It's not a bad movie but it's not the greatness I was expecting. It feels hollow, soulless and by the time the credits rolled all I could muster was a shrug.
It's hard to pinpoint where exactly the movie went wrong. Maybe it's the apparent concentration on how to do the grossest things possible to the people in the film? Granted, the effects on display here are near amazing and even more so considering most of it is practical effects. The problem with that becomes that the movie seems to be more about getting to the next gross out scene than about making is give any kind of cares about the cast.
I know some people are complaining about the serious tone this film takes which is in contrast to the original's humorous take. I don't mind that at all. For me, I just feel like not enough time was paid to get us to like the characters and because of that, I didn't really care about any of them save for Mia (Jane Levy) who is the only one who gets a real back story, in fact any story at all.
Still, the effects are extraordinary and the gore was cringe worthy. I just wish I cared a bit more about who I was watching.
There is also a slight problem with the ending being rather anticlimactic. We get deadites screaming about "He Is Coming" and all we get is that girl from the beginning? Just another deadite? No pay off at all. Maybe there we referring to the weirdly placed pointless bit after the credits?
Here it seems like the filmmakers just wanted to get to the iconic parts of the original franchise just so people can say, "Oh damn I remember that!" The subject matter here could have made for a truly terrifying film. Instead, the filmmakers turned the gore factor up to 11 and forgot to do anything remotely worth of scares or fear from the audience.
As for the blu-ray, it looks spectacular. The picture is gorgeous which is to be expected. The sound was crisp and probably the only reason I jumped at all while watching this. I had it a little too loud. As for the special features (commentary and featurettes) nothing really worth writing home about. I would be shocked if there isn't another release of this film in the next few months, this time with the unrated director's cut.
This is hardly the "Scariest movie you'll ever experience" as promised by the posters and the excellent trailers. Instead. it's a pretty standard horror film that will launch a seqeuel that hopefully, like the original series, surpasses its predecessor.
We can only hope so anyway.
Evil Dead is available now.
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