When I was a 12-year-old burgeoning film nerd, I persuaded my mom to let me rent Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981). I had convinced her (and myself) that since I had already seen (and loved) the sequels at a friend’s house, I could easily handle the older, and surely tamer, first film. After watching The Evil Dead alone in our dark upstairs room, I didn’t sleep very well that night.
While The Evil Dead is campy in its low-budget charm, it is by no means tongue-in-cheek like its direct sequels. At the time, it felt intense and relentless, and I learned to enjoy horror in a new way. Fede Alvarez’s 2013 reboot wisely sticks to that first film’s formula (trying to copy Raimi’s zaniness would be a fool’s errand for most). On top of a foreboding atmosphere it heaps on gallons of guts, gore and gross-outs, maintaining the over-the-top soul of the series while still taking it—and itself—seriously.
Evil Dead Rise, again, wisely adopts the same tone. Not so much a sequel or remake as it is a standalone tale in the “EDCU,” Rise is an effective excuse to whip out the ole Necronomicon (they call it the Naturom Demonto this time around) and summon some chaotic Deadites for a splatter party.
The second feature from Dubliner Lee Cronin, Rise feints with a familiar coeds-in-a-cabin cold open (boasting one of the better title cards in recent memory) to then focus on a family of four in a Los Angeles apartment. Knowing that the unrelenting bloodletting will come soon enough, the film settles in for some nice character building. Ellie (Sutherland) is a single mom to teenagers Danny and Bridget, and 10-year-old Kassie. When Ellie’s sister Beth (Sullivan) shows up unexpectedly, the kids, and Danny in particular, do some very dumb horror movie things, and the flesh-bound book and some spooky records wind up in their very apartment.
The main difference between Rise and its predecessors is the family aspect. Alyssa Sutherland is fine as Ellie, a hip, bohemian, tattoo-artist mom, but she is excellent as Deadite number one. Her zombified smile stays with you long after the credits roll, and watching her kids and her sister try to make sense of what she has become adds a depth to the horror beyond just the icky surface stuff.
Of which there is still plenty. Evil Dead Rise is likely the bloodiest in the franchise . . . by volume. The film has a “more is more” approach, which mostly works, but it also tries to stuff too many Easter eggs and callbacks into one bloody basket (as much as I appreciate Ellie saying “I’ll swallow your soul,” some of the new one-liners land just as well). Likewise, the sound design is utterly insane, or else I’m just getting old. Either way, the Foley artists had some fun. And if slightly campy and demonic smorgasbords of gore are your thing, so will you.
