Not really that scary

Rating: 3/10 (26 May 2009)

Sam Raimi holds a special place in my heart for helming the seminal first of the evil dead trilogy many moons ago when it's 'video nasty' (and therefore hard to obtain), status made it 'the film' to see. So it was with great expectation that I took a look at his latest return to the horror genre after big budget excesses with peter parker.
Alas after a promising opening twenty minutes the film began to stumble, so intent on shocking us in scene after scene that it became unsteady on its feet, apparently undecided as to what kind of horror film it really wanted to be.
Prevented from being genuinely scary by it's prohibitive Pg-13 certificate, it veers towards the zany, Tex Avery like horror you would expect from the director of Evil Dead 2, but it also sought in vain to recreate the more subtle shockers of old (by the likes of Jacques Tourneur and Val Lewton), but without the confidence to let scenes breathe and let the audience sweat, papering over the lack of genuine frights with aural bluster and shock sound effects for much of it's mid section. The eventual appearance of the main demon proves disappointing as it was vanquished so simply.
To be fair the film does contain one or two unsettling moments, one being a scene near the beginning, as the gypsy woman attacks the heroine in an underground car park.
Amusingly the film's most original element seemed to be the toothless gypsy's penchant for 'gumming' the lead actress's chin, a persistently effective route to making the audience groan and squirm with disgust.