“Evil Dead”
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This is the story of Mia, who is a drug addict looking to kick the habit, so her two friends, her brother, David, and his girlfriend all meet at her family’s cabin to help her through detox. They discover the cabin has been broken into and find dead animals hanging from the cellar rafters. Evidence of some sort of witchcraft, including a mysterious book covered in plastic and barbed wire. When one of the curious friends opens and reads from the book, it unleashes a soul collecting demon.
This is the “re-imaging” of the original 1981 classic. It includes nods to the original, but has plenty of changes. Yes, it’s still a cabin-in-the-woods, demon-possession flick. The characters are largely different, though they kept the dynamic of 5 friends- sister, brother, his girlfriend, and two friends, one boy, one girl. The story is told more seriously, there is no humor or camp. The demons are bound to the physical laws and right away given physical form, which I didn’t much care for. I felt it was insulting to the viewers that the evil presence needed to have a face on-screen before Mia got possessed. I’m not going to spoil what it is, but there is one major plot point that the film makers seem to have messed up. It’s hard to miss. (If anyone has an explanation for it and would like to post it in the comments section, I’d love to hear theories. )
Jane Levy did an outstanding job as Mia, the trying-to-detox drug-addict, demon-possessed sister. She convincingly went from defeated drug user to terrified victim who nobody believes to demon possessed bad ass to done being a victim bad ass. Unfortunately, hers was the only performance that was memorable. Aside from that little gem, the rest of the cast got the job done, but weren’t particularly memorable. The make up and use of practical effects is very nice. Plenty of gore (70,000 gallons of fake blood) for those of us who like that in a horror flick.
I give this movie 2 1/2 rum & cokes. What kept it better than meh, was Jane Levy’s performance. I think for that alone, it could grow on me.
1/2
