Not Horror at All, but an Unexpected Conceptual Success

Rating: 7/10 (12 April 2013)

personal rating: above average.
i've been watching a lot of modern horror movies, but this one struck me as very different. as soon as it started, i knew i had to stop expecting a valid attempt at a horror movie in order to continue. this movie didn't do any of the things that i usually consider "good" for any movie. but where it surprised me was how it worked on a conceptual level.
it's hard to top the established best horror/gore movies, so why not go the other direction? what i saw being done here was an exploration and cauterization of the accidental weirdness of the 1st 2 evil dead movies. using that set of tools, a very different story is able to be told.
instead of seeing a set of characters dealing with a situation, we get a seemingly lifeless/soulless group dropped into a meat grinder. this is congruous from the start with the lack of color that permeates the print. this is our realty. a trip with a bunch of teenagers in the modern age has no endearing qualities. it's dry and disappointing, with the people looking like zombies going through the motions of a forgotten life. it's a statement about state of story writing.
i submit that the tree rape was a thrill simply because its done to the movie's hero. the treatment of the hero was altogether fresh, and is part of a larger picture. she only becomes a possible hero at the very end, after all her friends have given their lives for her. they have added up what little humanity they had as individuals and created one real person, where none had existed before the trip.
the climactic blood rain sequence i felt was particularly cathartic. its not realistic so much as symbolic of the change that is occurring in the hero. she is beating a crippling addiction. instead of running she is fighting for the 1st time in her life. she loses an arm which is a small price to pay for the suffering that occurs in other countries in order for an American person to use heroin.
there were many references to the old movies which i saw as a kind of worship. you see it in the inclusion of silly demon voices as well. it's not a failure to nail easy things, but a blatant homage to the gods of horror. such is the state of us as fans and makers of the new. in the timeless tradition of artists going back to ancient times, when we make a picture we obnoxiously mark it with the symbol of our own creators. it doesn't need to help our picture, it's just the right thing to do.