"David (Shiloh Fernandez), his drug-using sister Mia (Jane Levy) and his friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), Olivia (Jessica Lucas) and Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore) travel to an isolated cabin that belonged to his parents to spend a couple of days together. Mia promises to stop using drugs and Olivia, who is a nurse, promises to help Mia in her abstinence. They discover a hidden basement with witchcraft and the Book of the Dead, and Eric reads it (even though it says "Do Not Read From This Book") and unintentionally summons an evil force. Mia, Olivia and Natalie are possessed by evil and Eric reads the book trying to learn how to destroy the demon."
Anyone who has ever visited this blog and read the post above this one knows that I loved the original film. Its terror was just enough to keep me awake at night but there was an odd sense of fun behind it. As though Sam Raimi and crew were aware they were making potentially the worst horror film since Plan 9 from Outer Space. The new film, more a "re-imagining" then a remake, has no such sense of humor nor interesting or intelligent characters. It's torture porn. 90 minutes of abject horror, vomiting, stabbing, burning, slicing, shooting dismemberment. Let's be honest here my friends. Relentlessly throwing on gore for gore's sake is not an effective way to create suspense. No matter how good your effects are they will not terrify your audience. The building of suspense to a violent event is always more intense than the violent event itself. There is no build up in this film. We literally move from one mutilation to another to another to the end credits. These provide for plenty of shocks but very few scares.
Another necessity of good horror the film lacks is any sense of hope. The best way to torture your audience is to dangle that little sense of optimism in front of them and then yanking it away. Then giving it back and then taking it again. The filmmakers must've forgotten what it's like to play with a cat. It's only redeeming quality is that it ended.
I do wish I had picked a better film to start out OctHorrorFest but I didn't.
Zero Stars
No comments:
Post a Comment