“Weird shit like this is locked away for a reason!”

Evil Dead Rise is a 2023 New Line Studios film distributed by WB. Starring Aylssa Sutherland, Gabrielle Echols, Lily Sullivan, Morgan Davies and introducing Nell Fisher, Evil Dead Rise is directed and written by Lee Cronin. Rise is part of the Evil Dead franchise that began with the Sam Raimi’s proof-of-concept demonic horror movie, The Evil Dead in 1981. He followed it up by directing Evil Dead II in ’87 and Army of Darkness in 1993. Both are considered cult classics and possess an element of sly silliness and slapstick humor that sets them apart from the entire horror genre.

With a much larger budget, Evil Dead II is both a retcon and a continuation of the story began in The Evil Dead whereas Army of Darkness is a direct sequel to its predecessor.  Fede Álvarez attempted to reboot the series entirely in 2013 with Evil Dead, a film which revolves around a gender-swapped protagonist inserted in an extraordinarily similar sequence of events in a cabin virtually identical to the one in Raimi’s trilogy.

Due to revitalized interest in the franchise, Bruce Campbell, the star of the first three films headlined a television series, Ash vs. Evil Dead along with Lucy Lawless in 2015. The show proved to be a mild success, being canceled after three seasons. At the end of production, Campbell announced that he was retiring his character of Ash Williams.

The one thing all of these stories have in common is a book, a cursed tome of forbidden, arcane, and profane knowledge. The Book of the Dead, sometimes known as the Necronomicon Ex- Mortis, sometimes called the Naturum Demonto is a blasphemous book bound in human flesh and filled to the brim with functioning incantations designed to raise demons and Deadites who will swallow your soul and just ruin your day.

 Ellie (Sutherland), a tattoo artist, has been plying her trade and managing her family as much as she’s able after her husband walked out of their lives. She lives in Los Angeles in a grand yet ancient and dilapidated pre-war stack of apartments with her three children; Danny (Davies), an aspiring DJ, her pragmatic and precocious, keen-eyed middle daughter Bridget (Echols) and the youngest, wide-eyed and imaginative Kassie (Fisher). Kassie’s best friend is Staff-annie, a doll’s head screwed onto a broomstick.

Like many of its residents, the building’s best days are behind it. It’s been condemned and is slated for imminent demolition. Ellie and her family have to go; they’re packing to leave the only home the kids have known, their circumstances set to irrevocably change. But before their big move happens, something unexpected upends all their hopes and dreams.

Beth (Sullivan) is Ellie’s younger sister and a guitar tech with the knack of the quick fix. She’s traveling the country with her band, living the life of her dreams as a skilled journeyman in the music business when she discovers she’s pregnant and doesn’t know how to handle it. Every time in the past that life had put roadblocks and obstacles for her to trip over, she’d decamp to her sister for guidance and advice. So, not knowing anything of Ellie’s current circumstances, she bounces and shows up at her sister’s doorstep to Ellie’s surprise. Ellie has to fill Beth in as to what’s transpired with her husband but is uncomfortable getting into any deep details in front of her children, so she sends Bridget, Danny, and Kassie out to pick up some pizza while the sisters talk.

Suddenly, an earthquake strikes the city. It shakes the stack, killing half the power to the building and opening up a huge crack in the garage as the kids return with the pies. Danny is too curious by half and investigates further. He sees the remnants of an ancient, dust-covered vault door and realizes the crack has opened up inside the vault. Reasoning that there must be something of value inside, he climbs down, ignoring his sister’s entreaties.

Pushing through cobwebs, he finds empty drawer after empty drawer and roach-filled deposit boxes to his dismay but then discovers a room decorated with dozens upon dozens of dangling crucifixes above a chest containing several pressed vinyl records and a large, sealed volume. Taking these “treasures”, but not knowing their worth, he stuffs them in his backpack and returns to his sisters.

Later in his room, he and Bridget unseal and unbag the book. It appears to be bound by leather but under closer examination, proves to be tanned human skin. Bridget is immediately put off by the grotesque images within, but Danny is fascinated and placates her when she says he never should’ve taken the book.  He promises her he’ll return it later but ushers her out so he can continue scrutinizing his find. 

