#6 - Evil Dead (2013)
(dir. Fede Alvarez)
In an attempt to quit heroin cold turkey, some friends bring Mia to a remote cabin owned by her family. It's been abandoned for years and is in absolutely terrible condition, but even worse is the grisly scene they find in the basement. When one of the guys gets curious and reads aloud from an ancient book, a force of pure evil is unleashed and a nightmare of possession and violence ensues. This is an insanely bloody and gory movie, to the point where it's almost hard to believe it came from a major studio.
Obviously this is a remake of Sam Raimi's classic The Evil Dead (and to a lesser extent, Evil Dead II). It does what all good remakes do - it takes elements of the source material and uses them in new ways without directly copying them. Maybe the biggest change is that there is no Ash character - probably a good decision, as no one could live up to Bruce Campbell. Mia is sort of the main character, but she also spends a significant amount of the film possessed... instead of one lone hero battling the forces of evil, we have a group of characters who all get the shit kicked out of them more or less equally. There are tons of little nods and references to the original films, but director Fede Alvarez never relies on them.
Did I mention how violent and bloody this film is? I'm no stranger to on-sceen gore, but there are quite a few scenes that made me cringe hard. It can feel a little mean sometimes, but so did the original film - I think people tend to remember the slapstick and comedy elements of Evil Dead II more than the serious tone of the first. This movie is absolutely brutal, and once it gets started it doesn't relent until the end.
I really love this remake - I don't think it's quite as good as either of the original films, but I do like it more than Army of Darkness. I'd go as far as to call it one of the best horror films of the past decade - in the top ~15 or so at least. If you have a strong stomach, I highly recommend it.
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