by Joel Harley
An Evil Dead film without Bruce Campbell or a cabin in the woods? Heresy? Perhaps, but with his Evil Dead Rise, director Lee Cronin performs the unthinkable – in more ways than one. Children? In an Evil Dead film?
When a copy of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis turns up in the basement of a condemned inner city apartment block, a working class family home becomes ground zero for the latest act of Deadite warfare. Meanwhile, learning that she has fallen pregnant, Beth (Lily Sullivan) rocks up on the doorstep of estranged sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland, channeling Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise with that face) hoping for her help and support. Instead, she and Ellie’s children (Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies and Nell Fisher, all adorable) find themselves fighting to survive when Ellie is suddenly possessed by the Deadite horde.
Here, Cronin hits the hard reset button on the franchise, doing away with the cabin in the woods and chained-up basement doors. At the same time, all of the Evil Dead touchstones are there – swapping out possessed trees for elevator cables and waterlogged basements for an arcane vault full of sinister records and cursed books. As the cursory setup unfolds, the film lays out its playthings; less Chekhov’s gun, more Chekhov’s cheese grater, chainsaw and tattoo needle.
Fears that the young cast might hold Evil Dead Rise back prove unfounded – Cronin’s entry makes even the 2013 remake look restrained, reaching a level of violence that one might have thought impossible for a semi-mainstream cinema release in 2023. Once the action starts, it never lets up – a relentless, merciless assault on good taste and the boundaries of screen violence. It’s as much [REC] as it is The Evil Dead, with a new breed of Deadite who prove to be more dangerous and unpredictable than ever.
Meanwhile, in Alyssa Sutherland, the film finds one of the series’ most terrifying Deadites to date, gifted an incredible physical performance and tragic about-face from loving mom to murderous monster. Meanwhile, Auntie Beth manages to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Jane Levy’s Mia as a great post-Campbell protagonist. The kids do admirable work in the face of all this abuse, their youth and doe-eyed love for each other making the film genuinely difficult to watch in places. It’s a careful balance between heartbreaking pathos, flinch-worthy body horror and fist-pumping catharsis – each of which hits the mark with deft precision.
Where Fede Alvarez’s remake hewed closely to Sam Raimi’s original film, Cronin wears his Evil Dead II influences on his gore-flecked sleeve. While the film’s strain of black humour is appreciated, the near constant references do tend to distract from the story at hand. It gives some of the best action the franchise has ever seen, but never quite reaches the heights of 2013’s blood storm or Ash’s Farewell to Arms, being too beholden to previous entries (and other genre films!) to fully carve its own path.
Regardless, Evil Dead Rise is another tremendously strong entry in a series that has yet to put a foot wrong. Dizzylingly violent and jaw-droppingly horrible, it’s up there with the best of The Evil Dead.
EVIL DEAD RISE is out in UK cinemas on April 21st
