'Evil Dead Rise' Review: Plenty Of Gore In This Horror Sequel, But Is That Enough?
The dead are back baby! Say hello to the severed hand in Evil Dead Rise , the fifth film in Sam Raimi's franchise that definitively answers the question, "which is the best horror series overall?"
Slasher fans supported the Scream films when the sixth film was released last month. But with all due respect to Queen Sydney Prescott, that's bullshit. The Evil Dead movies , top to bottom, the shotgun blasts everyone into little sticky pieces.
In the series, writer-director Lee Cronin's hit series unleashes the Necronomicon and his white-eyed demons on a dark, stormy night in a downtown Los Angeles apartment building. It's a sleek, mean car that's earned its place alongside these four once-odious parts of the business solely through blunt force trauma.
What is Evil Dead about? uprising" .
Alyssa Sutherland as Ellie in Evil Dead. In the riot. Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures:
After a harrowing prologue in a cabin in the woods (you guessed it) , Evil Dead Rise takes us to a place unprecedented in this terrifying series: a modern community. Betty (Lily Sullivan), the recording engineer for a touring rock band, needs a place to sleep, so she collapses on the couch in her 13th-floor apartment in front of her slightly estranged sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland). ). For her part, Ellie has enough to do with her three kids: short-haired activist Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), nondescript DJ, average Danny (Morgan Davis), and youngest Cassie (Nell Fisher), beautiful Leigh Echo. Hellraiser.
As the kids run to get pizza for dinner, a 5.5 magnitude earthquake suddenly shakes the garage and they crash into an old bank vault buried underneath. And before you know it, the kids are holding up a famous leather book and dusty vinyl records of a particular anthem (see if you can spot the tone). A "Klaatu Barada Nikto" later, alluding to Deadite's bloody mess.
Evil Dead Rise paints the city red.
I said bloody. Don't forget to take an umbrella because, like every part of this series of films , Evil Dead. Rise contains a lot of junk. Red goo, black goo, old goo, new goo—the filmmakers made sure the corn syrup truck pulled up to the loading dock and lit the pipes. Exciting squirts and flying eyeballs, gut chunks and oatmeal, oh my - Cronin and co. explore all the colors and flavors of the rainbow when it comes to wet stuff.
The family is introduced briefly, perhaps too briefly, before they start snatching cheese graters and catching streams of floating insects. Beth is too busy with her own nonsense to even notice that Ellie's husband is surprised. In fact, this missing father is the main source of tension in this tribe. Otherwise they love and accept each other very much. Enough weaknesses in their relationship are uncovered for the demons to seep through those tiny cracks and, at the right time, turn some of them into weapons of mass emotional brutality.
The Evil Dead movies have always stuck to twisted romances, with much of the early drama marred by the scene where Ash (the legendary Bruce Campbell ) discovers the decapitated and mutilated bodies of his fiancé, his wife. Sister and her best friend over and over again. The 2013 reboot slightly altered the relationship, focusing on one brother and one sister. But it always fell to the demons to use the benevolent bonds between these people as a tool to harm everyone.
Cronin's previous horror film, 2019's A Really Good Hole in the Ground , also dealt with an evil force that seeps in between a mother and her young child. He once proved that he can make us sick by watching the purest form of love and trust dissolve into thick mud smeared on the floor. Of course, The Rise has a very different tone to The Hole , it's a very serious and sad film. But Evil Dead? In Uprising, he moves pretty well between sadness and unbridled humor... before stabbing us in the face with the same needle.
The cool environment adds some value to Evil Dead Rise .
Lily Sullivan as Beth in Evil Dead. In the movie Uprising. Photo credit: Warner Bros. Pictures:
Evil Dead Rise isn't the grand reimagining of the franchise that the new location suggests. Placing the army of the dead in a vast metropolis leaves more leeway than the film ultimately reveals. Yes, the action takes place in Los Angeles, but this family, cut off from the outside world, might find themselves in the woods once the elevator and stairs become completely unsafe. A few neighbors are shown, but they're mainly there to paint the walls.
Narrowing the focus down to five characters, The Family is certainly smart in terms of characters and themes, especially for a 90 minute film. But it also gives the movie a cheesy feel, like Friday the 13th where Jason was supposed to go to Manhattan and instead spends 3/4 of the movie on a boat. It's hard to imagine the chaos someone like Joe Dante could wreak with this concept and budget.
A movie night as entertaining as Evil Dead Rise , and it is. “I was driven away by the opportunities offered by its surroundings that were completely unnecessarily lost. Evil Dead Rise suffers too much from the franchise's formula Tears are definitely starting to show. I don't have to get tired of the bloody rain or the epic chainsaw fight. But when they're where fans of the franchise have come to expect them, it's hard not to wish Evil Dead Rise was adding fresh ingredients to their stew. I still love the taste, don't get me wrong. But I need the new Bloodfest flavor to enjoy next time.
Evil Dead Rise hits theaters on April 21st.
