Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead is the little franchise that could. With a 40+ year track record encompassing five full-length feature films—and not a stinker in the bunch—it’s gone from upstart gross-out indie to horror-comedy stalwart to veritable household name. Its latest installment, Evil Dead Rise, splits the difference, leveraging the over-the-top gore of the initial films with a dash of the self-aware humor found in Army of Darkness and even shades of the visceral fright that dripped from Fede Álvarez’s 2013 re-imagining.
Evil Dead Rise relocates the action from an isolated, run-down shack to an urban, soon-to-be condemned apartment building. When an earthquake reveals a long-forgotten chamber beneath the parking lot, teens Danny and Bridget (and their little sister Kassie) unwittingly bring horror home in the form of the Naturom Demonto and a trio of the series’ requisite accursed recordings.
What follows is 97 minutes of pure Deadite horror, but, just as The Babadook isn’t solely about a creepy children’s book, Evil Dead Rise uses the fantastical trappings of supernatural, occult, and body horror to explore the very real fears that plague parents and threaten families the world over.
Leading the story is Beth (Lily Sullivan), a guitar tech for an anonymous rock band who learns—after the film’s seemingly unrelated cold opening—that she is pregnant. In her hour of need, she (again) turns to her older sister, tattoo artist and single mom Ellie (played to scene-chewing perfection by Alyssa Sutherland), showing up unannounced to her family’s squalid LA apartment.
When the aforementioned earthquake cuts her nieces and nephew’s pizza run short, the kids bring the infernal Naturom Demonto (and a couple of smushed pies) into their home, burgeoning DJ Danny plays the accompanying albums on his turntables, and Ellie becomes the first to fall victim to possession.
Gore abounds as she menaces her family, massacres her neighbors, and talks supernatural smack like only a Deadite can. In short order, Aunt Beth and young Kassie are the only survivors and must attempt to flee, even as Ellie vows to never let them go.
With a resolution that involves a fantastic elevator set piece sure to please fans of The Shining, a shambling, multi-limbed beast known as the Marauder, and an industrial woodchipper, the action and the viscera come fast and furiously. However, it’s the recurring dialog that drives home the movie’s underlying theme.
No, not the chorus of “dead by dawn” and the sprinkling of other old Evil Dead dialog Easter eggs—although those are certainly fun.
Not content to simply repurpose the corpses of her departed family, Ellie and her fellow Deadites continually taunt Beth, making ample references to her unplanned pregnancy, her questionable choice of vocation, and the alleged failings of Beth and Ellie’s own parents. There, amongst the blood and the gore—and be forewarned that there are gallons of the former and loads of the latter—we find the deeper meaning behind all this carnage.
Families, more so even than other interpersonal relationships, are complicated. They’re messy. There are miscommunications and crossed wires, hurt feelings, and, yes, sometimes outright malice. But it’s never too late to mend those fences, or, like Beth and Kassie (played by the young but startlingly adept Nell Fisher), to build a new family on the ashes of the dysfunctional old.
Like a lot of contemporary art, it all comes down to the simple metaphor of enduring hell but coming out on the other side, and despite its myriad of horrors, there is a sense of victory and maybe even redemption as Beth and her youngest niece finally manage to emerge from the ruined parking structure that serves as setting for the film’s chaotic final battle.
(Ok, admittedly those warm and fuzzy feelings are short-lived as we finally get the first half of the wrap-around vignette that opened the movie, but a win is still a win.)
Available now on 4K Ultra HD, Blu-ray, and Digital, Evil Dead Rise looks, sounds, and scares just as good at home as it did in the theater, with the only real knock against this robust combo pack being a lack of similarly expansive bonus features. Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore and some harsh language, this isn’t one to be sharing with your delicate little ones, but my teens and I had a hell of a time revisiting this blood-soaked gem of a film.
Review materials provided by Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment. This post contains affiliate links. I had the most beautiful dream…
