Gory, grotesque and will leave you exhausted. The ballsiest horror film in quite some time

Rating: 8/10 (6 April 2013)

Evil Dead is perhaps the riskiest, ballsiest, most gory horror film I've seen since the 80's. Once the book is opened and the demon stuff begins, it's an exercise is the grotesque. For the 60 minutes or so that this takes place, it left me exhausted watching it. One character in here, the one who stupidly reads the book after he knows he is not supposed to, goes through more pain than any horror movie character I have ever seen with the exception of perhaps some of the rapists in the new version of I Spit On Your Grave. But that's debatable. Anything and everything that can happen to this guy, does. In short, he gets messed up real bad.
The movie is not perfect as it is hampered by some really bad acting in some parts and by some really annoying characters in others. But horror movies are known for this so if you can get past really egregious performances in some spots, then you'll be fine. It's a small complaint really, but it does take away from the overall rating. Another point I have to bring up that bothered me a bit is that the Ash character ends up being a woman and maybe because to me ASH is ASH, he is a man, then I would have liked it better if David would have lost his arm and becomes the hero. That was one of the cool things about the original is that it didn't follow conventional rules. Women are always the hero in horror films. But in Evil Dead, Ash was. I wasn't comfortable with the change in this one.
And finally, even with a bigger budget, the tree rape scene in this one wasn't nearly as good as the original.
But those complaints aside, the movie was everything they said it would be. It made the audience jump a few times and the humour was also there like in the original.
The good in the film is everything else. Shotguns, hammers, nail guns, knives, glass, syringes and fire is all used to mess people up. I remember reading that in the original the cleanup on the set every night was a nightmare because of all of the goop they used for the blood. I can't imagine being a cleanup member on this set. There was gallons of blood used here and sometimes it looked more like molasses mixed with chocolate syrup mixed with red dye. It was pretty disgusting at times. I also enjoyed how duct tape was the answer to everything in the film. If you have a hole in you the size of China, just use duct, it'll fix you right up.
As mentioned, once the book is open, the pace the film plays at leaves you exhausted. It doesn't slow down in the least and every other scene someone is cutting their own arm off or getting attacked with a nail gun or getting violated by nature. It's a truly terrifying film.
To sum it up, I enjoyed it but not on the same level as the original. And there's nothing wrong with that as the original is one of the all time great horror films. But if you are in the mood for a bloodbath where blood literally spews on screen, this is the film for you. It does not disappoint.
7.5/10