Before anyone asks, I have not seen any of the Evil Dead movies, though they’ve been on my “to watch” list for quite some time. However, I have seen Alien, The Shining, Nightmare on Elm Street and the Friday the 13th remake. I haven’t seen The Exorcist, though I did read the screenplay for it. If you’d care to count Bubba Ho-Tep, Grindhouse or Let the Right One In, I’ve seen those, too. In any case, I thought I had seen enough of the horror genre to decide that it just wasn’t for me. I thought that if this is the best that the genre could offer, then there would really be nothing in cinema that could truly scare me.

I was fucking wrong.

Except for a small amount of comedy relief moments, this movie was specifically, precisely and expertly crafted for one purpose and one purpose only: To scare the ever-loving shit out of anyone who sees it. If you go in expecting a life-affirming theme in the narrative or closure in the ending, all you’ll get is a stiff middle finger and several near heart attacks. And the movie makes no apologies for it.

I’m not sure if this was an experience I’d want to repeat anytime soon, let alone on a regular basis, but I’m certainly glad I saw it. Every aspiring film buff needs to know exactly how it feels to be scared witless by a movie, and I’m glad to finally have such an experience to measure other films against.