A Fun Movie, Yet Something's Missing

Rating: 7/10 (23 July 2013)

In the months leading up to the release of his Evil Dead remake, rookie feature director Fede Alvarez made some promises to the die-hard fans of Sam Raimi's cult trilogy. This would be a gory film with an unprecedented quantity of blood and several nods to original Evil Dead series, with no attempt to recreate scenes or characters from those films. On these promises, he and the producers of Evil Dead have delivered completely.
The film plods along carefully without overtly stepping on the toes of those fans who have a special place in their hearts for such things as The Necronomicon, boomsticks, deadites, Bruce Campbell and soul-swallowing demons. While several distinct tributes are made using props and set pieces (cabin, Oldsmobile Delta, chainsaw, shotgun, cellar) and the camera work, this film has it's own direction and a completely different tone.
This might be where Evil Dead begins to falter somewhat, as the previously employed fun and comical approach to the subject matter is discarded in favour of a more serious tone. Alvarez deliberately chose this strategy, maybe without realizing that a concept as goofy as the Evil Dead probably should not be taken seriously. There's something hilarious about a mischievous zombie giggling and scheming, but it's certainly not genuinely frightening, and this film's attempts to scare the audience are more often just silly.
The faltering continued with characters in the film. The lovable hero Ash is replaced by a group of unlikeable nameless twenty-somethings with very few redeeming qualities. While the actors portray these forgettable characters well enough, there really isn't anyone to cheer for in Evil Dead - there's no villain, and no hero.
That being said, it was a very gory film with some fun parts. So if you are looking for a bloody disgusting yet unintentionally goofy cheese-fest, you might like this flick. Or you could just go watch the far superior Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987).