Fresh flesh-eating demon thingies to swallow your soul!

Blech (in a good way). Look at the picture. I don’t know if they are zombies or demons, but the ghoulies in the film Wither totally satisfy my love for movies in which your best friends and lovers turn into hideous, drooling monsters that want to chew on you. Think Demons, Night of the Demons, Primal, The Slaughter, etc.

I’ve seen Wither described as what the Evil Dead remake should have been, and I can see why. There are plenty of homages to the original Evil Dead, including camera angles, the gore, the way in which the dead are massacred by the living, a trip to the shed for familiar tools, and a basement trap door. You get the picture. What it doesn’t have is any humor. This is not a horror-comedy at all. It’s hardcore horror.

In fact, the intensity is relentless once the group of young people arrives at the house in the woods and the first possession happens. It actually started to cause the kind of anxiety I felt when watching Quarantine/[REC]. It feels like the survivors are never going to get away from their flesh hungry ex-friends (let’s face it, once your friend gets those white demon eyes, all BFF pacts are thrown out the window). And these fuckers won’t DIE. Which means, once you think one is down, he/she actually isn’t, and before long, you’re surrounded by them! Gave me the willies.

The creature in the basement is creepy good, and the final confrontation with it gave me goose bumps. Interestingly, there’s an alternate final scene on the DVD that is extremely different but also incredibly suspenseful. The trio of guys is also fricking hot as HELL. The effects and gore are outstanding, and in a nice twist, I was totally on the side of the arrogant, self-centered prick when the shit hit the fan. The only weak part, and it’s actually kind of funny, is that every time a character needed a weapon, all he or she had to do was open a drawer or closet and the perfect weapon would just be sitting right there!

Wither has totally joined the ranks of my favorite “good friends gone freaky demon” movies. An instant Dan classic that I will force my friends to watch on our next weekend getaway to my basement. Uh-oh…