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| Images courtesy of Warner Bros. |
The classic tale of the Evil Dead is transposed to a modern city landscape in this newest entry in the long running and still relevant franchise.
Once again trading in comedy for purist horror that hinges on all out violence and gore, Evil Dead Rise feels like a soft but gruesome continuation of the 2013 remake, using the same dark elements and plot devices that set it apart from Sam Raimi's original three films: Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness. Recorded incantations and demonic forces are unleashed and all hell breaks loose in a film that’s 100 percent made for fans and skillfully introduces a younger audience to the franchise. This is like The Force Awakens of horror, the story is similar but just different enough from the originals to satiate both segments of its audience.
Abandoning the formula of one central protagonist, this fifth film centers on a female led family of characters that are being ravaged by Deadites in their humble and woefully disorganized gothic apartment. What makes it super uncomfortable is the use of small children and younger teenagers this time around. Where Ash’s tale mainly centered on adults, this one takes long hard strides to let us know evil comes for all of us, age be damned. Transporting this out of the log cabin setting is interesting as it trades up the forest for long hallways, claustrophobic elevators and shafts, and a dimly lit parking garage that just so happens to host a woodchipper that's totally ready for mangling flesh.
After a small earthquake, a trio of kids find a copy of the Book of the Dead hidden in a small corridor below their high rise. Ignoring its many warnings, the book is read, the recording is played. And the Evil Dead is reborn in modern form. Despite its predictability, EDR is a return to form for horror that rides the fine line between sheer terror and absolute fun. In this way, it brings the entire brand back to where it started, even though the absence of Ash is omnipresent at every turn.
Once the evil is unleashed, their closeknit family is torn to shreds by the same dark force we’ve come to know, love and laugh at hysterically. Classic Evil Dead tropes and tag lines return in a movie that plays fast and loose with familiar story points and key moments. Evil Dead Rise wins zero points for originality but its director and team fully understand what their audience wants and delivers another quality chapter that unabashedly serves up multiple sequels on a blood-soaked platter.
What EDR lacks in plot it definitely makes up for in gallons upon gallons of blood and great cinematography. You can feel Kubrick's mark and Raimi's vision all over this thing. Director Lee Cronin (Ghost Train, The Hole in the Ground) takes long strides to copy Sam's style and nails it with precision. The fast cuts are there, the long shots return, and the look of the undead is ripped directly from the trio of classics. Much like Evil Dead II, this is a retelling of sorts that brings us to a new locale where the Necronomicon can spill guts all over the floor, rip eyeballs from faces and visualize death in all its many forms. This one steps up the gruesome factor and even introduces some phenomenal Lovecraftian creature design.
It seems like this review is gushing over Evil Dead Rise. And yes, it is. This is exactly what these films are supposed to be. And this time we get a minor reinvention that's almost perfectly rendered while it takes the brand into the modern world where cell phones and technology can be infected and used by the Book of the Dead for death and dismemberment. See this movie.
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