Evil Dead review

After ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘A Nightmare on Elm Street’ and ‘The Hills Have Eyes’, to name but three, Sam Raimi’s ‘The Evil Dead’ is the latest iconic horror to get the remake treatment. Uruguayan filmmaker Fede Alvarez, who made a splash with his short ‘Panic Attack’, marks his feature debut here with a blood-spattered take on Raimi’s 1981 tale of five teens, one creepy forest and some mightily hacked-off demons.

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After a nasty prologue that sets the tone, we’re introduced swiftly to our quintet. Prodigal sibling David (Shiloh Fernandez) has made the trip to his family’s remote cabin to help his drug-addled sister Mia (Jane Levy) go cold turkey – which, in a twist on Raimi’s original film, at least explains their reluctance to leave when things start going pear-shaped. Along for the ride are David’s girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) and childhood chums Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci).

It’s Eric who finds a barbed-wire bound Book of the Dead, then foolishly reads from it – despite ample warnings (“Leave This Book Alone” in big red letters) to the contrary. Summoning up evil spirits from the nearby woods, Mia is the first to be possessed, though her friends are convinced it’s nothing more than hallucinations caused by her withdrawal from narcotics. Big mistake. Cue utter pandemonium, as, one by one, these teens face their demons (quite literally).   

Don’t expect anything of the wit and invention of last year’s genre game-changer, the Joss Whedon-penned ‘The Cabin In The Woods’, here. This is all-out gore – full of moments that’ll make you clasp your hand to your mouth in repulsion. Just about anything in reach – chainsaws, nail-guns, carving knives – suddenly becomes a deadly weapon. Just about any body part – arms, tongues, eyes – becomes fair game, in a film with more dismemberment than an episode of ‘Casualty’.

Fans of the original will at least appreciate Alvarez’s nods to Raimi’s work – notably the ‘shaky-cam’ shot, showing the demon’s POV flying through the woods at breakneck speed. There’s also the inclusion of the infamous ‘tree rape’ sequence, which caused such outrage first time around when ‘possessed’ branches penetrated a female victim. Alvarez softens the sequence, though perhaps only because it’s juxtaposed with so much other carnage.

While original star Bruce Campbell is on board as producer (‘The Chin’ even makes a cameo after the end credits have rolled), you won’t find his character Ash anywhere to be seen. Truth be told, you’ll miss him. Fernandez is far too bland here, though at least we have a strong female presence, in the shape of an ultra-committed Levy; last seen with ’tween heartthrob Victoria Justice in ‘Fun Size’, here she hacks her Nickelodeon image to pieces.

Perhaps even more of an omission, however, is Raimi’s trademark humour. While it became more apparent in the two sequels, the ‘Evil Dead’ films were always as much about comedy as they were shocks. But Alvarez has no desire to play for laughs; this is pedal-to-the-metal horror – unrelenting, excessive, breathless and brutal. Maybe that’s what the midnight movie crowd wants now. But where’s the fun in that?