Evil Dead

Great potential undermined by low IQ. The film’s characters repeatedly behave like naive idiots and deal with situations by taking unreasonable steps, just like in the worst horror B-movies. However, plenty of positives outweigh this shortcoming (literally): violence, blood and gore are deliciously elaborated, many scenes are very intense even for hardened horror fans, the pace of the film is killing (!), the bloody rain in the climax is impressive and the siren sound, subconsciously causing panic in the audience, is just perfect. One of the better remakes of the horror classics we grew up with. (2013-04-09)

After watching the movie, I thought about how I would evaluate it. Surely, I can’t rate it higher than the original. But I gave that one a single star just for the brutality of it. I admit that I was a bit too harsh back then. Now I know that the brutal irony of the original deserved at least two stars, because it was missing in this movie and so it was just a brutal flop. So brutal, in fact, that they must have used hectoliters of fake blood. I think that Alvarez did a solid job, and a true horror fan must be really excited. It’s just a shame that they wanted the remake to be so different from the original that it ended up just as a pretty disgusting horror movie with actors who have stubs for arms and legs and surprisingly, they last longer than any of us could ever imagine. (2014-03-16)

Well... Nothing new under the sun. Nothing good either. There's suspense in only about two scenes (Natalie going to get sugar and water, the final hiding), otherwise it’s more or less boring, disgusting things that aren't really disgusting because they get old right away, and the promising idea with the rehab is brought down by the stupid behavior of everyone - the living, the dead and the half-dead. (2014-07-08)

I have already seen more useless remakes, and I quite understand that after the festival of Raimi's bloody surrealism and genre phantasmagoria, which culminated in the brilliantly unruly and nonchalantly campy Army of Darkness, Fede Alvarez wanted to go his own way. In the first half of the film, thanks to the dense atmosphere and unruly gore violence, he is quite successful, but it can't be tightened without irony, especially with the eruption of clichés at the end. Exaggeration is missing just like Ash's hand, blood sprays all the way to the next hall, but it all just fades out over time. When the new version came up with a "new" story, it should have tried to at least get something out of it (drug dumplings motif). It did not do so, and so the result is barely above average. This composition of old familiar motifs simply lacks any added value other than beautifully hysterical babes. But while all of Evil Dead was a totally misogynistic trilogy at its core, Alvarez eventually ruined it completely unnecessarily. Bleeding girls with a chainsaw are cheesy, but they can’t beat Ash with a shotgun... (2013-04-03)

What else was there to expect? A brutal parade of the utmost B-movieness, from the dark action and confused editing to the brain-deadness of the main characters. It's quite entertaining in places, the make-up effects are top-notch, and a few attempted references to Raimi's trilogy manage to get the audience properly pumped up, but the unprecedented whirlwind of horror clichés and silly twists, together with the filmmakers' absolute inability to come up with anything new made this otherwise enjoyable gore-fest significantly frustrating. If I gave 3* to the original, I have to stick with 2* here. (2013-07-04)