Eye gouging, dismemberment, decapitation, broken glass, eating broken glass, broken limbs, torso shredding, blood, more blood, a gallon more blood, and even a tiny little paper cut to top it off. Albeit from a cursed book that resurrects the dead, not to mention vomit and bugs, sometimes mixed together. Just a few of the charming visuals director Lee Cronin employs throughout the carnage that unfolds in Evil Dead Rise; if there are other forms of grievous bodily harm in cinema, it’s probably represented here too. While this is a follow-up to the 2013 reboot of the Sam Raimi classic, Evil Dead Rise has a more stand-alone feel and shares more in common thematically with Cronin’s 2019 debut, The Hole in the Ground, which similar explores parental and family troubles and, funnily enough, the demonic predicament begins with, well… a hole in the ground.
“Mommy’s with the maggots now.”
Evil Dead Rise follows single mum Ellie and her kids, Danny, Bridget and Kassie, who are reunited with Ellie’s estranged sister, Beth. However it doesn’t take long before this twisted tale becomes a family reunion nightmare, complicated by the rise of violent demonic possession that throws them – sometimes physically – into a messy family feud of blood and gore, for which we can blame Danny. When an earthquake in the apartment building reveals a hole in the basement carpark to an old bank vault the building was either conveniently or inconveniently built over, depending on who you ask, in true horror movie stupidity, Danny makes the spontaneous decision to explore the vault and bring back with him the fabled Book of the Dead as well as a collection of phonograph recordings that speak the deadly incantation required to activate the books cursed magic…
It goes without saying, Alyssa Sutherland as the Deadite Ellie is excellent. She’s genuinely chilling and plays a massive part in building the most disturbing sequences. Lily Sullivan as aunt Beth goes through an arc of her own that sees her become a badass surviver by the climax, traumatically forced to handle the classic chainsaw and shotgun to survive with a climactic battle against one of the most disturbing looking Deadites in the series so far, enhanced by the way the film teases its appearance throughout with glimpses at pages from the Book of the Dead. The use of the book to tease new Deadites and what they can do is also a subtle mechanic Cronin employs effectively.
“Ellie waits in Hell for you and your unborn bastard baby.”
While the performances are strong, some establishing dialogue comes across as forced and most of the other characters really just fall into typical horror tropes – the neighbours are utterly throwaway cannon fodder and siblings Danny (Morgan Davies) and Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) similarly just aren’t memorable. Danny’s one important contribution is that he plays the fool character who unwittingly, and frustratingly, instigates the chaos that unfolds. We should however give credit to Nell Fisher (Kassie), her film debut as the younger of the siblings who undergoes a frankly horrific experience.
Making use of a single location throughout its runtime, there’s a strong connection to the isolating tension of Kubrick’s The Shining in the way the madness unfolds, particularly as Alyssa Sutherland’s performance leads her down a familiar path – trying to maim her family to death – though set to an apartment complex backdrop more akin to Rosemary’s Baby than the iconic Overlook hotel, which similarly shares some thematic connection. Though that doesn’t stop Cronin recreating one of Kubrick’s most memorable scenes in full red tide gory glory. The use of a single apartment building location creates a sense of claustrophobia which drives a strong feeling of tense survival horror through panic and isolation, not to mention utter anarchic, haematic pandemonium, heightened by the buildings dilapidated state of decay as a result of the earthquake – not helped particularly by the outbreak of series staple Deadites.
Tonally it more closely represents the trappings of a typical modern supernatural horror than Sam Raimi’s beloved cult classic: dark visuals, macabre tone and overall absence of mocking slapstick humour in favour of building very tight tension, not to mention the usual dive in intellect that plagues horror movie characters. Focussing on the dysfunctional family dynamic with a possessed mother trying to murder her own children brings a sense of dread and anxiety to the film, brought to extraordinary levels thanks to Stephen McKeon’s score. A sequence in which nameless neighbours are bisected and maimed through the perspective of a door peep hole POV makes it clear soon after that even the younger cast members aren’t safe from Deadite possession. Cronin’s Evil Dead entry might not necessarily feel representative of the self-aware Raimi movies, but it exceeds the modernised if uninspired 2013 reboot, creating a tense piece of horror cinema with far more poignant themes.
“You don’t look so good, Mom.”
That said, it makes a very bizarre decision to bookend the main plot with an unfortunate visit to an Evil Dead classic vacation spot and popular locale of hockey mask, machete wielding madmen, as the film opens with a prelude sequence introducing a group of forgettable teens at a wooden hut by a lakeside surrounded by dense forest. You can imagine where this part goes, but what you might not expect is that this scene comes to a climactic (and gory) close with one of the coolest title reveals in recent cinema: Evil Dead Rise literally rising out from the tree-line to loom behind a floating Deadite possessed victim like a demonic force. We then cut to our main story, set a whole day before these events, and are introduced to the main cast. It’s a little bewildering, and the only link to this sequence is made when one of the characters is introduced in an epilogue sequence with a tenuous excuse offered as to why the character in question hadn’t reacted to or been affected by the events that unfolded throughout the rest of the movie.
Evil Dead Rise works perfectly fine without the bookended sequence, or even if the prelude was moved to the end and used as a set up sequence for future instalments. There is an impression that this was perhaps part of an older script they simply wanted to keep and found a way to patch it in, though it does also create the distinct impression that there are more sequels in the pipeline even if it is a weakly executed bookend.
“Destroy it! It’s called the Book of the Dead for a reason!”
As a horror experience, Evil Dead Rising is anxiety inducing and plays out more like a survival horror, sharing more in common with modern horror trends than with its titular namesake. In this sense it raises questions as to what makes it an Evil Dead entry when it could just as easily have stood out on its own. But there are references, some more subtle than others, to the wider franchise. In particular, keen-eared fans might recognise Bruce Campbell’s voice on one of the phonogram recordings, while classic scenes and lines are incorporated as Easter eggs. The Deadites, while more sinister, similarly taunt our protagonists with one-liners and cusses to get under their skin – sometimes literally – but notably, the cursed book of this film may offer a link to Army of Darkness and open unique possibilities with the wider franchise. As it stands, Evil Dead Rising might be missing the groovy style of Bruce Campbell’s Ash Williams, but it does take the series into thematically heavy, atmospheric survival horror.
