The new Evil Dead movie was released April 5, 2013, and was directed by Fede Alvarez.

The movie starts with a teaser, where a woman is being chased down in the woods. She is knocked out, and wakes up tied to a post in a cabin with barbed wire. The people around her, scared and shaking, apologize and assure her that she needs to be saved. The only way to do that, of course, was to burn her alive.

As sickening as the beginning scene was, the Evil Dead had many more grotesque and horrific scenes, blood, and gore to spare.

The movie then introduces the main characters, 5 young men and women, who head to a remote cabin in the woods to help their friend, Mia, quit her drug abuse cold turkey. Their plan was to use the remote location to force her to actually follow through with the plan.

They discovered a room under the floorboards in which it appeared that a ritual had taken place. There were burn marks, blood, and barbed wire scattered throughout the room. Among the rubble was something even more disturbing: a book of the dead.

One of the characters, Eric, reads from the book aloud, not realizing the severe consequences that were sure to follow. Eric had unknowingly summoned a very powerful demon that tries to kill all of the “campers” to collect their souls.

While the concept has been done time and time again through the original Evil Dead and various exorcism movies, the new Evil Dead illustrates the tale in such a graphic and terrifying way that it seems entirely original.

There were twists and turns that even a huge horror movie fan (such as myself) would have trouble predicting.

Though I did find some of the language of the demon very off-putting and cheesy, The Evil Dead is among some of the top scary movies I have seen. The action and the horribly warped and mangled-looking bodies will leave your heart pounding and your nails dug into the arm rests.