10/5-Evil Dead (2013)

For those that don't know, Evil Dead was a movie by Sam Raimi which came out in 1981.  The movie was meant to be serious and dark, but the effects of the time came off as cheesy.  And for the sequels, Raimi embraced the humor, turning them into horror comedies.

The 2013 Evil Dead is not funny.

The film opens with a girl being captured and then tied up in a room full of weird looking people.  An old woman is chanting something strange out of an odd book while the girl pleads with her dad wanting to go home.  The girl reveals she is possessed and the father burns her alive then shoots off her head with a shotgun.

I told you this wasn't funny.

Undisclosed amount of time later, five friends arrive at an old cabin (surprise, it's the same one from the opening scene).  We learn that they are there to help Mia kick her heroin addition.  Withdrawal is not going well and Mia keeps complaining about a rancid smell.  The group discovers a basement with more than twenty animal corpses hanging from the ceiling, as well as a shotgun and a strange book wrapped in barbed wire.

Because he's stupid (and we'll get more into this later), Erik cuts the barbed wire off the book and find that its bound in some strange leather (probably human, though it's never said explicitly).  At this point, he opens the book and find this:

I hate when used books have annotations.

And of course he ignores the warning and continues flipping through pages.  Only to find an even more obvious warning:

But what could it mean?

Then he proceeds to read the strange words aloud.  The same words that are on the page where it's written "DONT SAY IT."  Like I said, he's stupid.  This of course awakens some spirit that possesses Mia, either because she was weak due to the withdrawal, or simply because she was outside when it happened.

Either way, she starts going nuts and they end up locking her in the basement while they try to figure out what to do.  Genius Erik still doesn't think this is a good time to mention that things started going to shit after he read out of the "Don't Read Me!" book.  And through various kerfuffles, the possession spreads to the others leading up to a big finale.

Me typing this post.

This movie may not be the most purely scary movie, but it's big claim to fame is the almost no use of CGI.  Nearly everything in the movie was done with practical effects, which become more and more impressive as the movie progresses.  This makes the injuries in the movie so much more tangible.  Visceral is truly the best word to describe it.  I was clutching with a death grip nearly one of my body parts because something horrifying happens to all of them in this film (tongue possible being the worst).  This made the movie very uncomfortable, which is the point, but not quite on a torture porn level.  At least the gore seems to have a point.

There's also some very nice nods to the original film, chainsaws, aggressive trees, and one-handedness all come to mind, but I'm sure there are more that I missed.

Rating on the Spook-o-meter: 6 out of 10 boos