'THE EVIL DEAD'

'THE EVIL DEAD' (R) (1 STAR)

Written by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues based on the 1981 original
Directed by Fede Alvarez
Actors: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Jessica Lucas, Lou Taylor Pucci, Elizabeth Blackmore

When did horror movies stop being fun and when did torture porn and gore substitute for good characters and true scares. The awful remake "The Evil Dead" is the most depressing experience I have had at the movies in ages. Depressing in that horror movies are supposed to be fun, they are not supposed to make us feel like a "Walking Dead" zombie. This remake is so serious and lead footed that I had to check my pulse. Add to that you have horrible acting, not one moment of humor, bad direction and not one scare at all. I yawned, fidgeted and wanted to walk out, yes horror movies are supposed to be gory sometimes but they are supposed to have charisma too or am I being stupid? "The Evil Dead" remake has nothing of redeeming quality and I mean it is not offensive, it is just dull and bad.

I have not seen the original Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell movie in ages but I know it is a tad over rated. "The Evil Dead 2" though is one of the best sequels ever made, a horror classic and it had what this remake has none of, smarts and imagination. How can Raimi and Campbell produce this and not suggest to the film makers to put some humor in here. This doesn't have to be as outrageous or as funny as Part 2 but at least maybe 10 minutes of a sense of humor in some scenes. I can't be alone in feeling that this remake has nothing at all to scare anybody because I was with a big crowd and not one person laughed or jumped in their seat. This is just a freak, gore show and I love gory movies, I just ask that they are fun. The bloodletting in this movie is really not that gory because director Alvarez films his movie with such darkness, I couldn't see anything.

There is really no plot here, it is just like the original I guess where someone opens a book of witchcraft and wakes up the dead. There are a group of younger adults (none making any impact at all here) who are trying to sober up their friend Mia who is the only character I liked. The acting is horrible here and only Jane Levy as Mia can act and has any personality, maybe because she becomes the main evil in the story. I am not joking when I say that there is not one scary moment in this movie, no one in the theater jumped! Director Alvarez tries to ape the tracking shots that Sam Raimi knocked out of the park with his "Evil Dead" movies but he fails miserably. This is one of the worst directed horror movies and Alvarez has a bigger budget and more technology! Raimi proves that you can have the smallest budget and still make a much better horror movie.

I look back to movies like "Evil Dead 2", "The Re-Animator" and John Carpenter's "The Thing" as examples of how to make really gory movies with style and a sense of fun. What is the point of making this remake so serious and grim and even showing us scenes where women are tortured. There was not any of that crap in the original movies because the camera didn't linger on dismembering and raping women. I may be too serious here in my review but if this movie had one scare or was any fun I wouldn't mind the gore and dismemberment.

One example of how this movie fails besides being unintentionally funny is that the movie sets up one scene where a woman has to cut off her arm. This resembles a same scene in Part 2 where Bruce Campbell's hand was cut off and then started to have a life on it's own attacking him and others. What does this movie do? After the woman cuts her arm off, blood spurts and then nothing. You know you are in trouble when you can't even successfully honor your own original movie.

P.S. For two better movies, much much better, that resemble this crap please check out Eli Roth's "Cabin Fever" and last year's "Cabin in the Woods". I love those two movies and they were gory but they didn't take themselves so seriously like "Evil Dead" thus they are ten times better!