I’m a frequent blood donor. I’ve donated more than 20 gallons in my lifetime to date. Sometimes, while in a macabre mood, I think about all that blood, in vats, in bathtubs, in the people it’s been delivered to, or sometimes in the refrigerated section of a supermarket. Twenty gallons. Probably a supermarket for vampires. “Just stopping by the market to get some scratchers and a gallon of Frog.”
There was more blood in Evil Dead Rise. You should know that right now. There are many horror films I criticize for being tame with either a low body count, a threat that ain’t so threatening, or simply a “I guess that’s horror” feel. If a film is labeled as “horror,” but you can’t tell when you’ve left, that’s a fail. I have no such complaint about Evil Dead Rise; this film is intense, moody, and graphic throughout. I didn’t even want to live in that crappy apartment before the Evil Dead showed up. When the elevator fills rapidly with blood, however, that’s just an added bonus.
Single mother Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) raises her three children in a hole. They are on the 14th floor of a condemned El Lay apartment building. There isn’t a single thing in this place that seems up to code, including its future demon occupant. The kids are in the subterranean parking lot when an earthquake happens. The quake opens a hole in the floor revealing an abandoned bank vault. But the vault ain’t empty.
Well, hey, wasn’t King Tut’s tomb found immediately beneath the ruins of another tomb? Isn’t that why it was kept intact? Would-be DJ Danny (Morgan Davies) scales the new ruins below and discovers vinyl and a book of the dead. Can’t say the spoken-word album does anything for the dance crowd, but that and a little blood, 
and surprise the dead are back with a new album, and “Truckin’ ” ain’t on it … they immediately possess mom, who uses her newfound evil to make a 16-egg Tartarus-style omelet.
Oh, and mom’s black sheep newly pregnant sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) is in for a visit. Came at the right time, sis; we’re all going to Hell. Of course, geographic isolation is one of the keys to any quality horror; Evil Dead Rise takes care of this plot point by taking over the elevator, losing access to the escape ladder, and literally removing the staircases to lower floors. A couple of neighborly mercy killings later and it’s just mom against sis and the kids. Good lu
ck!
The power of Evil Dead Rise is once the ball gets rolling, it ain’t stoppin’. The film doesn’t ask a whole lot of questions, doesn’t try to figure stuff out, doesn’t really care who “ought” to be saved. It is literally like evil got unleashed on the audience. Can’t say this film will make you think a whole lot or anything along those lines, but it was intense, and bloody, very bloody. You’ve been warned.
There once was a family of five
Who lived in the ‘hood of Jive
Went evil came knockin’
Former problems went walkin’
Rent’s unneeded with nobody alive
Rated R, 96 Minutes
Director: Lee Cronin
Writer: Lee Cronin
Genre: So Evil, So Dead
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: This is a horror fan’s horror
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Do you get squeamish at this sight of blood?
