Rei Rod

This movie was okay, and I’m honestly confused about how it has received so many positive reviews. I understand that it wasn’t set out to be a full-on terrifying horror movie, but even outside of that realm it fell incredibly flat. The acting was okay and the score was generic, but the thing that disappointed me the most was how ineffective the directing/editing decisions were. They revealed Dracula wayyy too fast and lost out on what could have been a genuinely terrifying buildup. Then they showed him too much. As the audience, if we’re constantly hearing that they “can’t find him” then the filming should hold true to that by keeping him in the shadows until he comes to feed instead of showing his every. move. That in turn made the video game-like effects less forgivable overall. I just couldn’t take it seriously and I think that it is the fault of the writer/director/editor. Maybe for those who don’t watch a lot of drama-horror movies, it was amazing. But for someone that frequents this genre a lot, it was mediocre.

I am in awe of how positively this film has been received. Evil Dead 2013 was one of the most gruesome, gut-wrenching, realistic, and genuinely scariest yet enjoyable movies I'd seen in a long time, and to see that this has followed it up is more than disappointing. I'd give it 1/5 stars if I could, but that wouldn't be fair to the gore effects and the cinematography. The movie LOOKED good. That's all. But everything else was off including the acting. The constant standing and staring whenever something scary happened to the characters took away from the urgency that this movie could have had, and actually made it feel longer than the first one. Nothing at all seemed urgent. I don't even think any of the characters truly screamed in fear at what they were seeing happen to their mother/sister. They just stood there making corny "scared" faces while waiting for their turn to be attacked. I don't remember a single moment where a character actually ran. That plus the unintentionally corny writing genuinely made me cringe. Jumpscares were cheap, repetitive, and boring. The editing was off as well. There were so many cool shots that felt like they were randomly cut in or were too quickly cut away from. A big part of what added to the scares in Evil Dead 2013 was the sound and use of silence which also added to the atmosphere. While this movie visually had a strong atmosphere, the use of sound was pretty weak. The possession in Evil Dead 2013 was one of my favorite possession scenes ever, and I was really hoping that this movie would hit that part. It was so incredibly intense and horrifying, but this one just fell flat. There was no true build-up or attempt at escaping or anything. There wasn't even a transition for the mother where she turned from human to possessed. It just...happened. And then she was possessed and she was immediately crazy. And I understand the whole "doing it their own way" thing, but you can do that while still finding ways to pull those same queasy emotions from the audience. I appreciate the attempt at bringing it to a more modern setting but with all of its bad storytelling, mediocre acting (besides that of Alyssa Sutherland and Nell Fisher), and writing, it just fell flat. Unfortunately, it sort of behaved like just another mediocre possession movie, just with good cinematography and more gore. If you think this came anywhere close to the Evil Dead 2013 remake, you need to rewatch it. You may not be remembering things clearly lol