Evil Dead

****Update!***** Rewatched this recently, still found it a little tiring but not as bad as I first did

2/4

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Want a movie that has the gore and the brains? Keep on searching. Evil Dead will drive you to insomnia by the 10th time of watching someone lose a limb.

Evil Dead stars Jane Levy as Mia, a recovering addict trying not to relapse. Her friends and brother are taking her to a cabin in the woods (sound familiar?) in order to help her cope and keep an eye over her. After one of the less intelligent friends opens a book and reads the contents (despite the warning signs) something evil invades Mia's body.

She starts feeling the side effects of being, well, invaded by demon, and her friends (one of which is a nurse might I add) just pass off her symptoms as bad withdrawal symptoms. Soon she's on the run and she's bound to drive Hell into everyone else around her.

Every performance is so wooden and hollow you could be watching 5 dummies being brought to life. When the friends are in the early scenes, none of the performances are of any interest and fall flat. When they all turn demonic, everyone goes so ridiculously over the top the scenes of them causing havoc just come off as comedy.

Speaking of dummies, these have to be some of the dumbest characters in recent history. Isolating themselves, reading books that clearly state do not read, ignoring signs that people are possessed and not just drug-hungry. Shit like that. Really makes it impossible to care who lives or dies.

The biggest problem is that Evil Dead just falls into the typical trap of using gore over thrills. There's nothing remotely thrilling going on here. Limbs are cut off, faces are slashed, heads are bashed, people are split in half, and none of this feels remotely scary. Sure you can use the loud music tricks in order to get a cheap thrill or two, but when that's your only tactic it's time to do something different. Evil Dead is nothing but flash with no real pizazz behind it. 

1/4