Hollow and pretentious gore-fest

Rating: 3/10 (17 June 2013)

I feel like this movie tries to bite more,than it can chew. It fails to provide even two-dimensional characters to such extent,that you'll be hard pressed to name a single character trait , that distinguishes one character from another. With a setup like that the attempt (if one can even call it that) to present the strained relationship between Mia and her brother really falls flat. The part about careless teenagers awakening ancient evil by reciting spells from the magical book could seem far-fetched in the original,but here it's taken to the extremes. A guy goes to a black magic room with ritually slaughtered animals hanging from the ceiling,finds the magical book and immediately proceeds to read the incantations aloud,despite the warnings and the fact,that he's alone in the room. Then the company decides to forcibly keep Mia in the cabin... Unless she'll walk out and use a car,that is. Is the "plot" here just an excuse for mutilation and self-mutilation sequences or are we actually supposed to empathize with characters so one-dimensional and stupid? I'll go with the former.
The amount of "nods" to the original trilogy is enormous , but it's also done in a totally humorless way. For example,twice characters will sever their hands , but there won't be a single "Farewell to arms" moment. In fact,endless "Nods" end up dominating the "plot".I imagine,that the scripting went somewhat like this: "Ok,now we need a "Swallow this!" nod. Let's use the chainsaw instead of shotgun this time,because we're just so original. Also,make sure,that Mia loses her hand since she's our Ash and he's supposed to lose one. So original."
Apart from milking the franchise I don't really see any point in this film.If you're feeling nostalgic about the original trilogy you can always re-watch it without needing to resort to this... thing.