Evil Dead Rise - Lee Cronin - 2023

★★★★★-Shotguns. Chainsaws. Wood-chippers. Eyeballs getting bitten out and spat into a child's mouth. A literal bloodbath, they use over 6,500 liters of fake blood. This is what the Evil Dead films are about. 

I found this to be shockingly good. A near perfect movie worthy of the franchise, my favorite in all of horror. Blows the 2013 movie out of the water. My only minor complaint is that I don't really like not knowing where this fits in with the other films. But how do any of them fit in? 

Gist is estranged sister Beth (played by Lily Sullivan) visits older sis Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and her three kids (Morgan Davies plays Danny, Gabrielle Echols plays Bridget, Nell Fisher plays Kassie), two of whom are high school aged, and the youngest girl, Cassie, who is roughly seven or eight, probably, I don't know. They live in a dilapidated LA apartment that is about to be condemned and torn down. It apparently had many other lives before it was converted to apartments, including a bank. After an earthquake opens the floor of the parking garage, Danny goes into what used to be the vault and finds the dreaded Book of the Dead and some records translating the ancient text. Despite his sister Bridget's warnings, he listens to the translations, which unleash the Deadites. Standard Evil Dead setup, but in a new local, which was pretty cool. What follows is glorious apartment dwellers vs. the dead action. 

Directed and written by Lee Cronin. His only other feature to date is The Hole in the Ground back in 2019. The fifth installment in the Evil Dead film franchise. The main guys associated with the original creators had their hands in this film as well. Rob Tapert, who produced the original, produced this one as well director Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell executive producing. The idea for this film came after plans for direct sequels to Evil Dead (2013) and Army of Darkness were abandoned and Ash vs Evil Dead was cancelled after the third season, which still hurts. 

Overall, loved it. The opening is fantastic. Doesn't mess around. Wastes no time putting you in this world. Then, when the kid plays the record, and we get that old familiar “Kandar”, followed by the zoom, got chills. 

While I may see the first three films in the rosiest glasses possible, I was pretty critical of the ones that don't star Bruce Campbell. However, Cronin gave me everything I wanted in terms of nods to Raimi's films while also making it his own. The monster's final form is not something we've seen before and was the perfect way to one up the holy hell vibe. Definitely not for the faint-hearted, this is the bloodiest film in the franchise with any character potentially dying horrifically. It's groovy. Come get some.