There were clever little twists of “known” portions of the original movie that you witness just to look back on and go “Oh wait, they haven’t really gotten there yet”, and those moments are fun because it is a little bit of a “ha…ha..Gotcha” attitude of the director. I liked that. It really kept me on my toes, especially for the last 15-20 minutes of the film. So as far as it goes for just another horror movie, it passed the test as an actual decent one. But, that’s where it ends sadly for me, as just another above average horror movie that I enjoyed, but was sadly disappointed with. Would I tell people to go see this movie in the theater…HELL YES! I would, because it’s worth it for one of the better remakes(That’s not saying much, but hey, it is what it is.) In ending my review, I will tell you this, and as mush as everybody else told me, don’t go in to this movie thinking Evil Dead. The premise and plot is there, but other than that it falls flat in that general department. It’s not scary, other that a jump or two there, and other than some off the wall “not on purpose” goofy moments the laughs aren’t really there.

I was going to give this movie a 5/10 based on how generic it felt to me, but after sitting through the end credits I have to give it a 6/10, because the final 10 seconds are worth the price of admission, and that’s pretty fucking “Groovy!”