I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but after hearing so much praise for this latest instalment of a decades long and beloved horror franchise, I went in with high expectations but came out disappointed that for all its bells and whistles, Evil Dead Rise is just more gore porn that has little to nothing to say. For me horror works when it explores our fears, goes to darker corners of our hearts, and provides some catharsis on real world emotions and terrors. It lets me down when it is just about simple ghosts, demons, or monsters, jump scares, and lots of blood as if that's a proxy from something that might actually be scary.
When it comes down to it the Evil Dead series are possession movies. Stories of possessions can be fascinating in terms of how they can explore faith, exploitation of the vulnerable, or how we choose to let evil "in". But I haven't seen the Evil Dead series explore these ideas. Instead they fall on the less impressive side of this sub-genre, which, when you boil it down, says "evil" is something exterior that is trying to infiltrate us and we have to fight to keep it out. This is, well, boring to me. I had hopes that perhaps Rise might look at themes around how frightening motherhood can be, or the trauma of abuses coming from within a family, but Rise does not, at best paying lip service to any discussion of these interesting ideas. Instead it just an excuse for gross violence at the hands of mythical "deadites" with rather predictable results. I could see everything that happens coming and it suffers very much from the sort of typical horror problems like people making poor choices which help advance the plot.
Sure Evil Dead Rise does show off the talents of rather new director Cronin who has a knack for good film making. But the problem for me is just how rote Rise's story is. This may be a well made film, although you'd have to ignore the many many moments the film just pauses in the middle of action without creating any sense of realistic breathing space, but it's substance is lacking. And that for me committed the worst sin a horror film can commit; it wasn't scary. It was gross but it never shook me, never upset me, never gave me pause to look "under the bed". It employs the cheapest forms of horror gimmicks and never raised terror in me.
Evil Dead Rise is thankfully short and keeps its story moving at a breakneck pace so it doesn't drag. But even with that I was bored. I appreciated the film (mostly) avoided the sex shaming that demon possession movies usually descend into. I also enjoyed the film's pretty obvious homages to horror classics such as The Shining. I guess for what it is Rise isn't bad. It's just so plain and dull. It offers little to nothing to think about and just follows a rather been-there-done-that story.
Evil Dead Rise is just not for me. I just want more from my horror.
Evil Dead Rise
Starring: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Bruce Campbell
Writer/Director: Lee Cronin
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