I hope it happens, because the updates this film makes to the original makes the new movie more feminist. In fact the film is not strictly a remake but rather a “what if five kids showed up at the same cabin from the first Evil Dead and had roughly the same things happen to them that happened to the five kids who stayed there 32 years ago?” Alvarez and Raimi have said they hope to make another Evil Dead II as well, then bring the two story lines together in an Army of Darkness II, implying that the protagonist from this film might meet up with a grown-up Ash (Bruce Campbell) from the first. This violence exists not for its own sake, but to teach the characters a lesson, and this time around the lesson is different.

This film is about supernatural evil, not human evil, and the basic human fears it draws on are as much spiritual and psychological as physical. Despite its realism, the new movie is still about demons possessing people and doing horrible things to the bodies they are in as well as to the bodies around them. Though in a clear homage to Evil Dead II (the 1987 sequel), not just one but two people have to sever their own limbs, 2013’s Evil Dead is not torture porn. Likewise, the new film takes itself and the horror genre far more seriously than its melodramatic inspiration. Though next-gen director Fede Alvarez also used mostly trick props, body modifications and makeup with very few digital effects, the gore in this film is decidedly more realistic than in the original.

The first Evil Dead was a low-budget film that used such old-fashioned techniques as stop-motion to make bodies appear to melt. Using Raimi’s signature vertigo-inducing camera work and long, taut pauses, the new movie keeps you on the edge of your seat-until the tension is broken by something terrifying and you practically jump out of it. Luckily for Sam Raimi fans, the new version of the 1981 cult classic The Evil Dead manages to combine both surprise and gore. I am not really into gore for gore’s sake: When I go to horror movies, I want to be held in suspense and suddenly surprised, not just grossed out. SPOILER ALERT: This post contains major spoilers.

Jane levy evil dead