EVIL DEAD RISE *** USA / New Zealand / Ireland 2023 Dir: Lee Cronin. 97 mins
Sam Raimi created the indie phenomenon, The Evil Dead in 1981 and instantly became synonymous with guerilla-style, no-budget, ultra-violent and hyper-humorous filmmaking. The behind-the-scenes anecdotes and creativity of the original entry has become legendary and modern filmmakers are still falling over themselves to copy, replicate and steal from this seminal horror classic. Raimi, himself, was so invested in the project that he remade the original with a higher budget and released it as a more polished sequel and introduced more of his nonpareil Three Stooges-like comedy. This peculiar mixture of violence and farce would be ramped up even further for the Army of Darkness, the third entry in the Evil Dead trilogy. With the conclusion of this original trilogy, it would take another 20 years before Fede Álvarez would join forces with Sam Raimi to resurrect the Evil Dead. Alvarez was a controversial choice for director as he had only worked on a number of short films, but the decision paid off as he crafted a beautifully grotesque homage to the original film, elevating the gore to a breath-taking level of intensity and soaking the celluloid in buckets of blood.
Ten years later, Evil Dead Rise, had become one of the most anticipated films of 2023. The trailer promised a unique take on the well-trodden Deadite mythology and the introduction of new environments and scenarios to explore with a distinct departure from the cabin in the woods’ trope.
Beth (Lily Sullivan) pays a long-overdue visit to her older sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), who is raising three children alone in a small Los Angeles apartment. The reunion is interrupted by the discovery of the Necronomicon in the depths of Ellie’s building, giving rise to flesh-possessing Deadites and forcing Beth to battle the ultimate evil.
Like Fede Álvarez, Lee Cronin was an unknown director prior to his work on Evil Dead Rise. He had garnered some accolades for The Hole In The Ground, a well-crafted paranoia-based thriller which interestingly also features natural disasters and mommy-issues, but mostly worked on short films. With Sam Raimi once again attached to the new entry as a Producer, Cronin would be well placed and supported along the way. The partnership is obvious to see during the opening sequences as the camera movement and location playfully echoes the original trilogy and sets the scene for a familiar horror set up in the hands of capable, knowledgeable filmmakers. The familiarity and comfort of the opening hooks the viewer instantly and then we are transported to a completely new and previously unexplored environment for the Deadites.
Alyssa Sutherland, as the single-mother, gives an incredible performance with memorable physical and facial expressions. Her interactions with her three children seem honest and settled, with a grounded sense of realism and affection. The child actors, Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, and Nell Fisher all give capable and personable performances alongside Lily Sullivan, who plays their guitar engineer aunt, Beth.
The sound design on Evil Dead Rise is wonderfully effective, laying the groundwork for the bedlam to come as the atmosphere builds and tension escalates to an almost fever pitch, and leaving menacing, but not too subtle, clues to a jump scare just around the corner.
The trademark Sam Raimi humour is hinted at, but is quickly disregarded and replaced by ever-escalating scenes of lacerations, bone-snapping, blood-spewing splatter, and gore. And if we as fans are completely honest, that is exactly why we bought a ticket for Evil Dead Rise. The blood quota has been significantly increased, to the extent that characters are completely covered in claret for the majority of the final half hour of the film.
But here lies the rub. Blood and gore may have been enough for the 1980’s, but audiences have become more discerning and sophisticated. Torture Porn and Body Horror are both incredibly popular sub-genres, but they inevitably remain outside of the mainstream due to their blatant and banal focus on dehumanised violence. It is the script, however, that is the biggest concern. The story unravels like a Paint-By-Numbers, Artificial Intelligence generated script, ticking all the required narrative boxes, but missing out the heart and soul of the original trilogy.
Characters also make frustratingly incomprehensible choices, whilst standing dumbfoundedly around as unspeakable chaos erupts around them. Residents from different floors of the apartment building appear implausibly oblivious to the murder, mayhem, numerous reanimated corpses, and copious amounts of blood spilled in hallways and even flooding the elevators. This stretches believability beyond the point of snapping like a brittle Ulna. And with the initial mundane resolution of the lead Deadite simply being locked out of the apartment, the film almost comes to a screeching halt. Although the final showdown concludes in a crescendo of blood and viscera, and the introduction of a creature-feature element, it still feels perfunctory and dull.
The set up for Evil Dead Rise feels small in scope, but not claustrophobic enough and falls victim to the, understandably, lofty expectations from decades of cinematic reputation and creative innovation. The series will not lose any fans, but there is nothing here to convince the horror-centrists that a new dawn in horror is about to break.
Review by Louis Du Toit