Summary
A new family find the Necronomicon.
This was a sore disappointment for me. I had been excited for this film for a while, it was certainly one of my most anticipated of April, if not the year, but after watching it I have to say it wasn’t very good. I want to state up front that I am a big fan of the original trilogy of Evil Dead Movies and Ash Vs The Evil Dead, but I wasn’t taken with the remake from a decade ago and this I found had a lot of the same mistakes.
I think the problems of this film fit broadly into four key areas. Firstly, there is way too much fan service and nods back to the previous films, if you are going to do another quasi reboot then you have to have it stand on its own, by having all the call backs it makes people compare it to the original trilogy of films, and that is not in the films favour. Secondly, the opening sequence by the lake is dumb and should have been cut out, it has no relevance on the main plot of the film and just serves to tie up an ending tease, the book ended approach to the storytelling but done in reverse really doesn’t work. Thirdly, the first act of the film is a mess and is awfully paced. The first act feels like it goes on forever introducing us to all of these characters, who we don’t care about, it takes way too long to get into the deadite action and by that point you have stopped caring. Fourthly and finally, a lot of the scares and horror aspects of the film no longer feel fresh, they might have done had this come out a few decades ago, but there wasn’t anything here that I hadn’t seen already done to death in other films.
All that said I will give the film props for being fun and a good time from the second act onwards. Once Alyssa Sutherland’s character turns into a deadite and things start to go off the wall and into a gory spectacle things get a lot better and become more entertaining. I still wouldn’t say the scares land in the way the film wants them to but the gory spectacle of the film is at least good for a laugh.
Overall, I would leave the series here, it feels very much out of steam, if they have to do another film they should bring back old man Ash, played by Bruce Campbell.
2.5/5
Pros.
The gore
Fun with the deadites
It is watchable
Cons.
The first act is horribly paced and way too long
There is too much fan service for something that is supposed to be its own thing
You don’t care about any of the characters
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Another Millennial Reviewer 