This is gonna be a ridiculous review, LOL. First, I've never seen Sam Raimi's "The Evil Dead", from which this movie was remade. Second, I'm an anti-gore viewer. You may laugh. I can't resist seeing a movie with so much gore scenes and blood (I believe I have this sort of phobia to blood and violence; what's it called?). But I was so intrigued by Fede Alvarez's version of "Evil Dead", that in the last minute after reaching the end of the queue before buying the ticket, I finally made up my mind and decided to watch it. And then my blood rushed from my head to my feet all of a sudden. LOL.

 SYNOPSIS >  "Evil Dead" is this simple: a group of five young men and women come into a remote house in a wood. David (Shiloh Fernandez) with his friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), Olivia (Jessica Lucas), and Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore), brings her sister Mia (Jane Levy) to the house to heal her from her addiction to drugs. But they find something terribly weird from the house: an ancient book called the Book of Dead, which unexpectedly summons the demons living in the woods. The game of survival is then started, as the demons start possessing each of them.

 REVIEW >  To be honest, it was a fantastic experience. I mean, of course I didn't feel comfortable with all the brutal gory scenes in the movie but I was so excited with the heart-jumping, adrenaline-rushing atmosphere. This might be a rare experience, I recalled. When many similarly-themed horror flicks tend to be cliche and predictable, in some part I find that "Evil Dead" is totally all-out to serve its bloody material to viewers instead of trying to be rich with subplots and whatnot. Well, maybe the plot is shallow and repetitive, but "Evil Dead" knows what power it has to spook viewers. It tends to be straight to the point, puts the story as simple as it can be, and focuses on the gore and thrills instead. It finally turns out to be a non-brainy excitement as well as a therapy for your heart.

And like what I told you before, the story is put simply with no rambling. "Evil Dead" describes its premise very briefly in the front, so it takes no more supporting subplots whatsoever in the rest of the duration. I have a trouble with the third act, however, because it terribly feels like a car that runs out of gas. It runs out of its bullet so it takes back all the used bullets and uses them as a weapon for the ending--which is a bit annoying, because finally it feels like it was there just for the sake of some other amounts of gore. Again, maybe because I was too hooked by the thrills so I put this annoyance aside and let myself be fooled by my own adrenaline. This is also a tip for you to enjoy the movie a lot better.

In an interview, Alvarez admitted that he tried to avoid too much CGI effects, and it was successfully brought to screen with thousands of gallons of fake blood. It musts be disgusting, I wonder. But it's a nice job worth appreciating, because it shows how Alvarez and his team seriously dig the movie's main power--the blood and the gore--to the max. So, be it a gore movie and keep the story as faithful to its predecessor as it can be. Most scenes were at night, so "Evil Dead" is mostly filled with dark and gloomy tint. Some light bulbs inside the house give an extra ambient and gradation of color and shadow, really supporting the overall atmosphere of terror, and the final act is so much climaxing with red color of blood all around the screen. Camera play still becomes the main (and only) technique responsible for all the heart-jumping scenes--so every time I predicted there's gonna be a shocking scene afterwards, I hid my eyes behind my palms--but it's okay.

Nothing actually prominent from the acting of the cast, so I won't talk much about it in this paragraph. You know, I have this hypothesis that says the more unknown the actors of a horror movie are, the better the movie will be. I haven't clearly proved it somehow, but "Evil Dead" could be one reason. I mean, "Evil Dead" never pushes its actors to do an outstanding acting except an adequate one. Thus, the actors fulfill it very well. Jane Levy as Mia did a nice job bringing the terror out of her expression, but in some parts, her chemistry with Shiloh Fernandez was a little bit staged. But again, it doesn't matter.

 CONCLUSION >  This is not a perfect horror, but I have to admit that however terrified I was with gore and blood, I was so thrilled and excited by "Evil Dead". And that's one indication that at least, it is successful to scare the hell out of me. "Evil Dead" is not a haunting horror, even it lost its ammunition in the third act, but it is also a gore movie at best.

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EVIL DEAD | COUNTRY USA YEAR 2013 RATING Rated R for strong bloody violence and gore, some sexual content and language RUNTIME 91 min GENRE Horror CAST Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore WRITER Sam Raimi (original screenplay), Fede Alvarez & Rodo Sayagues (adapted screenplay), Diablo Cody (additional) DIRECTOR Fede Alvarez MORE INFO