Evil Dead Rise – Film Review

A reunion between two estranged sisters gets cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.

Lee Cronin‘s Evil Dead Rise – the fifth overall installment in the long-running franchise – takes the series to new heights and tries to make the terror feel significantly more personal this time around. In previous entries, we followed a group of people who were either friends or dating, or something of the like.

But in Rise, the horror comes home to infest a family. What would you do if something horrible was trying to take over your family member? What would you do if you were forced to turn against them if it meant that you could possibly survive? Would you do it?

Thankfully, Cronin’s film explores this moral dilemma expertly while also delivering the goods and then some with its intense gore, incredible kills, nail-biting tension, and dark atmosphere that countless fans of the franchise have come to expect to see at this point.

In my humble opinion, Rise is the best Evil Dead film ever made. Yes, the original films are total classics and they are beloved for good reasons, but this is a movie that truly creeped me out and took me on a tightly-woven thrill-ride that I won’t be forgetting anytime soon.

There are small bumps along the way, but when the film truly gets going, it works incredibly well. The film also opens up with what just may very well be the greatest title card sequence in cinematic history that sets the down for the rest of the film to follow absolutely perfectly.

This is one of those movies where, as soon as the tension starts to happen and you realize that nobody is safe, it essentially never lets up for a single moment. Thankfully though, by the time all the bloodshed occurs, we feel like we have a close connection with this family because we have already spent a lot of time with them by that point.

As soon as the mother gets infected early on in the film, you get simultaneously excited but also sad. You’re excited because you know the real meat and potatoes of the film are on its way, but you’re also a bit sad because you didn’t want anything to happen to this mother and her poor family.

And that’s the thing – they are literally poor. We are constantly shown the poverty they’re in and we can’t help but feel sympathy for them. There’s a scene in which the family discusses how much help it would be to just get a few bits of extra money that’s truly heartbreaking.

Perhaps the biggest standout performance here amongst the insanely talented cast is Alyssa Sutherland who portrays the mother. I wish the Oscars would honor and recognize horror movies because if they did, surely they would need to nominate her truly terrifying performance here. It’s the stuff that nightmares are made out of.

I’m also hoping that people will acknowledge the phenomenal visual and practical effects, as well as the cinematography here by Dave Garbett. It’s honestly one of the most well-shot horror movies I’ve seen in a long time. There’s one particular scene involving a door peephole that was especially creative.

When it comes to the Evil Dead franchise, I truly don’t know how it’s going to get better than Rise. It’s clear that they want to make more of these down the road which I’m definitely down for. But in the meantime, I think we should all celebrate the crowning achievement this film is.

Intensely gory, fantastically bloody, darkly tense, and full of surprises around every corner, Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise is an expertly crafted, crowd-pleasing horror film.