Horrifying and gross Evil Dead is pretty amazing not only for the terrific effects and over the top violence but also for failing altogether to suck.

A remake of the 1981 Sam Raimi horror classic of the same name, Evil Dead tells the story  of five friends going out to a cabin in the woods for one of them to detox from heroin. The story is mostly told from the perspective of David (Shiloh Fernandez) who has been estranged from his family and friends since his mother died and is returning with his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) to help support his sister Mia (Jane Levy) in her attempt to detox cold turkey. Also with them is registered nurse Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and uptight friend Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) who is upset and standoffish to David but apparently has an open-door policy on reading from books wrapped in plastic and barbwire that is also bound in human flesh and has blood written messages in it not to read it. When they find a bunch of dead cats hanging from the ceiling in the basement as well as the book, Eric does just that and unleashes something in the woods that starts possessing people and everything goes downhill pretty quickly. Way to go, jackass.

The Evil Dead series is much beloved and the suggestion of a remake was enough to set the horror world on fire as it is a particular kind of sacrilege but with Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell on hand and reportedly very involved as producers, some fears were abated. The lack of inclusion of series hero Ash Williams seemed to rustle some feathers and the lack of campy comedy the series is known for also caused concerns. I bring this up here because it casts something of a shadow over the movie going in even though trailers for the movie looked pretty awesome and swayed a good deal of fans into the hopefully optimistic camp.

To address those concerns first, I think some fans forget that the original Evil Dead movie was not a comedy and did not have much camp. It was a straight up low budget horror movie that had innovative effects and camera work for what they had to work with and while it featured Ash, he was not much like what he would later become. To this point, Evil Dead 2 was really not a sequel as much as a remake of the first film with more money and a more campy, tongue-in-cheek sensibility. This remake takes the film back to its pure horror roots and as such puts the emphasis on gore and violence as opposed to humor, although judicious use of duct tape throughout the movie is pretty hilarious. As to the Ash character, I would rather not see someone else try to take him on and to do him right would make him untenable  in a film with this tone. According to Bruce Campbell, who played Ash in all three of the previous films, keeping Ash out of this allows the remake to remain separate from the original series and would allow them to more easily do a part 4. I am down with that.

Taken on its own, as it should be, Evil Dead is an endurance trial of violence and gore and your mileage definitely may vary on how much you are willing to tolerate or how important that is to you. There is depth to the storyline in that it can be broken down into a metaphor for dug addiction and the characters are developed enough for the audience to care whether or not horrible things happen to them…or more to the point WHEN horrible things happen to them but at the end of the day that is just a set up for the characters to be knocked down. And they are knocked down pretty hard.

I don’t want to spoil any of the particular gags in the movie but the effects are great with a decent number of them being practical effects without an over reliance on CGI. The gore effects are also very realistic looking and the people are pretty nasty looking when they are possessed. As realistic as the effects themselves look, the action those effects result from is over the top and crazy. I have to believe that anyone enduring half of the things that go on here would go into shock and promptly bleed to death but as the craziness escalates it gets farther and farther from any semblance of reality. There are those in the audience to whom this will be a negative but when you are dealing with demon magic on this scale pretty much everything is fair game. Over analysis of whether or not a nail gun can shoot nails out without an air pressure tank is very silly in the face of a girl being raped by a tree. At a certain point you have to give up on stuff like that and realize that this is a world where anything at all can happen. Frankly if you come to an Evil Dead movie for realism and intricate plot development you have made a serious error in judgement.

Given his flair and style in the camera work in his earlier films, Sam Raimi has some pretty big shoes to fill and director Fede Alvarez fills them pretty well for the most part. The movie is crisp and well shot with some of Raimi’s signature moves borrowed in appropriate places. Some of the shots and set ups here are absolutely gorgeous and his pacing is crispy and without discernible lag. It takes its time setting things up and then once that is done it is pretty much non-stop. The basic structure follows the same general structure of the original movie so some of the beats will be familiar to fans of the series but I felt that Alvarez did enough to change things up to justify its existence.

The movie’s poster claims it is the most terrifying movie you will ever see and that is a bit of a stretch. The movie is not scary in the traditional sense but it is definitely horrifying and, at times, difficult to watch. There is an element of dread involved insofar as you know that horrible shit is going to happen and waiting for it creates tension but there are not jump scares or moments that truly scare. Creeping dread is the best way to describe how the horror is handled here so don’t expect to be overly scared.

The performances are good enough here. No one will be winning Oscars but they are believable enough in the situations in which they find themselves. It is commendable that they could act at all with all the special effects make up that some are forced to endure and they are good enough to connect with for the most part. Jane Levy stands out in particular as she manages crazy and sympathetic pretty well to their various digress.

Conclusion [9.0 our of 10]

It is important to remember that this is not going to be a movie for everyone. If you aren’t down with watching very creative violence and gore and you  feel the need to over analyze the details surrounding the proper functioning of water heaters then this is a movie best avoided. If, on the other hand, you are up for losing yourself in an over the top gore fest with a message behind it then you should have a great time.  Fans of the series will likely be divided depending on which version of the series they are looking for and it should be said that if you are wanting campy action and one liners then you are best served staying home and watching Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness. Those going for major gross outs and intense violence and it meets its goal and then some. If you are a parent, PLEASE don’t let your kids watch this whether you are with them or not. It is very graphic and will be nightmare fuel for them for years to come. You should also stay through the credits for the ending tag. It is worth the wait.