• Reynolds Hays posted an update 11 months, 3 weeks ago

    For more than four decades, for four decades, the Evil Dead has been the darkly comical Teddy Bear’s Picnic of horror. It’s an eerie, bloody tale in which kids visit the woods and are greeted with an unexpected surprise. Lee Cronin’s latest entry in the series breaks that tradition like bones. The last time, the hell could break loose in the bowels creaky cabins, deep in the dark woodlands of rural America The fifth installment in the big-screen Evil Dead canon redirects its demons that devour flesh to the streets of LA.

    There was a lack of enthusiasm among fans for the movie’s first trailer was released at the end of last year. Would the Evil Dead movie still feel like an Evil Dead movie, some fans were worried, but without the isolation that fueled the previous films? Are Cronin and his co-producers Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell in danger of bringing on a chainsaw the very thing that made the first Evil Dead groovy?

    The answer, as it appears is an unambiguous, “Hell, no.” Evil Dead Rise -where two estranged sisters, Beth (Lily Sullivan) and Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), reunite just in time for the ancient Sumerian text that will end their lives and their entire family — is a rare horror sequel-cum-reboot that is re-imagined and refreshed instead of simply rewriting. Yes, the film replicates the fun and snarky style of the film’s original by Sam Raimi blurring the line between humour and horror by pouring 6,500 litres blood along the line and burning the ground on which it’s drawn.

    Yes, it’s a story that continues to tell of unwitting teens accidentally unearthing a copy of the ‘Necronomicon Ex-Mortis’, the unholy tome that calls forth screaming hordes of the damned and wreaks havoc every when it’s opened, just as in the case of Prince Harry’s memoir. And yes, it features a spirited hero rising up to his own occasion cutting into Deadites as if there’s never way out, while wielding weapons that are familiar to him in the process.

    However, Evil Dead Rise also takes the series to new and exciting locations that go beyond its current home located in La La Land. Cronin is a key new voice in horror, as any who saw his 2019 chiller The Hole In The Ground can confirm — is a filmmaker who is constantly looking for new ways to scare, and his second feature film has more innovative scares than you can shake an Ash Williams boomstick at.

    Each scene expertly exploits the intimate home setting that the film takes place within, leading to set-pieces with various cooking tools that’ll have you shuddering at the sight of your cheese-grater next time you open up your kitchen cabinet. Be prepared for your step count to increase in the weeks following your first viewing of the film: a truly gruesome scene trapping viewers in an elevator with an unseen, earring-stealing demon. You’ll likely be climbing the stairs for a long time to come.

    The character development in Evil Dead Rise can be described as on a par with the best of the series, with Beth and Ellie each battling their own demons before the actual demons appear. But that’s not the main appeal of the series and Cronin knows it. The title is ascribed to the Deadites who are the film’s grotesque creepy ghouls that are incredibly mischievous and violent here.

    Evil, you see isn’t just a glimmer in this film, regardless of what the title might promise. Instead it tames and afflicts. It mutilates and decapitates. It crawls under the skin of the actors and the viewers and then eats them like glass between molars leaving you in bloody ruin.

    Does the film look perfect? Not quite. The story beats can be spotted from a mile awaybut it’s the way they happen instead of what happens that propels Cronin’s screenplay — and the film’s one-apartment setting arguably can be a hindrance as well as helps, maintaining the high tension yet making the film feel tiny after the event. These aren’t the only issues they are, particularly in the context of the revival of one of the horror’s most adored treasures.

    It’s been a long time since the Evil Dead last graced the big screen and an even longer time since a tale that truly bottled the brutal magic of the first trilogy. A remake in 2013 called Evil Dead, produced by Raimi and directed by Fede Alvarez, was an admirable attempt that was a complete departure from the series’ lashings of hilarious humour. Also, the highly-rated but recently ended Ash Vs Evil Dead never left the confines of its small-screen home. With Evil Dead Rise , the Evil Dead franchise has gorily returned to its original form.