Evil Dead: A Review

     I had such high hopes for this movie, I truly did and in many ways, they were surpassed beyond even my imagination. But I still feel there could have been more to the movie, something to truly make it stand out beyond the rest of the standard possession movies on the market. If you have not seen the movie as of yet, I will be revealing a few key scenes from the film so you may want to stop reading as of now.
     The whole film starts with a an "exorcism" of a young girl by a group of disfigured rednecks (the movies label, not mine) and her father.They have her tied up in the basement, surrounded by dead animals hanging from the ceiling, before burning her. Right off the bat, the remake is making a stance for itself as a different movie than the original.
     And I love that.
     If you go into this movie thinking that this is somehow connected to the Bruce Campbell version, you'll be left disappointed. Go in with the mindset that this is an entirely different event connected to the evil that is the Book of the Dead. That being said, with eyes fresh and new looking at this film, I would say the suspense is there, as is the horror.
     My only regret is I never once jumped in my seat or felt afraid.
     I felt for the characters, I really did, and I was easily sucked into the story and forgot I was watching a movie. But It was more unnerving and disturbing than actually scary, which made me more than a tad disgruntled.
     My wife, who is a thorough fan of horror and an avid viewer of the most esoteric forms of horror, was also more unsettled by the film.
     For me, I spent most of the film smiling whenever a callback to the original was made. That being said, there was a lot more severing of limbs than in the original. Not a bad thing, but it's hard to place who will end up the "Ash" character of the film until the very end, which is a special kind of storytelling that could only come from the minds of men like Sam Raimi.
     As for how I would rate it, I would say a solid A film with very few weak moments. The story moved fluidly, the characters were solid and the horror elements were all thrown in at the exact right moments. There was not one pop out scary moment that didn't have a good deal of suspense behind it, nor a sex scene leading to the murder of a character.
     Go see it.
     Sweet Dreams