Film review: Evil Dead (18)
Hollywood’s obsession with remakes continues unabated as horror classic The Evil Dead gets the reboot treatment. Perhaps mindful of what made director Sam Raimi’s original 1980s no-budget thrill ride such a success, director Fede Alvarez doesn’t veer too far from his winning formula.
Yes, it’s wholly derivative, making loads of nods to various scary movie classics. Yet if it offers nothing particularly original, Evil Dead feels like a breath of old-school air in a genre that has become obsessed with torture porn or the paranormal.
Aping the original set up, five friends descend on an isolated woodland cabin, only this time it’s to help recovering drug addict Mia (Jane Levy) kick her habit.
As she rapidly descends into withdrawal, comic relief Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) takes it upon himself to investigate a creepy barbed wire-bound book. In doing so, he inadvertently brings forth all manner of evil upon the gang, including demonic possession, mutilation and lashings of blood to create a nightmarish vision of hell.
Excising the knowing humour of the original, Evil Dead plays it brutally straight. A gory, old-fashioned slice of schlock horror that, by successfully paying homage to one of the greats, puts many of its contemporaries in the shade.
Share this with