Boring Does Not Even Begin to Describe This Unnecessary Remake

Rating: 1/10 (29 September 2015)

I approach today's onslaught of remakes with trepidation; ever since Gus Van Sant started the trend in 1999 with his dreadful carbon copy of PSYCHO, I usually avoid these retreads like the Bubonic Plague. And the remake of THE EVIL DEAD (1981), a film that I loved for both its audacity and its willingness to laugh at itself, really set my teeth on edge despite the imprimatur of both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell.
Long story short: They didn't do much with the basic plot (five college friends gather at a remote cabin in the woods and end up being possessed by demons living in those woods), except for throwing in a bit about one of their number being a drug addict and the reason for the gathering some sort of half-assed intervention.
The rest of the film is more or less a copy of the original; the elements are tossed around like vegetables in a salad, but the premise remains. What really gets me about this movie is that it is even more bloody and violent than the original and yet with all the action happening on the screen I found myself falling asleep.
The acting is somewhat better than the original, and so are the production values, but the overall look of the thing is grimy and dark; the original had a color palette made mostly of bright red and was much more brightly lit.
I was wondering if the remake would keep the notorious "girl-gets- raped-by-a-tree-in-the-woods" sequence. I was disappointed. It's sort of there, but it's a muted version of the sequence and it's so dark that it's hard to follow.
As in the original, nobody gets out alive. But the last half hour is painfully slow going and hard to follow.
My final analysis: I would never have thought that they could do a remake of the 1981 film that was MORE gory (in terms of blood this one makes the early film look tame; they're swimming in it) than the original and at the same time so utterly boring that in the end it was not worth my time.
Really I just wish they would quit making these awful remakes.