Routine gory horror

Rating: 7/10 (19 April 2013)

Her brother David, his girlfriend Natalie, and friends Eric and Olivia take Mia to the family cabin in remote woods so that she can go cold turkey with her drug addiction. Unfortunately, we know that the cabin has recently been broken into and used as a venue for exorcising a demonic presence, and those carrying out that ritual have rather thoughtlessly left behind the book containing the ritual needed to summon the demonic thingummy back again. Even more unfortunately, Eric is the sort of idiot who not only finds it necessary to cut off the barbed wire which is used to bind the book - a bit of a hint there, together with the DO NOT READ THIS messages written all over it - but then to read out the ritual. And the demonic wotsit, which decides to take up residence in Mia - who is already having a fairly miserable time even before all this - isn't very nice.
Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead more or less singlehandedly created the "video nasty" genre in the UK. But that was back in 1981, and the film which resulted in cries for blanket bannings was given away free with a newspaper not so very long ago, so I suppose it's not unreasonable to expect a remake 30 years on - produced, it appears, by Raimi himself and also the star of the original Bruce Campbell. And some other bloke.
The posters for this movie contain a lot of "Scariest film ever"-type quotes. Well, if you've never seen a horror film before, maybe that's the case. I will say this - it is very gory, and there are a handful of made-you-jump moments, plus some very loud sounds. But it contains no real surprises (even without seeing the original), nor even much of a sense of menace. It is a serviceable but unexceptional horror in the modern manner.
How does it compare with the original? Well, the original had the benefit of being exactly that - original. Despite looking dated in terms of its effects (and not to mention being made on a budget of ninepence) Raimi's movie blazed a new trail which many others have subsequently followed. That is not the case here, although the new version shows clear evidence of more money having been spent on it. Also, hindsight shows Raimi's movie to have had a darkly comedic edge to it (perhaps not obvious in 1981), whereas I suspect it is unlikely that anyone will be discovering humour in the remake in 2043.