All the gore, none of the charm

Rating: 5/10 (3 April 2013)

Like many horror remakes, this improves on the visual effects and updates the hairstyles but strips all the charm and originality from the story. The Evil Dead remake is competently made, has lots of gore, and is thoroughly suspenseful but it will never rival the original or any of its sequels.
The remake begins with the burning of a witch in our cabin in the woods by a group of Deliverance style hillbillies. We don't know precisely when this action is occurring, but it would seem to be in a previous era. Later evidence suggests that this actually might have been quite recent. The MF profanity, for instance, has only been in use since the late 60s. There are animal corpses still not completely desiccated when the kids arrive. And there is evidence of a break-in at the cabin since the last time it was visited. The cabin, by the way, is still on the electrical grid. No harbinger warns the kids, so we're never exactly told the significance or history of the cabin itself. We're not precisely told when the story is set, but it seems modern day.
The five young characters arrive, and in this scenario, they are there to assist in the intervention/detox of heroin addict Mia. The characters don't seem to like one another, and except for estranged brother David, their relationships are unclear. They would seem to have been childhood friends who previously visited the cabin. But most of the characters seem awfully prim to have maintained a relationship to a self destructive heroin addict. I never quite figured out where the hippie character Eric fit in. He's not even in the movie as stoner or comic relief. His chief duty in the movie is to discover the necronomicon, unleash the evil and try to warn the other characters. The necronomicon, while we're on the subject, is among the movies worst flaws. It looks like a goth teen's notebook full of pencil sketches and "scary," profane jargon in red ink. A second flaw is that none of these characters has any real personality.
The detox angle has possibilities, because – as in Trainspotting – people coming down from drugs often have terrible hallucinations. But the main point in this story seems to be as an excuse to stop Mia from fleeing the cabin. However, they do not disable the cars, so Mia takes off at her first chance where she meets the witch in the woods, who – in a scene straight out of Jason Goes to Hell: The Final Friday – infects Mia with evil by throwing up a black oozy snake which crawls up Mia's skirt into her body.
Mia's infection and the subsequent killing of other characters is done in gory zombie movie fashion. Mia actually behaves quite a bit like Regan in The Exorcist. I recall the original zombies being full of joyful, laughing evil, which was part of its campy charm. The post possession scenes become a stalk and slash with various weapons around the cabin. It will be a treat for fans of gore; the movie doesn't skimp. But I also don't recall hearing any trouble about it with the MPAA.
There is some originality particularly toward the ending, as the movie takes some twists and switches heroes and villains. The movie lets you know that animals aren't off the table as victims, etc. It is a bit of a flaw to not know whether it is Mia or the witch who is the movie's main villain. During scenes where Mia returns to her own identity, she appears to bear none of the scars that would surely result from all the violent action she's been through. Overall, it's a competent, scary horror movie. But the characters or mythology do not win over the viewer. This is unlikely to itself become any sort of long lived phenomenon and I wouldn't expect anybody to come out of this movie with the cult following attached to those involved in the original. BTW, I write this before the movie has officially premiered and the 7+ point IMDb rating it currently enjoys (virtually unheard of for a horror movie), has been incredibly inflated by fanboys.