Vittra

This has probably the best mud-blood effects I've ever seen (mud-blood is the modern incarnation of blood that refuses to be red because that's a color and desaturation is all the rage - but in this case there's actual mud which helps). There are really good practical effects and non-stop craziness throughout and yet I still felt nothing.

It's all in service to those who came before. There's no ingenuity or true imagination at work here. It's so indebted to The Evil Dead it forgets to be its own thing and somehow winds up worse as a result. An up the ante riff on The Evil Dead shouldn't just feel like it's going through the motions. I can't quite put my finger on it, but this whole thing is just off in some way and it's all related to that somehow.

There's never a moment that makes your mind jump and heart leap at the sheer unexpectedness, the showmanship, it's just so much blood and splatter and god I hate that that sounds like a bad thing but here it is.

Yeah I also read all the buzz about this movie being the new Evil dead or whatever they were saying. I suppose it is like evil dead plot wise, group of kids go to a cabin (or abandoned house in this case)are all one by one possessed or infected by evil. Then gorily kill each other off.

Unfortunately that kind of comparison is unfair to Wither as it gives you certain preconceptions. Unlike Evil dead this movie has no sense of fun. It is far too serious and given the quite silly plot this doesn't work in its favour. The only laughs I had were at the main guys hair becoming quite crazy during one of the fights the brother characters generally cheesy appearance and the subtitle coming up for a quite obvious shouted expletive, twice. Also none of the characters seem to have a problem killing each other. These people are supposed to be long time friends but they quite happily shoot and stab each other in the blink of an eye.

It is fairly gory but if gore is what you're looking for it doesn't even do that in an original way. None of the kills are inventive. I had seen nearly every kill bar one (the one with the stool) done before. The effects are in the majority done with practical effects with a bit of CG help. There are a couple of CGI blood squirts which I loathe because the blood just vanishes. Overall the gore effects are good but not as extreme as some reviews claim. The possession make up for the actors is pretty good. More effort does seem to have been made with the brother character than anyone else though.

The Gore effects aren't the only time CG rears it's ugly head, there is added heavy rain in certain scenes that doesn't appear to be making the actors very wet (oops). Also some over the top clouds of dust and debris.

The ending is also a massive anticlimax you wait the whole movie to see the thing that caused all this mayhem. when you do finally see it it's a bit of a non event.

I was really looking forward to Wither I enjoyed the directors other movie Blood runs cold but this one lacked something for me.

Some young people decide to party and spend the night in an abandoned house in the woods. One by one they are possessed by… something and the possessed start attacking the not-yet-possessed. We only get a semi-explanation for why and what's going on, but that's really all that's needed. It's not the most original story of all time, but it works.

This Swedish horror movie is like a modern Evil Dead with more realistic gore effects, but most else is sadly not up to the same standard as the old cult-classic. After an initial horror scene to set the tone, we get a superficial presentation of the characters and why they are going to the house. This part is rather boring. I understand that they want to set up the characters and story, but we get mostly uninteresting talking. No interesting stuff happening, no funny jokes, and no good buildup of what's to come. Regarding the dialog: the lines themselves are mostly realistic during this part. However, the delivery isn't always that realistic, but not bad enough to be funny.

The movie does get better once the horror begins. There are some creepy parts and excellent gore effects. Despite this being a low-budget Swedish horror, the effects are up to par with a modern Hollywood horror movie, so kudos for that. The acting even improves a bit. However, I was a little annoyed at times at the inconsistent behavior of the possessed. Sometimes they can't attack the humans fast enough, yet at other times they just stand there and look.

I would recommend this to someone who is mainly interested in seeing some nice gore.

This Swedish zombie film "Borrows" a lot from several horror classics including The Evil Dead (1981) Despite this it finds its own identity and actually has a fairly decent premise behind it.

The zombies look interesting and stand out from the average, the movie has a budget behind it and the performances aren't entirely terrible. So why the low rating?

The problem with Wither is it simply isn't very well made. Despite a lot of action the movie is oddly boring, the sequences are highly uninspired and the subject matter seems wasted in the hands of someone who didn't know how to utilise it.

Wither isn't bad, it's just a drag. A slow, unexciting, unoriginal drag.

You know what this undead vs young people in a cabin in the woods needed? Bruce Lorne Campbell!!!

+ The concept + The creature effects - The pace - The action sequences

Hailed by many as the new (or next) EVIL DEAD, WITHER turned out to be a bit of a let down as its conclusion and end credits withered away. Don't get me wrong. I enjoyed this. Just not nearly as much as I had anticipated. Where shall I begin?

Without a doubt, WITHER was pretty well done considering the low budget. The acting was decent. The setting was cool. The gore effects were better than expected. But that's about where it stops. The story was too simple and the characters were not given enough...not sure of the word I am looking for...depth, maybe? There just wasn't much of a back story in general. The actors did good with what they were given. The finale was...well, if you blinked you may have missed it. Nonexistent for the most part.

This really had a chance to be great, but instead it withered along the way in becoming just average. I promise I won't use the word "withered" again in this review, but it's damn hard not to! Overall a decent film. Much better than most low budget horrors these days, if only the story would have been told a bit better. And the death scenes could have been a little more creative. The ending is the biggest let down of all though, in my eyes.

Good acting. Good setting. Great gore effects. Limp story. Lame ending. Still worth a view. Just don't expect this to be up to par with the original EVIL DEAD, because if you do, you will be sadly let down. EVIL DEAD set the standard for how to make a scary, no budget horror film. Hopefully, if a WITHER 2 is somewhere on the horizon, a bigger budget and better storytelling will emerge and just maybe we will get the Swedish equivalent of DEAD BY DAWN: THE EVIL DEAD II. Just maybe...