Evil Dead meets Resident Evil

Rating: 6/10 (19 August 2012)

As I sat through this, it's exactly what I thought, this is Evil Dead combined with Resident Evil, and that's what made this enjoyable to watch.
This is one of those brain-dead horror movies where you feel absolutely nothing for any character while they get sliced and hacked to pieces in various ways by a bunch of redneck zombies, so it never takes itself seriously.
5 stereotypes pile into a camper van/RV, and head into the wilderness to stay at a remote log cabin. Before too long they discover that the GPS won't work and they turn up at what appears to be an abandoned petrol station. So cue the Texas Chainsaw Massacre theme right about now, complete with animals preserved in jars and the obligatory none-too-pleasant country rube.
Interspersed with the goings on with the young group, there are segments that flash to what appears to be a secret installation/lab that is overseeing the group with hidden cameras. So this is where you get that whole Resident Evil Umbrella Corporation-esque vibe.
And as per Evil Dead, things really start to gain momentum on the first night, the group heads down to the cellar after the hatch suddenly "blew" itself open, and they come across a rather odd assortment of items. Each member of the group seems to fall into a trance like effect after randomly handling a different item, however, it's the reading of a seemingly very old diary and the Latin text within that creates all the chaos.
From here things take a twist. Back at the lab, you find that the whole chain of events is being controlled through various means and the company has placed bets on which type of creature will be summoned to kill the group, based on their handling of a particular cellar item. So as it turns out the zombie family was just a fluke.
As the survivors start to learn that all these events are seemingly orchestrated, (the term "puppeteers" gets used at times), it's revealed that all the sterile, sociopathic behaviour exhibited by the scientists towards their plight is all for the benefit of very ancient, underground dwelling gods, who need human sacrifice for their amusement and due to various TV monitors you find that the same pattern repeats itself all over the world.
The bloodbath begins after the survivors discover the hidden lab and the zoo-like array of monsters and demons within and proceed to release them all. Of course these things, amongst them a werewolf, a giant cobra and even a murderous unicorn tend to kill everything they come across.
The movie doesn't really break any new ground, and for a while it's a cliché bonanza. Truth or dare games, severed heads being thrown, people getting pulled through windows, ghostly voices etc. The only thing missing is an excessive downpour of rain, but when you think it's just another stock standard stalk and slash zombie flick, it turns out to be something a little different and it keeps you guessing for a while as you try and figure out why it's all happening and how everything fits together.