Works well enough for a silly, bloody demon flick

Rating: 7/10 (16 December 2019)

Did we really need a remake of Sam Raimi's iconic horror flick The Evil Dead? Probably not. But you won't hear me complaining. To be honest, I kinda like what I saw. The only thing I truly dislike is the the fact that the main characters are teenagers in the woods. Again. I know that the original also followed this trope, but come on, try something new once in a while! How boring is that? And I didn't need so much backstory for the two main characters Mia and Dave. It felt underdeveloped and overly dramatic at the same time. The script was trying way too hard to be deep. Give me a break. This is a silly demon romp after all. All that being said, if you get past the sappy stuff and take The Evil Dead 2013 for what it wants to be, you'll have a lot of fun.
The characters aren't too annoying, pretty likeable actually. There's plenty of gore, some effective jump scares (a bit too many probably) and passable acting. I'm not a big fan of the special effects, they don't always look convincing. Some scenes were downright silly, I wasn't even sure if intentionally or not. By the way, why does every demon look and even sound like Regan from The Exorcist? That threw me off. The ending is a jaw-dropping, epic bloodfest. Very, very cool. Director Fede Alvarez goes crazy with the camera angles in true Raimi style. I felt the whole thing could have been even crazier, but oh well, for a modern ramake this one isn't bad at all. Give it a chance.