Groovy

Rating: 7/10 (21 June 2014)

This Evil Dead movie was my first R-rated horror experience I ever had in theaters, and it was a great one. It had tons of gore, a couple of good scares, and more gore. Let's start with the movie's pluses.
First of all, I was quite impressed at the intelligence of the characters. They had a good reason not believe in Mia's assertion of a demon because she is a recovering heroin addict and had tried to leave rehab by hurting herself and going home. Although I think the characters may have not picked up quick enough the fact that it might have not been withdrawal that was making her eyes turn yellow and speak in a demonic voice. It was also a pretty well-acted film with only five characters carrying the majority of the film. They weren't great great, but they were above average, which is saying a lot considering it's a horror remake (or more of a re-imagining, due to it not being the same characters). That takes me to my next praise, the certain nods to the original. For example, the character Natalie's arm gets infected from a bite by a possessed Mia. To stop the infection from spreading any further, she slices her arm off with an electric knife, just like how Ash cuts his possessed hand off with a chainsaw in Evil Dead II. Another treat is near the end where Mia, now no longer possessed and the sole survivor of the group, loses her left hand and replaces it with a chainsaw to kill the abomination that has risen from the ground. One more treat is after the credits, but it's so short that I dare not spoil it. The scares that weren't from massive gore were mostly standard ones but some of them were actually pretty creative. There were some scenes that actually made me cringe like Eric, that guy with the glasses, pulling a needle from his eye and Mia getting her knee slowly slit by a machete. Now on to the bad parts of the film.
This movie was nowhere near perfect, but my complaints could be considered mere nitpicks. The characters find the necronomicon in the basement of the cabin they are staying in wrapped in barbed wire. If the previous people didn't want it opened, why didn't they bury it? Or doing anything other than leaving it in the open. The necronomicon lists the number of events that occur after a demon has possessed a soul and Eric realizes this. So why didn't they, or at least he, look at the later parts of the book to anticipate and hopefully prevent the later things from happening? The rest I list are inconsistencies, like how a when possessed Natalie (yeah, I guess slicing her arm off didn't help stop the infection) gets her other arm blown off she becomes unpossessed and questions why her nail covered face hurts, and dies. Showing how becoming unpossessed doesn't heal any injuries, when a possessed Mia creepily licks a box cutter and slices her tongue in half, how in the hell can she talk? Also, when Mia first becomes possessed Olivia claims that she gave her enough sedatives to put a horse to sleep, yet she is still awake. But near the climax of the film David is able to put the possessed Mia to sleep with just one dose of the sedative. On a side note, did none of them have cellphones?
Either way, I think that thisfilm was a great watch especially with friends.