Evil Dead (2013), 5/10
I chose to watch the remake after watching the original earlier today, and I'd heard some good things about the remake. Which it kind of isn't, because it does the plot and characters very differently. It starts off quite strong, and has a genuinely clever conceit to justify why the characters won't leave the cabin they're at: one of them is an addict going cold turkey, and they're at the cabin trying to get her through it. As such, it makes total sense why they wouldn't believe her terrified reaction, because they brush it off as just withdrawal symptoms.
While it is a more technically competent, better written and acted film, this unfortunately means it's also more formulaic, predictable and generic. There is some quite good cinematography early on, but that fades away around the middle, and it ends up looking like every horror movie made this century. While there is more depth to the characters and a bit more groundwork established than in the original due to the slightly longer runtime, it still ends up pretty dull and repetitive towards the end. It doesn't have the madcap energy of the climax of the original, where it's a frantic struggle for survival. In this version it's a far more formulaic ambience -> scare -> ambience -> scare structure which means that it kind of stops and starts, whereas the original just went crazy and wacky. The fact that they don't even try to recreate the innate charisma of Bruce Campbell is a double-edged sword: on one hand you avoid the comparisons to Bruce Campbell, but on the other you don't have a Bruce Campbell equivalent to root for at the end. They do build an actually pretty good dynamic between the two main characters (who are siblings in this version), but it needed to be present more to really hit at the end.
The main draw here is the gore, which despite being very well done and plentiful, ends up feeling mostly generic much like the movie itself. It's quite nasty, juicy, technically well executed and there's lots of variety: nailguns, syringes, boxcutters, turkey carvers and chainsaws all get their spot in the limelight, and the effects are genuinely great. But it being played very straight means it also feels largely devoid of the mad energy of the original, where they maybe didn't have the budget but gosh darn they had the passion. The movie only reaches the same level at the very end where it goes genuinely crazy, and the big final gore shot is just delightful.
So what are we left with? A decent gorefest, but the movie takes its time getting there. A decent setup, which falls mostly by the wayside when the gore kicks off. Pretty good production values, but lacking the heart and passion of the original. Decent atmosphere, but it feels pretty derivative and formulaic, and isn't very scary. Everything about is just... alright, but it doesn't focus enough on one strength to really warrant a recommendation. My ultimate recommendation would probably be that if you're a big gorehound, skip to about 20 minutes in and enjoy the splatter. For fans of the original it's nowhere near as bad as some other horror movie remakes of 80s classics, but doesn't really bring enough to the table to really demand a watch.
One final thing to mention is that this movie recreates the most infamous scene from the original (the tree rape), which you wouldn't really expect to fly anymore. The odd thing about it is that it's both more hardcore and also more tame than in the original. Visually it's done much more disturbingly, but the context around it and some visual details are changed ever so slightly that it doesn't necessarily even register as sexual assault. You can even make the case that it's not supposed to be happening literally, since the character at that moment is experiencing severe withdrawal symptoms. I don't know if that makes it better or worse. I would say it's actually done more tastefully than in the original, as much as you can ever call a rape scene "tasteful".
Whoa mama, I wrote all this about a forgotten remake of a classic horror movie? Damn.