Director: Lee Cronin
Distributor: Warner Bros Home Entertainment
Duration: 96 minutes
Evil Dead Rise (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
The Evil Dead franchise will probably immediately ring a bell for horror movie enthusiasts. What originally started out as a series of B horror movies in the 80s, quickly gained a cult following, and it eventually spawned a follow-up series in 2015, as well as a re-imagining of the first movie in 2013. While the latter wasn’t a huge success, the love for the franchise never dwindled, and now we have another movie that plays itself out in the Evil Dead universe. This time we’re taking a look at Evil Dead Rise, where the Kandarian Demon steps away from the cabin in the woods to infect a family in the city. While the movie did have a few dips in quality, we still very much enjoyed this new entry in the series.
Evil Dead Rise revolves around single mother Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and her three children, Kassie (Nell Fisher), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and Danny (Morgan Davies), who get an unexpected visit from Ellie’s sister, Beth (Lily Sullivan). Beth has recently learned she is pregnant, and it’s clear that she’s hoping to get support from her family. However, Ellie is struggling with her own issues, as her husband recently left her, making it so that she has to take care of the three kids on her own. Nonetheless, the family copes as best as they can. During Beth’s visit, an earthquake strikes the building while the children were still downstairs in the parking garage. When a hole opens up in the floor, Danny goes out exploring, and he finds a lot of macabre objects, including an ominous-looking book and some weird records. Danny decides to take these upstairs to his room, only to find gruesome drawings in the aforementioned book. Bridget asks Danny to put it back next thing in the morning and to stop messing with it. Sadly, Danny ignores her advice and decides to listen to the records, and by doing so, he unknowingly summons a demonic presence that takes hold of the children’s mother. Ellie has a craving for blood now, and not even death will be able to stop her.
The movie’s flow and pacing are on point, even if the story is quite predictable. You’ll quickly find out that Evil Dead Rise holds very few surprises, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The movie is filled to the brim with gore, and some scenes actually make you quite uncomfortable, which means that the film is achieving its goal of making its viewers squeamish. We did like the overall movie progression, but as far as dumb characters in horror films go, the ones in the movie lower the bar even further at certain times. Nonetheless, the progression of the story is enjoyable, and it did feel like an authentic Evil Dead experience.
While Evil Dead Rise may not pack the same charm as the older films, and it may also lack a charismatic lead star such as Bruce Campbell, the movie does have a great cast backing it up. Alyssa Sutherland picks up the mantle as this movie’s lead, albeit on the demonic side of the fence. She plays her devilish role with grace and conviction, and we loved the somewhat different approach to the overall acting performances for this movie. While the other lead cast members may have lacked a bit of experience here and there, we cannot state that the three young cast members, Nell Fisher, Gabrielle Echols, and Morgan Davies did a bad job. All three characters were brought to life well but were often perhaps let down by the overall quality of the script. Lily Sullivan picks up the role of the main demon slayer in this film, and she proves to be a rather loveable lead, even if her character is sometimes a bit too one-dimensional.
Sadly, the Blu-ray version of the movie comes with absolutely no special features. For us, this felt like a missed opportunity, simply because the movie has quite a few Easter Eggs, and you’ll also see quite a few practical effects in the film. We would have loved to learn more about the creative process that went on behind the scenes. This detracts from the overall appeal of buying a physical copy of the film.
Conclusion
Evil Dead Rise shows that the Evil Dead franchise is still very much alive. While it perhaps lacked Bruce Campbell’s oneliners and charisma, this is in fact still an interesting horror flick with quite a bit of gore in it. We quite enjoyed the overall setting, the acting performances, and the original story for the series. The Kandarian Demon clearly still has a few tricks up its sleeve to entertain us, and we hope that we still get new installments in the (near) future.
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