Here at Cult Classics, we’re a big fan of horror movies. We’ve screened some of the best scary movies to ever grace the silver screen. From Lucio Fulci’s ZOMBIE to George A. Romero’s NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD. But by far, two of our most popular picks have been EVIL DEAD 2 and ARMY OF DARKNESS – stories set within Sam Raimi’s EVIL DEAD universe. EVIL DEAD is itself a remake of Raimi’s 1978 short WITHIN THE WOODS which features a female lead named Ellen.

In that respect, one can look at director Fede Alvarez’ EVIL DEAD (2013) in the same vein as EVIL DEAD, EVIL DEAD 2 and ARMY OF DARKNESS. You can see it as another change from the original bringing back the dynamic of 5 friends going up to a cabin in the woods of remote Michigan. In its setting, Alvarez’ EVIL DEAD can be seen as a direct sequel to Raimi’s 1981 cult hit. 5 friends, Olivia (Jessica Lucas), Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) David (Shiloh Fernandez) and his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) come to a remote cabin to help David’s sister Mia (Jane Levy) try to stop her dangerous addiction to drugs cold turkey. Their thinking being the remote location will make it harder for Mia to escape this intervention attempt, which Olivia notes she’s done in the past.

This rationale grounds Alvarez’ and fellow screenwriter Rodo Sayagues in reality and makes it so the characters question whether Mia’s encounter with the evil outside the woods; awakened by Eric’s curiosity on finding the Evil Dead franchise’s signature tome of evil, The Naturom Demonto (aka Necronomicon), is actually happening or a hallucination caused by drug withdrawal.

As EVIL DEAD gets rolling, most of the film’s denouement relies on the audience recognizing props or items from Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead trilogy. A chainsaw seen early on as a fan service shot becomes crucial to the film later. A fight in the basement of the cabin recalls the Ash vs. Pit Witch brawl in ARMY OF DARKNESS. A glimpse inside the Naturon Demonto describing an “abomination” that the evil will raise is an illustration of the original EVIL DEAD’S one sheet poster from 1981. And no EVIL DEAD film would be complete without an appearance by Raimi’s “Classic” Oldsmobile Delta 88. To a certain extent, the amount of fan shout-outs in the film is a bit excessive – especially in a post “THE CABIN IN THE WOODS” world where the conventions of this kind of film make it a bit harder to elicit scares from a knowing audience.

To combat that, Alvarez has upped the gore quotient in this film to record levels for an R Rated feature. Blood and limbs flow freely in this landscape and one would be hard pressed to find a recent film that features as many severed appendages as this one. Lou Tyler Pucci’s Eric takes an insane amount of abuse in the film from the resident Deadites and his performance adds a lot of characterization to an underwise underwritten character. Jane Levy does a lot with her performance as Mia and while a great deal of her screentime is spent possessed by the Evil or as her demonic doppelganger, her hero turn in the third act is done extremely well. You can definitely see shades of a female Ash-type character if they make more stories set in this continuity. Shiloh Fernanadez’ David plays ostensibly the same character archetype Bruce Campbell did in the original Evil Dead and is given a strong redemptive arc. Jessica Lucas and Natalie Blackmore do well with their limited screentime and the practical effects used for their Deadite transformations are really impressive, especially for Blackmore’s Natalie.

Overall, if you’re a fan of Raimi’s EVIL DEAD films and want to see a modern sequel that hits the same beats as the original, only with more gore, you’ll want to check this out. If you’re young enough that PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and THE LAST EXORCISM are your take on terrifying, then EVIL DEAD (2013) may well be the most terrifying film you’ll witness up to now, in terms of tone and gory effects.