Evil Dead Rise

I’ve never been a huge horror comedy guy. Sure, there are a good number I like. Zombieland, One Cut of the Dead, Deerskin, and What We Do in the Shadows come to mind. But in general, something about the blend often doesn’t do it for me. Maybe it’s that in the ones I’ve seen, they often use the comedy to undermine the tension built by the horror elements, which I find frustrating. I’d rather sit in that discomfort. Maybe I need to try harder to find ones which share my comic sensibility. It could also just be that my definition of what makes something a capital-c Comedy film is a little narrow. For example, I see Gremlins is labeled a horror comedy on Letterboxd. It’s a great movie, and certainly has its laughs, but I dunno, I don’t think of it as an overall comedic movie. Which is to say maybe I’d like the genre more if I wasn’t so particular about labels. But where’s the fun in that?

I also haven’t seen any of the Evil Dead films. Most of those low-budget cult horror films passed me by, including the rest of Raimi’s filmography and any of Peter Jackson’s non-LotR stuff. As a kid/teen, they never crossed my path, and even if they had it’s doubtful I would have seen them, as most movies I watched were with my horror-hating brother. And as an adult, I haven’t prioritized catching up on them. So I won’t be able to compare this entry to any of those.

Going in, I was lead to expect this film stands alone, and I can confirm that is the case. There’s little connective tissue to the others. It’s not even a comedy, although there are a handful of laughs, both at funny lines and wild occurrences.

In Evil Dead Rise, Danny (Morgan Davies) and Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) find a strange book and vinyl records within an abandoned bank vault under their apartment building. Danny plays the records, and immediately the power goes out, the book opens and starts flipping wildly through pages, and strange noises start coming from the hallway. And when mommy (Alyssa Sutherland) returns to the apartment, something isn’t quite right…

On the on hand, this is a fairly standard demonic possession movie. Gore and gruesome imagery abound, those possessed display cracked skin and sunken eyes, and black bile emanates from their pores. They climb to the ceiling, do that creepy cracking bone crab walk thing, and levitate. Our main characters do a lot of screaming and whacking at things with random objects, albeit while avoiding some obnoxious tropes (but not all). You can probably predict all the major beats from the beginning, as it’s quite loud setting them up. And sure enough, it uses all of them.

But it’s quite well made. The effects mostly look great (certainly aided by the low-lighting cast by candles), and even the obvious things play out in a satisfying way. There’s some really dynamic camerawork here, so even if it’s not inventing new techniques, it’s deploying them in a very engaging way. And there’s a whole scene filmed through a peephole which works incredibly well, so much so we come back to that shot a few more times. I also appreciate it largely doesn’t lean on jump scares, so the ones it uses don’t feel cheap. And it’s got some truly unsettling imagery and violence. Some of that was unfortunately spoiled by the trailer, but there’s plenty more.

I appreciate the characters are mostly not dumb. They don’t go running into danger unnecessarily or unbelievably. They’re pretty quick to figure out something’s wrong with Ellie, although they don’t want to believe it. That’s true of many characters coming around to the supernatural; it’s not that they can’t see what’s up, they’re just in denial. Danny fairly quickly tells Beth (Lily Sullivan) about the book and vinyl, and they quickly go back to them to look for answers. More often than many movies, they did what I was hoping they would in quick order. Now, whether it always has the desired outcome is a separate story…

This movie doesn’t have a bunch on its mind, but it does explore the theme of motherhood a bit. It’s not particularly deep, but the idea of doing anything for your kids is probably the closest we get, as Beth defends Ellie’s kids as best she can, even putting herself in harms way to do so. And while it’s implied she’s a bit wild at the outset, the events set in motion force her to quickly get herself together if she’s going to get all (or any…) of them out alive.

The performances are mostly fine. Nothing great, nothing terrible. I do want to call out Alyssa Sutherland as putting on a great physical performance as the monster. It was enhanced by CGI of course, but it’s still up to the actor to provide the platform, and she does a marvelous job. She’s a such a dominating presence, just from the way she moves about a room.

There’s not really much else to say. It’s a solid film with plenty of interesting kills, but that theme isn’t super deep, and it doesn’t seem to be saying much else. Which is fine! It just means that without the context of the other films, I can only say so much. But I’d definitely say check it out!