Evil Dead Rise

                           Evil dead rise

 Story: An earthquake cracks open a cursed 100-year-old bank buried underneath a high-rise residential building. A teenager inadvertently invokes demonic spirits when he opens the Book of the Dead and plays the vinyl he grabs from the vault. Will his family survive the Deadite?

Review: The pre-credits sequence with slashing scalps, decapitated heads and an ominous figure rising out of a lake to form the title card will knock the viewer’s socks off. After a nod to the traditional set-up of Sam Raimi’s horror franchise, the film moves to an urban high-rise in LA. And thus, you have a standalone Evil Dead volume. The rebootquel to Fede Álvarez’s 2013 outing stays true to the gore, violence, jumpscares, and savagery expected of deadites unleashing on their victims. In this case, it’s a recently single mom Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), her three children Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and Kassie (Nell Fisher), and an estranged sister Beth (Lily Sullivan), dealing with an unwanted pregnancy.

The movie does not take too long to get down to brass tacks of demonic possession and the insane fight to survive. If the gore and violence in Álvarez’s directorial venture were unrelenting, writer-director Lee Cronin takes it a few notches up. Even the strongest stomach would churn at the decaying make-up, dismembered limbs, close-up shots of brutality, retching and all the bloodshed. It’s all so hyper-real that one would turn their face away in horror. Stellar practical and special effects and outre camerawork are nonstop at work here — a sequence viewed through a peephole and one of the kids turning into a demon and eating a wine glass.
Alyssa Sutherland is on point as a caring mother and sister. But she aces the possession parts, with all the jerky movements and deadly expressions. The sharp contrast is eerily perfect. Lily Sullivan as a guitar technician often dismissed as a groupie, and Gabrielle Echols delivers excellent performances.
Franchise loyalists will enjoy the many references to the previous volumes and other iconic horror movies — chainsaws (The Evil Dead, 1981) and other sharp objects, all the hacking, and blood floods (Shining). At 99 minutes, the movie is fast-paced and does not slack for a minute. The filming is disturbingly real, which lends authenticity, no matter how logically far-fetched you know it is, and that’s the genius of it all. Even so, one cannot help but notice the lack of substance as a narrative. All the blood and gore becomes tedious after a point, and you long for some respite in the form of plot content.
Since the story and the backdrop are unrelated to the earlier parts, new viewers can jump on the bandwagon and still have a context. Ardent Gorefest fans will rejoice at this one, but if bloodshed and putrid scenes are not your jam, you’d best avoid it. Be warned. It’s really graphic.