Evil Dead ... 5/10

Rating: 5/10 (6 June 2013)

"Five friends head to a remote cabin, where the discovery of a Book of the Dead leads them to unwittingly summon up demons..." Yeah we've heard it all before, but does this movie bring anything new to the table? Evil Dead is a re-make of the 1981 horror classic 'The Evil Dead' Directed by Sam Raimi. The original had shocks, screams, blood and most importantly humour. This new version has done away with the comedy and charm of the original and gone for the darker and the bleaker, as most re-makes tend to do. This poses a few problems regarding the films tone, the original had scary dark segments but balanced them with splatter comedy and hokey effects. This made the movie varied in tone and kept the audience engaged, this movie though only 90 minutes long felt like it was lasting an eternity. This was due to the relentless gore, which I don't have a problem with, especially for a movie like this, however it seemed to be the only card the film had up it's sleeve and it just became tedious after a while. The film was trying so hard to be gross and shocking that it forgot to be scary, I get frightened very easily by horror films, in fact I go out of my way to avoid them and this film failed to scare me, trust me that's saying something. Having said that, the film-makers deserve a lot of credit for the technical aspects of the film; almost every effect is done practically which is fantastic to see in a main stream horror movie again. I hope that this movie will encourage other Directors to take more risks with their horror films, the genre has just about run its course due to complacency in the industry; though this film had some crazy "old school" horror elements to it....its still just another re-make. Give us something new Hollywood!
The film is extremely violent, but not scary, in other words its more "Yuck" than "Yikes" so I recommend you see it with your friends and just have fun with the gore.