Filled with all of the Horror Clichés of the past 10 years

Rating: 2/10 (8 September 2013)

When the idea of an Evil Dead remake was announced, I was nothing more than confused. Why? Why does this need to exist? The three Evil Dead films make for a solid trilogy of fun, over the top, horror-comedy flicks that are unbelievably entertaining. They had no place being remade in the first place but let's forget that. This film isn't Evil Dead even if it has the title. Rather it goes for a serious approach and only really takes a few elements of the original film. That doesn't change the fact that almost everything about this film is stereotypical horror that has been released in the past 10 years.
The movie begins with a strange opening sequence that feels completely out of place and by the end of the film, seemed to exist for absolutely no reason at all. It was simply a fluff piece to start the film off with something exciting which already feels cheap. Then we move right on ahead to Mia (Jane Levy), David (Shiloh Fernandez) her brother, Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), Olivia (Jessica Lucas), and Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) who is David's girlfriend. And don't worry, none of those characters matter because you won't care about any of them. Sure, that's most horror movies but there isn't ANYTHING redeeming about this film in regards to plot, characterization, any of that at all. Look at a film like A Nightmare On Elm Street (not the atrocity of a remake) which has an interesting character like Freddy Krueger and the film focuses on the use of dreams. Evil Dead just focuses on being as bloody as possible like nearly every horror film in the past 10 years.
All of them arrive at the cabin for a typical stupid reason except it isn't the stereotypical one surprisingly. Rather, Mia is recovering from heroin cold turkey in the middle of the woods at a cabin with her friends. So, no really, how dumb are these people? Go visit a doctor and get proper rehab! The film proceeds to eventually turn Mia into the zombie-thing and takes itself so unbelievably seriously for no reason. Some of the performances will give you a laugh though. The line delivery can be equivalent to some bad b-movie you saw last week at 4 A.M. sometimes, which therefore, causes some great cringe. Or maybe you'll enjoy it when one of the characters get turned into a zombie and starts peeing on the floor. Or how about masses of blood throw up? Tree rape used as exposition? Nail gun fights with zombies used in a serious context? Sure, I'm nitpicking. I just can't help it because it's been awhile since a film has really just left me unhappy.
Did I mention how none of this is scary or terrifying in anyway? You've seen it all before. Loads of blood. Buckets of blood. We have literal raining blood at one point (which I won't deny, was actually a good atmospheric choice). I'm not sure how this film got advertised as "The most terrifying film you will ever experience" covering half the poster. Not once did I feel remotely scared, I was cringing mostly at the stupidity of it all. None of this is unique. Or interesting. Or good. If you've seen some of the horror films released in the past 10 years, you've seen this movie probably. Sure, the special effects work is great and it's nice to not see much CGI at all in a horror flick but that doesn't change the fact that none of this is unique as much as it tries to be this so-called "re-imagining."
I sincerely wanted to love this film. As I said before, when it was first announced I was just questioning why. But, then again, it's modern Hollywood. Then, the trailers came out. I was shocked. The movie actually looked fantastic. I was going to see it in theaters but never ended up doing it and I finally managed to watch it on DVD. My expectations had dwindled down by this time and I went into it with fairly low expectations, just expecting something that would be entertaining for 90 minutes. Rather, instead I got horrible performances (for the most part, Jane Levy does a decent job), unbelievably dumb characters, and a been there done that feel. And an ending that was obviously done to force a sequel. Seriously. But to avoid full-on spoilers, I won't talk about that. The thing is, I really expected this movie to avoid the horror genre tropes and stereotypes. Instead, it emphasized them. The entire film was stereotype after stereotype while some of the violence, horror, and gore just made me cringe, not because I was disgusted (none of that really affects me nowadays), rather because of how much it's been done. I don't think I have much else to say, I went onto ramble more than I should but I don't care. Forget this film and all of the mass of remakes that keep coming out.