* Even though Danny's choice about the records is less convoluted than Eric and his reading off of the BOTD, it's still convoluted that he had to climb all the way down through a crack in the freaking parking lot to get into that vault, and that someone set up some kind of Christian-demon-warding-off shrine (also when we take into consideration the whole baby/motherhood subplot and the amount of crucifixes here, is this the most Catholic Evil Dead movie ever?). And take a book covered in CGI-ish scarab beetles.
* Which brings me to this - it's def not the most violent Evil Dead movie or the most violent film either in multiplexes. People's reactions have me flabbergasted. Sure, we get wineglass eating, but the tattoo needle scene doesn't try has hard as the syringe one did in the remake (As much as it pains me to say that). The fire stunt with Bridget was OK. The scissor stab was all right. Nothing sticks out to me like The Marauder going into the woodchipper.
* Also the humor, which is more nudge nudge wink wink and references versus being a slapstickfest some people have said it is.
* The "Ash" vocal cameo on the record is all right, but it's probably going to cause them timeline headaches later unless we're going to pretend Ash Williams was in the Great Depression or the 1920s via time travel and never mentioned it on his show or something like that. That is, if they actually want to act like that's really him on the record.
* The score. It has some good flourishes but is generally meh.
* My minor gore complaint: there was so much vomiting in this one, which is not a DNW for me, and I get that it did happen in the remake and does happen in the OT, but three times is just repetitive, and I feel like it was used as a possession signal in a way that it isn't in other shows and movies. It also felt like Cronin was just pushing it as a shortcut to gross people out. The bug puking from Bridget was probably the most effective one.
* Speaking of traditional - again, more white-eyed Deadites, please. Are we dividing the line between movie-green-eyed Deadites and TV white-eyed-Deadites?
* Mr. Fonda is a human macguffin, but I guess we needed him and the other neighbor guy because Ellie wouldn't own a gun (??).
* The Marauder looked decent but was pretty underlit at first, and some clear "post sweetening" made it less menacing than it should be. The three headedness of it was fun tho. It's very much an Evil Dead character.
* The way the tiny mild amount of humor was looped in was fine. Couple of good one-liners, but nothing that really pops out as memorable. Dialogue continues to be an issue with these post-Raimi-written flicks.
* Though the movie does feel properly Evil Deadish, Cronin can't resist tapdancing in with some The Shining refs. At least I didn't feel, unlike I did with Fede, that he was mentally directing another film.
* There's some interesting psychology here, in which Ellie fears becoming "loose" like their mother and Beth doesn't give a rip, but Cronin doesn't take time enough to dive into it (and he had plenty of time) (See my Cons below).
* The references were background and oblique in turn, and to be frank Cronin should have cut their existence in half. Also TBH the way the 'come get some!' plays out suggests Beth got it off of a pizza box in-universe, which is super stupid.
* The Classic not being in the movie sucks, but I think it's because they couldn't get the car transported to NZ (?) (Quarantine? does anyone know? I know Cronin said it was because he wanted to use his "own references." but I'm not sure).
* laughed when Ellie tried to tear Beth's fetus out of her, though I'm not sure I was supposed to.
www.digitalspy.com
variety.com
