Tj H

note: review contains mild spoilers, please turn away if you want to go in completely fresh. In which case, all you need to know is: this is horror and dread "evil dead' not "campy" evil dead, there's still references and some mild laughs but it's GREAT horror 10/10 if you wanna feel dread. --------------------------- This is evil dead as I like it, horror and helpless dread against an unknown entity. Honestly the horror itself is basically lovecraftian. THAT to me is where this movie shines. You start off thinking it's gonna be standard horror movie. I love what they did with the recording being played rather than some idiot reading a book - this was same as original evil dead iirc, but it makes more sense imo. The recording is of someone who translated the words so could say them properly AND the glitch and power issues meant the words were said before the person could stop it, i always had an issue with "person reads book" cuz i mean, why would you read it out loud anyway? It's clearly not a good book. The recordings really add to the horror, at the climax of the film you hear the recording and the priest is just completely hopeless as he just lists all the things he's tried and nothing worked as it slowly dawns on the audience that there's no defeating this, crosses, burning, chopping up i mean an entire legion of trained holy men couldn't do shit ...NOTHING works. Then there's the fact that all of this happens in a small apartment and they really can't escape (which adds to the feeling of helplessness and helps build the tension). Add to that the fact that you don't really see a demon or anything it really adds to the lovecraftian nature of the horror here. By the end of the climax you really are well into feeling ALL the dread as you realize there's NO saving these ppl, they just have to hope morning brings some respite. Then there's the foreshadowing, every once in awhile you see the book magically turn it's pages and the camera zooms in on a picture and you just **know** that's going to happen to someone on screen in some time, that adds to the dread and horror as you're just waiting to see how and who turns into that monstrosity you saw. There's still plenty of references and some laughs though. I was also not a fan of the "cold open", but that's just a personal preference. And yes, there are SOME jump scares and the usual "icky looking humans in clown makeup looking gross" that's classic evil dead...though All in all, 10/10.