Well, can't you at least gently pull me in the general direction, then?

Rating: 6/10 (31 October 2012)

Unrated Director's Cut. Christine Brown(Lohman, trying her darndest to imbue the role with some measure of personality... to no avail, both leads are dull and forgettable) has a nice life. Her boyfriend is... uh, well, a Mac, I think(or at least, she has one... and he has a Smartphone. And the producers think you should, too). Actually, no, he is introduced unable to fix a printer, so I guess he's a doctor(...I love Justin Long, although I think he should stay away from this kind of work(he never seems to fare well in them...), but not sure I buy him as that). She's a loan officer, and she may get a promotion! Ah, but to beat out the just-hired(get it? It's a... joke... and no, they're pretty much all that uninspired) Stu(who I think is the Joxer of modern times... no, I don't know why they didn't just give the role to Ted) for the job, she may have to make a tough decision. Or she'll have to choose whether to grant a third extension on a mortgage payment. Of course the answer is no. Bounds of reason! Whazzat? We're supposed to think that's awful? Oh, we're reinforcing the old stereotype about bankers cheating people out of their money. I guess we should just be grateful she's not a hook-nosed Jew. Anyway, this means an elderly female Gypsy will be evicted, and she choose to curse our protagonist - no, with a demon, not with colorful language... after all, this is a PG-13 film. This is a pretty polarizing one... critics love it(it would appear that they anticipated Mr. Evil Dead's return to horror so much, they'll take anything), a lot of viewers hate it. Sam Raimi is clearly more invested in the copious amounts of bodily fluids(blood is only one of them...) than the characters(who are evidently mainly there so he has someone to throw into walls(though our hero shrugs that off surprisingly well...), get bile on and get embarrassed... and that's the comedy(hey, if you like it in his other efforts, I suppose you may, here, too)), and that's of course his call(as long as he accepts that if he gives us nothing substantial to chew on, we'll forget this soon after watching it... and that's precisely what happens). However, he tries to have his cake and eat it too by trying to capitalize on our sympathy for the them that could have been there. The ending is admittedly grim... and as a public service, they warn you ahead of time, by telegraphing it. FX are a genuine positive, the CGI looks real and is so well-integrated, you can't tell where one ends and the other begins. The major problem here is that the shocks are nearly all, with hardly any exceptions, jumpscares. Yes, an obvious ones, too. The sound gets really low, then, BAM! Something gets in your face, the volume gets cranked, and that is supposed to be terrifying, rather than merely obnoxious. This is 94 minutes long without credits. There is a lot of violence and disturbing content as well as a little moderate to strong language in this. I recommend this to fans of the recent string of unwanted remakes that have plagued this genre. 6/10