Camp and Campbelless

Rating: 3/10 (7 April 2013)

and frightless, as well.
Evil Dead (2013,) the second remake of the 1981 original did have its moments and it sure as hell was creepy and bloody, but did it hold up to the original? No. Did it even come close to the lesser, though still very good Army of Darkness? Nope. But, at least it trumped the first remake, Evil Dead II.
It might be best to start over and not compare it to the source material(s), and let it stand on its own. Of course, even then, it was just the run-of-the-mill horror fare as of late running amok with clichés, the stereotypical young and dumb adults proving their idiocracy with every single turn and contained more gore than frights – a sign of incompetent writing in regards to horror.
Of course, what's scary is subjective, but I found nothing terrifying. Just a handful of bloody and gross shots and completely unrealistic endurances and actions from the living.
If this movie wasn't so bent on being serious – yeah, going back to the source material for a moment – and shedding its established campiness from the first three installments, I would've given it a pass. But, since it does provide us with rules for the evil spirits and "normal ones" for the still breathing, I had the hardest time suspending any disbelief from what these buffoons could physically do to themselves and not just survive, but thrive. And those plot holes and inconsistenciesthose were a pain to ignore as well.
Following an actually decent opening scene, where veteran Evil Dead fans knew how it would play out, five young adults venture to the absolute creepiest cabin this side of Jason Voorhees's shack in Friday the 13th Part 2. Naturally, no one questions this, and decide this is the best place to detox one of the fivesome.
Pausing a minute for character depth and who's whoOh, wait, they never did, so I don't have anything to report other than one female is another male's girlfriend and the druggie was that male's sister. Whew, by saving time to never completely introduce the main stars or establishing eventual empathy for them, it gives the writers time to get to the only reason to make this movie: gore.
Anyhoo, one of our "heroes," a blatant (albeit terrible copy) "Marty Mikalski" rip off character from The Cabin in the Woods and Eric Stoltz-look alike actually named, ah-hem, Eric in the movie, reads from a book found in the cellar and our strung out female gets the Evil Dead bug. How she did, which was homage to the original The Evil Dead, was far less inventive, although it did cause a couple to get up and leave my movie theater.
Stopping therethe title alone should NOT fool anyone. They weren't trying to be comical, though deceiving, by naming it: A Family Fun Cabin in the Woods. What would someone possibly expect by buying a ticket to: EVIL DEAD and then getting offended by gore?
At any rate, you know the story, even if you hadn't seen any of the four (so far) Evil Dead films: she gets possessed, confusion ensues and death becomes them.
Admittedly, some of the later scenes in the movie, when the heat finally picks up, were effective and gross; even I had to turn away once. But, if you added up every scene that I thought was successful to a film in this genre, you could fit those in the final third of the trailer and save us all some time. And the lack of more original ideas pales in comparison to something (or one) else the film omitted.
Sadly, Bruce Campbell was not in this. Reasons of, to the date and time of this writing, are unknown to me on why not. Perhaps, again, they wanted to shift away from the camp, or he was too busy on another project or, maybe, he read the script co-written from the gal who brought usJennifer's Body. I doubt he would've been able to save this movie, but at least he would've been the highlight.
Final thoughts: I didn't hate this movie, nor really disliked it. Blah, yeah. Despite it being a remake, unoriginal, uh-huh. Would I want to see it again? Nope. Buteven though I would recommend any Evil Dead newbie to watch just Part 1 (1981) and Part 3 (Army of Darkness), you could do worse than this mindless splatterfest.