I’ll swallow yer soul!

Howareya?

Should you bother?  The short answer: No.

The Evil Dead remake is not a bad movie, or even a bad horror movie (and by that I mean if you have never seen a horror movie before you might like it ok.  It might even thrill you).  It’s just tedious and  unnecessary.  If you’re even mildly familiar with horror movies, this one will have you rolling your eyes at several points, as every single horror movie cliche is trotted out en mass.  There’s not really a single original, clever, or interesting moment to be had.  The nods to the original just make you want to watch it again, and the blood and guts, tho plentiful and well done, are nothing you haven’t seen before.  It’s really too bad.

I’ve seen about half of the horror movie remakes that Hollywood has been churning out since the Night of the Living Dead one (way back in ’91).  Some of them are horrendously bad (Black Christmas), some are ok (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, The Omen), but most are just blah, and all have been uninspired and unnecessary (well, except John Carpenter’s The Thing, of course).

So why waste my time going and seeing this one?  I haven’t gone and seen hardly any of the others in a long time.
Really there was only one reason: the heavy involvement of Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Rob Tapert.  I love all 3 of the other ones (I’ve probably watched Evil Dead 2 more than any other movie ever made), and I was hoping it might be inspired and clever.  I was hoping it would turn out to be a prequel or something, maybe add something to the existing trilogy.  Elevate the experience.  But it did not.  It’s just another bland possession movie and remake in a sea of remakes and possession movies (tho I must say, I haven’t seen Haunting In Connecticut, The Last Exorcism, Sinister, Possession, The Devil Inside, Insidious, etc, but I’ll bet the Evil Dead remake has more balls than any of those PG-13 ones that are coming out in droves, needing to be shot in the head like mindless zombies)- that’s about the only thing that sets it apart from the pack  The high amount of gore.  But it takes more than that- we need style, intelligence, cleverness, originality, or at least some chaos and over the top zaniness).

So go see it if you must, but be warned: if you typed “generic horror movie script” into a computer, it would probably come up with this very movie.

Oh, and if you want a final eye rolling moment, wait until after the credits for a small condescent for fans of the original.