Taking out the records, he powers up his turntables and begins to spin them through, hoping to hear something he can recognize. There are three. The first is a recording from 1923 of a meeting of a religious order. A voice is heard talking about the newly discovered Book of the Dead, one of three copies lost to time. The voice implores his brothers to allow for further study of the book but he is shouted down and the recording comes to an end.

Danny resolves to listen to the rest. Getting the second record on the platter, he begins to play it and out of his speakers and subwoofers, he hears the voice read horrible words in an unintelligible, guttural, deep, melodious, and malevolent language.  Sparks fly, the power cuts out and then something goes horribly wrong.

A beast, a being, an entity, a thing; a shapeless, formless, soulless creature hears the words and awakes from slumber. It comes rushing from somewhere, someplace else, someplace where it was imprisoned and restrained but now set free by those horrid and harrowing words.  It’s free now and it is hungry. Roaring and squealing and screeching, it makes a bee-line for Ellie in the elevator as the building’s electrical systems spasm.

Can Ellie escape the elevator trap? Can Beth work up the courage to tell her family she’s pregnant in the face of unholy horror? Can Bridget keep her dopey brother Danny out of more trouble? With Staff-annie at her side, can Kassie face the stuff of nightmares? What about their creepy neighbors? Will any of them make it out of the building or will they be possessed one by one? Finally, who’s going to take care of that damned cat, trapped in the vent?

“You’re going to be a good mom someday, Auntie Beth. You know how to lie to kids.”

Evil Dead Rise is a curious beast. Sutherland, Davies, and Sullivan are perfectly serviceable in their roles, but the two young girls are particular standouts.  Echols manages to instill Bridget with an impressively cynical and weighty world-weariness for her young age and Fisher’s performance is evocative of Carrie Henn’s Newt in 1986’s Aliens.

There is a tremendous amount of blood spilled, inordinate volumes of vomit and bile are puked out, bodies are mangled on a regular basis and the level of body-horror is cranked to eleven. Unfortunately, there are no official Deadites, no puns, nor any slapstick. There is none of the winking, sly sensibilities, or comedic timing of its predecessors. It has virtually no sense of humor as films go and beyond Staff-annie, this reviewer really only laughed one other time; there is a curious homage to 1988’s Beetlejuice that works perfectly. 

The film is replete with homages and Easter eggs. The reference to Beetlejuice works great, as does a callback to Kubrick’s The Shining that is spot on. The rest are almost a series of paint-by-numbers box ticking for Evil Dead II. Eyeball gulping? Check. Boomstick? Check. Chainsaw? Check. “You’ll be dead by dawn! Dead by dawn, we’ll swallow your soul!” Check. “Come get some.” Check. The prodigious piles of puke heaved are probably a nod to the 2013 Evil Dead which had many excessive scenes of possessed people puking blood and guts and god knows what else on each other.

At the end, though it is understandable, in their haste, the characters just FORGET about the book. It will probably be buried when the building is demolished and found again in time for the sequel. That sequel-baiting is SO obvious and palpable in the last few minutes, though the momentum for it is slowly building up in the last third of the picture. It’s clear that Deadites are now loose in the world, leaving the survivors of this film as well as Staff-annie to carry on and try to seal the portal that let the Deadites in while preventing their souls from becoming snacks. The makers of this movie also commit a cosmic-level, cardinal-class cinema sin: They don’t tell us what happens to the cat! Perhaps that’s in the sequel as well.

As a stand-alone horror film, Evil Dead Rise is a good, gory time. The summoning scene is genuinely creepy and some of the body-horror is world-class and really icky. It’s well-made and well-acted. However, as an entry into the Evil Dead oeuvre, it isn’t very groovy.  While it sits comfortably with the 2013 reboot which was also devoid of humor, Evil Dead Rise is a mean-spirited, unrelenting pressure cooker of a movie and not a good fit with its more comical, cult classic ancestors.

Evil Dead Rise is in the theatres now.

The Evil Dead and related characters were created by Sam Raimi.

By Dan Kleiner

Dan Kleiner is a strange visitor from another planet who resides in Brooklyn, New York with two cats and his amazing girlfriend. When not plotting world domination, he spends a great deal of his time watching movies and anime of all sorts, reading comic-books and book-books, studying politics and history and striving for the day when he graduates as a Class A-Weirdo.