Another Tired Remake, Soon to Be Forgotten

Rating: 5/10 (22 March 2014)

Let me admit up front that CABIN IN THE WOODS, one of my favorite movies ever, pretty well tainted the well for this project.
The original THE EVIL DEAD has been described as The Three Stooges Go to Hell. That's why I and so many others flat out love it.
The remake has the feel of a project written and directed by a junior high drama class that miraculously raised $17 million with a bake sale and hired some really talented performers to act in it.
Major themes are developed and then get lost in the gore and hardware. Mia (the main character) and her brother and three friends travel to an isolated cabin where she is going to try to get over her drug habit.
Mia and her brother, David, have issues. Mia was the one who stayed home to take care of their mother while David was away pursuing his own interests. Either of these is a perfectly valid dramatic theme. Neither is developed. Instead, these ideas are abandoned for a festival of blood, gore, recycled images from Japanese horror movies, a chainsaw, and other hardware.
The other characters are cruelly underwritten. Eric is there because someone needs to read the ancient curse out loud for the plot to kick into gear. Olivia is a nurse, there to take care of Mia's medical needs. Natalie is there because the plot calls for a fifth person to be present to fit the contours of the script.
There are lots of good things about the film. It's well photographed, and deserves special commendation because in the outdoor scenes where it's raining the light is appropriate to a rainy day. Even in the 21st century we still see films in which rain is pouring down out of a cloudless sky in brilliant daylight. The musical score is effective. And the actors seem to have a lot of natural talent that's going to waste.
But the project falters in comparison to the original. The actors plow their way through this with perfectly straight faces. Not a wink, a nod, an arched eyebrow, a tilt of the head. I can imagine them before each scene thinking, "This script is absolute crap, but Sony Picture is paying me to do this so I'll keep a straight face and soldier through."
If you do watch this, stay around for a brief clip at the very end of the closing credits that raised my rating from a 2 to a 5. When I saw it I thought, "That's what I'm talking about."