Evil Dead Rise (2023)

I’m not the type to look a gore strewn gift horse in the mouth and I eventually got on the same blood splattered page as EVIL DEAD RISE but it sure took a while. Maybe I was in a persnickety mood but I sure took my time buying what writer/director Lee Cronin was selling. Ya see, there’s this dilapidated apartment building that used to be a bank and one day an earthquake creates a hole in the parking lot/basement that leads to a forgotten vault. Foolishly a curious kid crawls through the opening and fortuitously comes across not only a cursed book of the dead but some jinxed vinyl recordings to boot. I guess that’s believable enough but the teens involved were also on a pizza run (to Henrietta’s Pizza Parlor, wink-wink) and they drop their pies on the ground during the quake and immediately declare them unsalvageable. Who does that? I don’t care how much a pizza is squashed, unless it’s covered in broken glass and gravel, you can still eat it! No soldier left behind! Even more awkward is that when the kids tell their mom that the pizza was destroyed during the devastating act of nature, she comforts them by telling them that they’re more important than pizza (which is not much of a compliment and somewhat debatable).

Yet, I’m willing to look past this film’s problematic view on pizza and it’s cringey use of an obligatory drone in the opening scene to establish how modern and contemporary it is. Turns out all I needed to get on board with this new take on THE EVIL DEAD was for the mother character to get possessed and literally shake me into submission. Alyssa Sutherland plays Ellie, a single mom of three (two teens and a moppet) who is the first to succumb to the diabolical evil and with her Jack o’-lantern smile (an unholy cross between The Joker and NEWHART’s Mary Frann) and eyes that could stare rust onto a can, she graciously takes command of the entire movie. Happily the monstrous mother has a worthy foe in her reluctantly heroic sibling Beth (Lily Sullivan) who smoothly grab’s Ash’s chainsaw baton and fittingly ends up redder than the devil on an Underwood ham can.

Is this the type of sequel I, an oldster, would personally envision for the beloved EVIL DEAD franchise? Nah, but that’s OK, I feel like the ASH VS EVIL DEAD series fulfilled me in that regard. I think it’s actually honorably bold to shoot off into semi- uncharted territory even if the end result seems more like a remake of DEMONS 2 (’86) than anything else. I’m a little disappointed that the infestation we endure here is limited to one single floor of the building but it does add a certain element of claustrophobia that might not exist otherwise (plus, I understand if it was simply more budget friendly). It’s possible the unhealthy family dynamics were not mined as deeply as they could have been but I have a feeling they’ll ampliphy upon repeat viewings. The important thing here is the refreshing, almost exhilarating level of gore and the two mesmerizing central performances. I do miss the utterly woebegone vibe of 2013’s installment but this newbie may delivers a more satisfying final boss battle in the end. Quibbles aside, it’s a satisfying excursion that’s sure to keep audiences floating on their toes.

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Dr Nick Riviera
Dr Nick Riviera
1 month ago

It does kind of pale in comparison with Fede Alvarez’s shockingly good 2013 reboot but EVIL DEAD RISE is another solid entry in a horror franchise that may have the most consistently high quality in all of the genre (I’d love to hear your thoughts on THAT!). My main gripe with the film is that its so DARK. Not dark as in “grim” – I’m into that and this film does also have THAT in spades – but VISUALLY dark. It’s just NO FUN to look at. Barring that, everything else about the film is QUITE fun (if you, like me, derive fun from horror movies that take themselves 100% seriously). Look, I love the Raimi EVIL DEADs as much, if not MORE, than the next guy. I saw ED2 and ARMY in the theater on opening weekend. That said, I’ll take the ferocious (thanks, Stephen King!) horror of the first one over the comedy of ARMY any day. So, yeah, I’m super happy that director Lee Cronin sticks with Alverez’ straight faced tone. And Cronin is no slouch – he has quite a bit to bring to the table (including gallons and gallons of blood and a final deadite that brought to mind Carpenter’s THE THING). It’s a tight 90 minutes. It’s violent and meanspirited. It features some attractive actresses and some child actors who DEFINITELY don’t have plot armor just because they are kids. It’s my kind of movie. It’s my kind of EVIL DEAD. I just wish someone would have turned a light on every once in a while.

Ghastly1
Ghastly1
1 month ago

Do Demons and Demons 2 get talked about enough? Nah, not hardly.

JennyD13
JennyD13
1 month ago

I am so happy you reviewed this! I was waiting for it lol

“she comforts them by telling them that they’re more important than pizza (which is not much of a compliment and somewhat debatable)” Made me laugh out loud

I agree with you. I quite liked it, but it took me a while. It was very reminiscent of Demons 2, which is not a bad thing.

The lady who played the mother was so awesome!!!!

Still, I came out wishing for more somehow. Maybe I’m still salty that they didn’t continue with Fede’s story. I really loved that movie. All in all, I did really like it. I do like how Cronin seemed very excited bout the franchise in interviews, and he brought up the possibility that all three timelines are just different encounters with the three Necronomicon’s shown in Army of Darkness, so there’s a possibility of Ash and Mia eventually showing up in later entries.

Geoff
Geoff
1 month ago

I had a lot of fun with this entry. I’d say I’m only a middling Evil Dead fan. I only saw the first two entries in recent years and they are enjoyable but I don’t have the nostalgia for them that others do. I liked the old Hollywood apartment setting in this one (a cinematic cousin to Tobe Hooper’s Toolbox Murders) though I wish they’d have developed the other tenant characters a bit more. They were mostly just anonymous demon fodder but I thought there was more character potential there than the main kids. Probably my age showing.

Also LMAO at your Newhart/Boogens shoutout. That show was a staple in our house growing up and I distinctly remember when they mentioned that movie. I wanted to see it back then but it was really hard to find for many years. I had to settle for the paperback novelization which is actually pretty good; I was actually disappointed in the movie when I finally saw it because I had enjoyed the book so much. More Newhart horror: Julia Duffy also starred in the slasher spoof Wacko and Jennifer Holmes who played the maid character in the first season before Duffy joined the cast co-starred with Cameron Mitchell in The Demon. And William “Larry” Sanderson has quite a few horror credits (Savage Weekend, Nightmares (1983), Sometimes They Come Back, Man’s Best Friend, the Mirror, Mirror series)

Chuckles72
Chuckles72
1 month ago

No sequel or reboot or whatever will ever top my first viewing of The Evil Dead. A friend and I saw it in a half-wrecked, really rowdy theater and we were both high as kites. I was alternately freaked out and laughing until I cried.