After watching Evil Dead Rise (2023), I felt disheartened that Sam Raimi let his great horror franchise fall into mediocrity. But after a quick scroll through my Twitter timeline and a subsequent Google search, I found that I am, for the most part, alone in this feeling. Evil Dead Rise is the most financially successful entry in the Evil Dead series to date and has been praised by most mainstream critics. Am I crazy? Is it actually good? Am I so out of touch? No, it’s the children who are wrong.
Evil Dead Rise comes out of the gate with a bang, but then never really finds itself in all of the set-piece gore. The first scene gives the impression that you’re about to watch something in keeping with the no-holds-barred 2013 remake. There’s plenty of ridiculous, over-the-top gore and jet-black humor in that first sequence, which takes place at the infamous cabin in the woods. But as soon as the title rises out of the lake, Evil Dead Rise takes an immediate nosedive.
The opening sequence makes us believe that the film will continue the traditional setting (re: remote cabin). Instead, the story whisks us away to a dilapidated apartment building in a version of LA that looks more like NYC. The setting feels awkward at first, but the environment soon lends itself to a different kind of claustrophobic horror.
Lily Sullivan plays Beth, a guitar technician who just found out she’s pregnant. She decides to visit her sister, Ellie (played by Alyssa Sutherland), who lives in the aforementioned apartment building. Ellie struggles to provide for her three children, teenagers Danny and Bridget, and the much-younger Kassie. While Lily and Ellie navigate being back in each other’s lives and the revelation that Ellie’s husband walked out on her, Danny goes about stirring up trouble for everybody.
The backstory explaining the “evil” in Evil Dead Rise throws everything at the wall to see what sticks. The kids talk about a ghost that haunts the building after a failed bank robbery. Soon after, an earthquake shakes the building and reveals a chamber leading to a hidden bank vault below the parking garage. Danny finds some old phonograph records, papers, and — of course — the Book of the Dead. The records introduce us to the voice of a priest who tried (unsuccessfully) to learn the secrets of the book. Despite the obvious warning signs, Danny opens the book and releases the evil spirit, which almost immediately occupies Ellie’s body.
A condemned apartment building with very few tenants, an earthquake, a power outage, and a mother turned evil all sound like the making for a perfect horror film. Sadly, Evil Dead Rise never lives up to its setting. Every line meant to scare ends up being laughably bad, but not in the way I would expect from an Evil Dead film. The originals (and Army of Darkness) delivered laughs — sometimes intentional, sometimes not — alongside the horror with seamless execution.
Evil Dead Rise, on the other hand, tries desperately to scare viewers, but that desperation oozes out of the screen like pus from a festering wound. As the evil entity transforms more characters into zombie-like creatures with a penchant for smiling and self-harm, the weakness of the script shines even brighter. One-liners meant to send chills down my spine instead made my eyes roll so far back in my head, I thought the ancient evil had taken over my body, too.
Evil Dead (2013) really did breathe new life into the long-dormant franchise, or so I thought. It seems ludicrous that it would take an entire decade to offer a follow-up to a film with a built-in fanbase and nearly $100 million recorded at the box office. But here we are; a 10-year wait and nothing good to show for it.
I realize that, up to this point, I probably haven’t explained exactly why I disliked Evil Dead Rise so much. There’s plenty of gore, but since there is a young child in the cast, even the gore gets toned down a bit compared to the 2013 version. Less gore is not necessarily a bad thing, but Evil Dead Rise just isn’t all that scary; an unforgivable sin in my eyes.
Alyssa Sutherland does her best to play the mom-turned-psycho-killer, but beyond some creepy makeup and one or two jump scares, she doesn’t really deliver. This leaves us to depend on the other characters, none of whom add very much. Beth emerges as the hero who must save everyone from her sister, but the lack of characterization makes her mission feel lifeless. The final showdown between Beth and Ellie is punctuated by the fact that Ellie would occasionally belittle Beth, calling her a “groupie.” It wasn’t exactly the kind of backstory that gives viewers someone to root for, as the emotional stakes are very, very low. If you can’t write good characters, at least have the decency to crank up the scares a bit.
More than anything else, Evil Dead Rise feels very thrown together. Some of the conversations don’t come about naturally from the context of the scene, leaving us scratching our heads as we move from one bad performance to the next. I don’t necessarily blame the actors, though. Writer/director Lee Cronin builds us up with false promises and then leaves his weak script and confused performers to fend for themselves. The optimist in me would like to think it was a great film that got butchered in post-production, but with such carefully designed gore scenes (almost all practical effects), it’s hard to imagine that the editors are to blame.
The best I can say about Evil Dead Rise is that it features a real transgender actor and doesn’t make a big deal out of it, but that isn’t exactly high praise. I just worry that the film’s success will convince the team behind it to continue in its current direction. In my eyes, the only hope for the franchise is a return to its roots, but I’m not holding my breath.
Evil Dead Rise Movie Rating: ★½ out of 5
If you’d like to watch Evil Dead Rise (2023), the film is currently available to rent or purchase via Amazon. For more film reviews like this one, be sure to check out the Philosophy in Film homepage!