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Today's Paper | April 29, 2024

Published 28 Apr, 2013 09:13am

Animadversion: Evil reanimated

Blood, gore and flustering horror is what Evil Dead promises — and delivers; campy fun this one in not.

As the remake of the 1981’s Evil Dead — the film that pushed the spotlight on Sam Raimi (director of the last Spider-Man trilogy and Oz: The Great and Powerful) — the film starts with more story in its first few minutes then what the original had in its whole run.

In the past a demonically possessed girl gets burned in the forest. As it happens, by the look of it, the decision wasn’t a bad one.

Time has passed and a group of five gathers in a ramshackle cabin in the woods to see one of them — Mai (Jane Levy) — give up drugs. The five lonesome demon-fodders include: Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), Olivia (Jessica Lucas), Mai’s estranged but still loving brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore).

However they have a reason to stay here, because more than a gathering, it’s an intervention. Afraid of Mai’s tendency to relapse back to addiction, which had almost pushed her over the brink of death in the past, they convince David that they should keep Mai here to fight her initial reactions — and as we know, that’s never a good decision.

Evil Dead gets done with the buildup as soon as the cellar is opened and the gore and horror starts — and once it does, it doesn’t end till the end credits (when it comes to gore and blood it might even leave it predecessor behind).

A note to the fans of the original: debutant director Fede Alvarez has taken a different tone with this Evil Dead; it’s grimmer with heightened tension and wards away any humor as if it was the devil itself.

What this Evil Dead doesn’t have is Sam Raimi (even though he is on board as producer along Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell); if it did, this too would have had satirical humor — a lack that doesn’t warrant a place here. And besides, Alvarez who has also co-written with Rodo Sayagues aptly and liberally nods to the original often enough (with fast and jagged POV of the demon as it moves in the forest to the molesting tree and a cameo to name few). Shrouded in darkness and dried blood it is murky gory horror done right.

Produced by Ghost House Pictures and Released by Tristar, Evil Dead is rated 18: It is darn scary. For once its tagline — the most terrifying film you’ll ever see — makes sense.

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