Horror Film Review #4

Evil Dead (2013)
Film Review four of six

To be fair to fans of the franchise, I never saw the original or its sequel.  I did however unknown to me at the time watched Army of Darkness, the so called third installment in theatres.  I went into it unaware of the connection, the star Bruce Campbell sums up the two movies in 5 minutes to set up for the final chapter.  I sat there clueless of what I was actually watching, my exact words were 'what the hell is this'.  Now,  Bruce Campbell is amazing, he injects  humor and charisma that's scarcely seen nowadays. The scene where he is captured and meets a captured ruler and replies, he is the ruler of Jack,  is probably one my favorite lines from any movie.  So for those who are faithful to Sam Rami and the history behind Evil Dead, I will probably not be taken under your good graces, but here goes.
For starters the character of Ash (Bruce Campbell)  is not here, but what we do know about Ash and him sawing off his hand  does get a nod in this movie, actually a lot of key points from the original movies are touched on.  The movie starts off with a bewildered young girl walking through an eerie forest, we find out in a twist she is possessed, and gets burned in the basement of this cabin in the woods. The tales of witchcraft is logged in what I imagine is the book of the dead;  And it's cover is made up of sown human flesh, and filled with passages of demonic imagery.
We are fast forwarded to present day, a group of five young adults spend the weekend in the cabin to help a member with sobriety; going cold turkey with her drug use.  Later that evening in the basement they recover the book of evil covered in a garbage bag, and wrapped tightly in barbwire.  As shown in the movies 'Cabin in the woods' or 'Scary Movie 5', one unwise individual decides to read aloud versus in the book awakening an evil entity.  The entity enters the body of one who is struggling with her sobriety, in one might say in a horror erotic method. The book reveals stages of the evil, and though physical contact with one another the evil spreads in manner addressed in the book.  The movie gives up any moments of light humor or a chance to level out from an encounter, instead Evil Dead goes for the continual shock and awe effect,  building tension and leaving hope for survival less possible with each infected member.  Speaking with some fans of the original, they didn't enjoy continual shock value of the film, but I know many people did, so there is a mix of opinions; but that can be said to almost any movie, we all perceive things differently.   As a person who went into the movie rather green and holding little expectations, I clearly did not know what was going to happen next, but understood the goals of the movie as explained in the evil book.  I found the movie sharp and utterly unnerving in the best possible sense of the way, it sticks with horror and doesn't let go.