PCP on DVD - Evil Dead

Most terrifying? Close, but not quite.

The original Evil Dead movies are some of my all time favorite horror films. When I first heard they were doing a remake, I was upset, as I didn't want my memories of the originals tarnished. But then I heard that original director Sam Raimi would be producing this remake, so my fears were somewhat assuaged by his involvement. So, I decided to check the film out and see how they did updating the material.

Evil Dead - 2013, rated R. My rating: 8 out of 10.

The original Evil Dead films starring Bruce Campbell were super-low budget horror films that were both gory and campy at the same time. This version of the film skips all the campiness and plays everything completely straight. The story is the same: a group of teens at a remote cabin in the woods accidentally awaken powerful demonic forces that make their lives hell. This time though the gore is significantly amped up, showing horrifying bodily traumas in extremely brutal detail.

Seriously, just watch the red-band trailer for this film and try not to be horrified by the gore (NSFW).



The film definitely delivers on the scares and gore, and you might wind up watching a lot of this film while cringing. The characters themselves however are rather irritating. Most of them are too dumb to live, especially the moron that activates the spell within the evil book in the first place, but all of them really spend a lot of time being extremely stupid, so in some way I guess their suffering is deserved.

The one nice thing is that the film does not make it clear who will live and who will die. They didn't telegraph anything by naming any of the characters Ash, for example, so you never know who will bite the dust and when, which does add to the tension and suspense. Overall, it is easily one of the better horror films I've seen in the last few years, but unlike the original trilogy I doubt I'll be watching it again any time soon. I think I maybe have gotten too old for this much tortuous gore.