Surprisingly Good Horror Movie

Rating: 9/10 (20 July 2013)

I am not sure what people were expecting from this movie. Being a huge fan of the original trilogy, I had low expectations. Yet I went into watching this film trying not to compare it too much to the original. It is, after all, a re-imagining of the original. So, yes as much as I would like to have seen Ash in this film, it really would not have done justice to have another actor try to play the part. And with it being a complete re-imagining, they could not have just had Bruce play the part.
I thought the film makers did a good job of creating a movie that was both new and old. It did pay homage to many aspects of the original film, but without completely copying them. Some of the characters were unmemorable and stupid at times, but that is normal in a horror movie. I think people forget they are watching a horror movie sometimes.
I thought it was a good choice to use actors and actresses that were not known. Usually when a film does this, it suffers from overacting or just plain bad acting. That was not the case here. Yes many of the characters were hollow and underdeveloped, but who cares in a 90 minute horror movies where you know most of them are going die anyways? The one area that I was a bit disappointed in, was the demonic faces. At times, especially in the beginning, there was a bit too much CGI. I do think it got better as the film went on. But one of the things that made the original films so great was the use of great makeup effects rather than CGI. Honestly most of it was quite well done, but occasionally you could tell it was not.
Overall, I think this was a great addition to the Evil Dead franchise. Perhaps not as part of the Ash trilogy, but as a stand alone tribute.