Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Evil Dead Rise’ on HBO Max, a Splatter-Happy Continuation of a Classic Franchise

The undead Deadites live AGAIN again in Evil Dead Rise (now streaming on Max, in addition to VOD services like Amazon Prime Video), the fifth movie in the beloved cult-horror franchise – and the most commercially successful, having grossed $115 million worldwide in its first month of theatrical release. The involvement of series creators Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell stops at executive-producer credits, the duo selecting Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin writing and directing a movie that’s apparently a modern continuation of the story, although it takes on the holy-crap-that’s-a-lotta-blood aesthetic of Fede Alvarez’s 2013 “soft reboot” Evil Dead. And that may be Rise’s ultimate claim to fame; Cronin said he used 1,500 gallons of blood during filming, which is a hell of a lot, but, having seen the film, I have to say, it seems like there was even more. If that doesn’t entice you to fire this baby up, I don’t know what will.   

EVIL DEAD RISE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: I won’t give away the opening gag, but I will say it proves that Raimi’s signature first-person whoosh-through-the-woods cam is a lot easier to pull off today than it was in 1981. As it is, it’s part of a bait-and-switch sequence that has us thinking we’re going to spend some more time in a cabin in the woods – a nifty A-frame that looks lovely in every way – except after a flash of bilious gore and a quite smashing title card, the setting shifts to Los Angeles, ONE DAY EARLIER, and then pretty much stays there. It’s a night that can best be described as dark and stormy. Beth (Lily Sullivan) occupies the dim stall of a dingy bathroom in a concert venue, which is a terrible place to learn that you’re pregnant. She stares at the test in her hands and sighs. She’s a guitar tech and at the top of her game and she’s always on the road and, well, now what? 

Elsewhere. A keen old apartment in a keen old apartment building. Here lives Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and her three kids, teen Danny (Morgan Davies), teen middle kid Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) and kid sister Kassie (Nell Fisher). Beth buzzes in, Auntie Beth, Ellie’s sister Beth. They haven’t talked much. It’s a little tense. Ellie has to move the kids out because the building is condemned, and she also split up with her husband, two things Beth might know if she returned her damn phone calls. They have a lot to talk about so Ellie sends the kids out for pizza and just as they pull into the basement parking garage an earthquake hits and shakes the building and opens a fissure in the garage floor. Danny peers down in there and sees an old bank vault so jumps down in there and finds a book bound in human flesh with big long fanglike teeth on the edge that gnash when you open and close it. Neat! He also finds some old vinyl records which Danny can’t resist, because he’s a DJ and because records spin and spin and spin and make wonderful sounds and hypnotize and possess you until all you can think about is how to get more records even though more is never ever enough.

Sorry, wrong horror story. This is one about demonic possession, which happens when Danny plays the records – he has to spin them with his finger because his turntable doesn’t do 78 rpm – and opens the book. Of course, we all know that’s the Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon, and when the voice on the record reads the incantation, it will awaken something and all heck gonna bust loose. Ellie’s on the elevator when an invisible force whams her around and makes her body contort and inspires her to climb the walls in all kinds of ways that are unnatural to humans. She gets back to the apartment with a look in her eye that says Things Ain’t Right and then she spews a massive amount of creamy liquid vomit on the floor, but it’s white, so I don’t think that counts toward the 1,500 gallons. And then, to the horror of her sister and children and a couple of helpful neighbors, Ellie dies. And then then, to the even greater horror of her sister and children and a couple of helpful neighbors, she undies. Don’t. You. Hate. It. When. That. Happens?

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Although there’s a late-third-act development that’s very much inspired by John Carpenter’s The Thing, and another one that pays a million bucks’ worth of homage to The Shining, Evil Dead Rise is pretty much cut from the whole cloth of previous franchise entries. Which means it’s time for a HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL ranking of the Evil Dead movies:

5. Evil Dead Rise – I liked this movie! Still comes in last though.

4. Evil Dead (2013) – Director Fede Alvarez proved he was the real deal.

3. Army of Darkness – The closest thing we’ve ever come to a full-blown live-action cartoon.

2. The Evil Dead – Lo-fi charm goes a long way for perhaps thee most cult of all American horror films.

1. Evil Dead II – Here’s where Raimi found his footing as a director. And his and Campbell’s comedy chops were on-f—ing-point.

Performance Worth Watching: Toss-up: In the she-was-put-through-the-ringer-for-the-role dept., do you prefer the Blood-Drenched Final Girl vibes of Sullivan, or the Devil-Inside Grinning Evil vibes of Sutherland? 

Memorable Dialogue: How about this fun exchange?

Cute little kid in cute little kid voice: Mom?

Adult woman in Satanic voice: Mommy’s with the maggots now!

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: Elevated horror, smellevated horror. Evil Dead Rise is an unapologetically stylish gush-o-rama that seems to be thinking about possibly having an insightful thing or two to say about motherhood, but ultimately discards that and settles on delivering cheep thrillz. Cheep thrillz involving a chainsaw, a shotgun, a doll’s head on a stick that’s named Staffonie, and (eesh) a cheese grater. Every gruesome injury or kill lands on the spectrum between UGH and HAHA, with the best ones inspiring laughter as a means to ward off disgust. 

It’s easy to admire Cronin’s direction. He makes fine use of one primary location – apartment, hallway, elevator, parking garage – and traffics in atmospherics that are grim and dingy, but never oppressively so. Some will gripe that Raimi’s OTT comedy is swapped out for a more subtle take on tongue-through-cheek humor (some griped about it with Alvarez’s film), but nobody should complain about Cronin’s visual effects, which are convincingly viscerally disgustingly vile, and appear to be primarily of the practical/prosthetic variety. And the kills, which sometimes aren’t kills because Deadites don’t go down so easily, span a wide gamut of nastiness, from simple stabbings to unsanitary scalpings. Is this what we’re here for? Depraved sicko entertainment? Damn straight. Anything else would just get in the way of all the fun.

Our Call: STREAM IT. It’s not Raimi, but Evil Dead Rise delivers the red stuff and the laughs with gusto.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.