Starring: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci

Directed By: Fede Alvarez

Well, earlier this afternoon, I finally got around to watching the new, “Evil Dead” movie, in a theater, this time! Here is my review:

Plot/Synopsis: Five young friends, go out vacationing, and they discover an old remote cabin in the woods, where they decide to stay at for a few days. Mia who is David’s sister, is a recovering heroin addict, and they investigate the cabin, whether it is safe to stay there or not. When they decided to stay, they discover the Book of the Dead in the basement. One of them decided to read the book and they accidentally summoned the Deadites living in the woods nearby. The group tries to fight off these Deadites for survival. 

When this project was first announced since last year, I was kind of skeptical of this film myself. I was even more skeptical when Diablo Cody, jumped on board to help write the script with these guys. Now that the movie is finally here, and I got to see it, I was pleasantly surprised. This is a true horror film, at it’s finest. I don’t mind an “Evil Dead” movie, without Bruce Campbell starring as Ash, but as long as the original team is still behind it, I’m all for it. This film was an absolute thrill ride. I had such a blast watching this film. I never felt like that watching a horror film. I’ve seen so many horror flicks over the years. Most of them don’t want to make you jump up and cheer. Get grossed out or even get scared a little bit. This film did all that. It was creepy and gory as hell, all the way through. Even though this film has nothing to do with Ash, as expected, there were plenty of Ash references, and they’re real easy to spot too!

A lot of people said that this film was very much like the original, the first one, but the way I saw it, this film was a mix of the first two Evil Dead movies. This film has a little bit of “Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn” in there, as well. Even though Sam Raimi, didn’t direct this one, and he was one of the producers, this film was still done in his style. So Fede Alvarez, obviously had a lot of help from Sam in this movie. You’re not going to see too much comedy in this film. This film wanted to focus more on the horror part of things. The goal here was to make this film a true horror film, and it was!!! This film isn’t a remake or a prequel. It is actually a continuation, taken years after the first one. There are signs throughout the film, that Ash has been in the cabin previously. This film does a wonderful job explaining how the cabin turned out to be. Getting haunted by the Deadites.

For the sequel, I hope they don’t ignore the comedy stuff completely, ’cause it was the horror/comedy bits, that is what made these films work. Even though, this film was more focused on horror, there is still bits of humor here and there. Just not too much. It’s just a new EVIL DEAD movie, using today’s technology of filming. Just a word of advice though, this film is not for the weak stomach at all. There are some major gross outs that’ll make you almost want to throw up or look away from the screen. The gore looked pretty good and more realistic looking too. Most gore in horror films have been pretty bad, but this film makes the gore look good.

The cabin and set design is very similar of the first two Evil Dead flicks. The same place that Ash was at previously, until he got thrown into a different world (the Army of Darkness world where he got sent to). So it wouldn’t make sense at all if Ash did return to the cabin for this movie. That would be a problem. Other than that, this was a pretty amazing flick. Like I said, I haven’t had so much fun watching a horror film in a long time! It is a great introduction to the Evil Dead franchise. Whether you’re a longtime fan, or a newbie, this will attract new fans to the older movies, which is the goal here.

I’m already looking forward to the sequel here. Two thumbs up for this movie. I will definitely buy the Blu Ray when it comes out.

Kev