This thing...it does not burn...

Rating: 3/10 (27 May 2013)

I walked into this movie having read the reviews. Some said it was brilliant. Others said it was bad. This intrigued me as there was no one really on the middle ground.
Having now seen the movie I now understand why that was the case.
First of all here is my breakdown of the movie. visuals 7.5/10 script 0/10 Acting 3/10
See the visual effects in this movie are are very good. The gore level is high, though not as high as I expected for an R18+ Australian rating. So these aspects of the film are going to impress the horror fans who are not looking for a story so much as an adrenaline rush. 90 minutes of mindless violence to their minds off things.
But those of us who are looking for a little bit more, those of us that are looking for a storyline where we actually care about the characters and where there aren't any gaping plot-holes are going to be sorely disappointed.
I'm of the opinion that in order to make a good horror movie you need to make the audience care. The more they care, the more they scare. The more they are pulled along with the journey of the main characters and when they feel scared so do we. But to put it simply, I did not give a dam about any of these characters. They were all annoying and whiny and badly acted for the most part.
I guess I shouldn't have expected anything better from a script that Diablo Cody was involved in (My god Jennifer's body was so terribly written). I honestly don't know what people see in her writing.
I also thought the script itself was very limited. The same motifs and the same references to the original Evil Dead were repeated to us so many times it got annoying.
The acting itself whilst at times okay. At other times was very ordinary. Jane Levy was perhaps the only exception to this. You can certainly see why none of them are A-list actors (though to be fair they didn't have a lot to go by).
SO to sum up. the gore and visuals were exactly what most horror fans wanted. It just lacked us caring for the characters and therefore the actual scare factor was very low. I thought that Fede Alvarez overall handled the DIRECTING aspect of the job okay. but I re-iterate again and again the script needed about another dozen re writes.
3/10 If you're looking for a horror film with any sort of depth...Avoid this one.