Movie Review: Evil Dead Rise

4 stars out of 5

I came late to the Evil Dead series. I was 14 when the original film was released, and my slightly twisted buddy Rob Mosley was obsessed with it. And yet a few decades passed before I finally gave it a chance (dear reader, I must admit I didn’t even “get” the Bruce Campbell cameo in the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man flick) — and I was instantly hooked. In rapid succession I then watched Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, and the Ash vs Evil Dead TV show. I skipped the 2013 reboot (no Bruce Campbell?) but a decade later, faced with a really slow evening on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, I headed to the multiplex for Evil Dead Rise.

Executive produced by Raimi and Campbell, this installment has the franchise’s seal of approval. (Yes, I belatedly learned that the same was true for the 2013 reboot; ok ok I’ll soon fire it up on Tubi.) We meet Ellie and her three kids Danny, Bridget, and Kassie, living in a soon-to-be-condemned Los Angeles apartment building. (We first see teen Danny DJing in his room to my other high school buddy James Murphy’s “Dance Yrself Clean.”) Ellie’s concert-industry sis Beth shows up out of the blue; she’s preggers and needs help. The kids are screwing around in the parking garage, and, d’oh, stumble upon series through-line the Book of the Dead. And because this is 2023, instead of accompanying cassettes, there are 3 vinyl LPs. What a box set!

At first I was thinking, the actresses playing Ellie and Beth are a little too glamorous for the proceedings. (All the actors are no-names and it turns out they are mostly Australians speaking with American accents, as filming took place not in Los Angeles but in New Zealand.) But the Book gets opened, the LPs get played, incredibly bad shit starts going down, and the glamour goes away really quick. Lily Sullivan is solid as Beth, coming across as a low-rent Kristen Stewart trying to protect the kids from their suddenly possessed Mom. Of the youngsters, I was most impressed with Gabrielle Echols as young teen Bridget, emanating independence, sass, and smarts.

The original Evil Dead films had a dark, clever sense of humor that is missing here. But writer/director Lee Cronin makes up for it with nonstop horror, gore, and scares, all well-executed (no pun intended). If you like that sort of thing, you will love this movie. If you don’t, well, I’m truly surprised you read this far.