Writers: Fede Alvarez, Rodo Sayagues
Will you look at that poster? Just look at it. Try to spot the name of the movie. Not easy, huh? Yes, it's down there, written in a rather tiny font compared to ALL THE PRAISE IN CAPITAL LETTERS that takes the whole damn upper half. See, this crap pisses me off. This movie is neither astonishing, nor awesome, nor near perfect. At best, it's bearable. Isn't there some kind of punishment for false advertising?
When it comes to horror remakes, there seems to be a tradition to only retain the original story, while stripping off everything else that gives soul to the movie. For example, the remake of Hideo Nakata's Dark Water didn't contain any of the scary scenes, effectively turning it into some kind of supernatural psychological drama instead of a ghost horror. The movie was still good, but completely different. The remake of Shutter, which happens to be one of the scariest movies ever made, also ripped off all the horror scenes, effectively turning it into a completely unwatchable piece of crap. And here?
First of all, all the characters are idiots. There's a junkie, her brother, a nerdy guy with glasses, a black nurse and some blonde. Their mission is to help the junkie one get off the drugs, by keeping her completely isolated in the wilderness. Can't see how that can go wrong. The junkie's brother has some kind of guilt trip, he wasn't present when his mother was dying, so his junkie sister is pissed off at him. I mean, come on, bitch! Leave this crap to Edward Burns! Screw you and screw your personal problems!
Fortunately, all that is thrown aside when the nerdy guy reads aloud from Necronomicon and summons some evil demon, who promptly takes possession of the junky girl. But here another problem immediately steps in - the junkie girl starts seeing a scary ghost-like being (that happens to be a witch of some kind who was killed in the prologue). She informs the others, but guess what - they don't believe her (!). Would you believe a stupid story like this, coming from someone with abstinence crisis? Of course not. But the problem I'm trying to mention is that these apparitions are completely unnecessary - is this the remake of The Evil Dead or Ringu???
As crap keeps happening, the movie throws at us more and more unnecessary references to some legendary horror films, mostly The Exorcist and the aforementioned Ringu. OK, Fede, we get it! You watched some classic movies! Good for you! Fortunately, while we don't care about characters one bit (the lead guy, the junkie girl's brother, is so insanely irritating that I can't even begin to describe it), the way they hurt themselves and others is more often than not really violent. There are chainsaws, nail guns, limbs chopped off, self-mutilation, all that with buckets of gore and it really looks good. But it would've been even better if the scenes were brighter. I'm not saying the movie is frustratingly dark - we do see quite enough, but when it comes to gore, it's the more the merrier.
The screenplay sucks, with all that drama mumbo-jumbo and the unnecessary witch (or whatever) subplot, but that's partially corrected by Alvarez's competent direction that provides some rather nice images, not only the gory ones, but also the views of the cabin, surrounding forest, etc. However, the movie commits the mortal sin of disrespecting the two key scenes from the original. The legendary rape scene is technically present, but it's turned into something completely different that barely bears (hehe) any relation. And the wonderful scene with cards is completely absent! Who in their right mind would remake The Evil Dead and leave out the most wonderful scene, that in my opinion (and I'm certain I'm not alone in this) is one of the top 10 scenes in any horror movie? And they also left out the "the" in the title.
If this movie had any other name, I would have gladly concentrated on its superiority to the majority of recent horror movies. This way, it's a remake of something that's vastly superior in every possible way, and that has to be taken into account.
When you watch the movie (and I recommend you do that, despite all I've said before), make sure to watch the credits all the way. You'll get a pleasant surprise.
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