EVIL DEAD (2013)

Lets be honest, the original Evil Dead wasn't much more than a geek show. Sure it was a fun, feverishly surrealistic geek show with the ultra charismatic Bruce Campbell holding it all together, but it was interested exclusively in finding new and innovative ways to launch gallons of goo at the audience.

With the exception of the 'new and innovative' part, the remake is much the same. Like before, we have a group college students arriving at a cabin in the woods for the weekend only to find the cabin wrecked and covered in blood, the aftermath of a demonic ritual that took place there.

The only clue to what happened is the Necronomicon, an ancient book bound in human flesh and inked in human blood. As if that wasn't enough of a warning, the kids find the book wrapped in barbed wire and defaced with all caps warnings to not read it. Does that stop anyone? Hell no! The book is immediately read, summoning daemons to feast on the souls of the living.

In a slight twist that gives that amounts to the films best attempt at substance, the kids have gathered not for vacation, but to help their friend Mia (Jane Levy) get over her drug addiction. The genius of the approach is that as she starts to show signs of demonic possession, her friends just think she's going through withdrawal and ignore her.

Despite this and other departures, the film has the same mentality that earned the original an X rating in 1981. This remake is trashy in all the ways that gore hounds love: it's gooey, oozy, squishy, sticky, sickly and icky. Gee golly darn this thing is violent. People drown in corn syrup. Blood rains from the sky. If nothing else, this film significantly ups the ante for how pervasively gory a mainstream film can be. One suspects that only some kind of demonic backroom deal with the MPAA kept this film from an NC-17.

The film works as a cavalcade of gore, and is capably made by first timer Fede Alvarez. It's slick and glossy, but has nothing close to the freneticism of Raimi's original and the film doesn't even try and find a lead as fun as Bruce Campbell. The result is a very dower film, which is odd. Yes, the original Dead played its material fairly straight but most of the nostalgia we have for the series is linked to the slapstick parody Raimi introduced in the second and third installments (which in turn have inspired a string of recent horror parodies like Cabin in the Woods and the superior Tucker & Dale vs. Evil). There are comic ideas in Evil Dead 2.0, like the moment a man slips, banana peel style, on a severed cheek, but Alvarez plays these moments so straight and so bloody as to undercut any comic potential.

Still, it's a fair representation of the intentions of the original, albeit without the low budget charm or the raw talent of Sam Raimi. Also it's better than the majority of the Horror remakes we've gotten of late. If you want to see lots of hardcore gore done the old fashion way with a minimum of CGI, this is your ticket, everyone else should stay away.

Grade: C

Note:  There is a very short scene after the credits. Hardcore Evil Dead fans might appreciate it, but it'll do nothing for non Deadites.