It’s that time of year again! Time to celebrate the Resurrection with a weeklong plunge into all things zombie! Here’s the history: In 2008, Dr. Girlfriend and I decided to spend a week or so each year marathoning through zombie films that we’d never seen before, and I would blog short reviews. And simple as that, the Easter Zombie Movie Marathon was born.
For the curious, here are links to 2008, 2009 (a bad year), 2010, 2011, 2012 (when we left the blog behind), 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.
[Editor’s note: An earlier version of this review ran in April 2023. This review has been revised and updated with new information.]
After ten years in development hell after the previous feature film installment of the Evil Dead franchise and just five since the wrap of the third and final season of the television sequel, Ash vs Evil Dead, Evil Dead Rise has finally arrived. There’s no Ash this time (unless you count a brief audio cameo) and Fede Alvarez is nowhere to be seen, but with Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Rob Tapert producing and Lee Cronin writing and directing, we get something that stays true to the spirit of the original film.
I’m going to try to avoid spoilers, but if something appeared in the trailers, I may mention it – like that cheese grater gag (I won’t lie; I cringed). The film opens at a cabin in the woods. A nice one this time, and before more than a few minutes have passed, all hell breaks loose (literally), and we get that fantastic shot of the possessed girl rising up and floating above the lake. Then the titles rise up behind her and the music blares and we cut to black.
The fateful words, “One day earlier” appear and we know from the get-go that everybody we are about to meet are more than likely fucked. What we get is something that we haven’t really seen in the film series before. People living their lives in the city (of course Ash vs Evil Dead had its fair share of this). It’s southern California and Beth (Lily Sullivan) has just found out she’s pregnant, so she heads to the home of her sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), a tattoo artist whose husband has just left a couple of months prior. She has three kids, tough and smart Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), wanna-be DJ Danny (Morgan Davies), and the adorable little sister with a freaky creative streak, Kassie (Nell Fisher) – who steals the film and is downright incredible.
Cronin’s script is tight, with only a few character moments slowing down the story long enough to provide just enough development so we start to care about all these doomed souls. Even the neighbors who are only given glimmers of actual personality are likeable. It’s okay. They don’t need to do much more than get in the way of the Mack Truck that is Momma when she turns.
That’s not a spoiler. It’s there on the poster.
The script also adds a few new details to the lore of Evil Dead, most specifically that there are three volumes of the Book of the Dead – a tweak that casually references and reframes a classic moment in Army of Darkness. It’s actually a pretty amazing shift in the franchise that opens up opportunities for future films taking place in just about any time or setting.
There are a few jump scares, but not too many, and just about everything that happens in the plot is nicely set up earlier in the film. Nothing happens just to have something happen. The motherhood angle works thematically to give Beth the motivation to try harder and harder to survive and save the kids (and her own unborn child) after Ellie – the responsible sister – turns into an unstoppable murder machine.
That’s another thing that really works well with the shift to a big city setting (although most of the film takes place in one apartment). True to form for the Deadites from across the entire Evil Dead franchise, you know that the only way to stop them is to completely dismember them. And even then, they’ll likely keep coming for you. And they love to fuck with you before they swallow your soul.
For those gore hounds out there, there’s nothing to fear.
Evil Dead Rise is filled with practical effects and whatever is supported with digital enhancement is so smooth I was never taken out of a scene. In fact, a couple of the more disgusting effects had to be digital, but they were still extremely effective and made me actually shudder while I giggled. And in true Evil Dead fashion, as we reach the climax of the film, the blood and gore goes way over the top in a way that warmed my heart; much like the climax of Alverez’s 2013 sequel.
When I first saw this movie, I hadn’t watched Season Three of Ash vs Evil Dead, so the monstrosity that attacks in the parking garage at the end took me by surprise but turns out even it is a callback to the ill-fated Knight Marcus in the TV series.
There are callbacks everywhere.
And there’s blood everywhere.
And body parts.
And an iconic chainsaw scene.
And just when you think everything is safe, we get a reminder that, oh yeah, this all happened the day before the opening mayhem at the lake.
In what is maybe the best news, according to Bruce Campbell, “We’re going to try and do them more like every two or three years rather than every 10 years. It’s also the first time Sam is working with his brother Ivan to create an overall Bible that will give future writers and directors an idea of where this thing should go next to potentially tie in some of these stories. So I think it’s going to get a little more tied in as the years go by.”
I’m all right with the more serious tone of the film – despite some blatant dialogue shout outs to famous lines – since we’ve got three seasons of more light-hearted comedy horror with the TV series. Cronin did a good job staying true to the feel of the original film and Alvarez’s sequel. The gore is extreme, the effects are solid, and the Deadites are freakier and scarier than they’ve been in a while.
Also, for those wondering, there’s no after credit scene.
Since the original draft of this review was posted back in April 2023, another installment in the franchise has been announced. Evil Dead Burn is due in 2026, directed by Sébastien Vaniček with a screenplay by Vaniček and Florent Bernard, with yet another spin-off in the pipeline, set to be written and directed by Francis Galluppi.