Evil Dead Rise is sort of a sequel to Fede Álvarez' 2013 remake/reboot sort, but really it's a standalone movie as much as anything, although the director (Lee Cronin) intends it to be part of the franchise continuity...lemme start again.
Evil Dead Rise is a demonic horror movie starring Alyssa Sutherland, Lily Sullivan, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols, and Nell Fisher.
Evil Dead movies largely follow a pattern - a group of people are isolated, usually at a cabin in the woods, but this time on the 13th floor of an crumbling apartment building after an earthquake. They happen across an obviously evil book (the one in this one has literal fangs, for crying out loud), they read from it anyway, the Deadites arrive and possess people, wanting nothing so much as to kill all the motherfuckers and torture them along the way. One plucky dark-haired protagonist generally survives, often missing a limb.
Evil Dead Rise mostly follows the formula. Beth (Sullivan) comes to visit her older sister Ellie (Sutherland) hoping for some support after finding out she's pregnant and discovers that Ellie's husband left her and their three kids, Danny (Davies), Bridget (Echols), and Kassie (Fisher) and they're getting booted out of this place in a month. That turns out not to matter much because the earthquake opens up a bank vault below the building and Danny finds not only the aforementioned toothy book but three phonograph records (Danny is an aspiring DJ, so actually has turntables). So obviously he plays them and they turn out to be a recording of a really dumb priest (Mark Mitchinson, who also plays one of their neighbors) reading from the book, and the evil-cam is released!
Now, I knew going in that there were a bunch of kids in this movie. Bridget and Danny are teenagers, Kassie is probably seven, and violence to kids is one of my personal horror bugaboos, so I wasn't sure how much I was going to get into this movie. But I actually really liked it, and I think it's a matter of a couple of things. First, the movie sets expectations nicely - it's an Evil Dead movie, bad things are going to happen, it actually starts off with three 20-somethings at a cabin in the woods getting ripped apart so we know what we're in for. But I think the best choice was having Ellie be the main antagonist (rather, her possessed body). We're then free to focus on these particular characters and the horror they're going through, rather than watching a mother see her kids get ripped up, which is a much harder watch, I think.
Anyway, I've basically already explained the plot - everyone except Beth and Kassie get violently possessed, stabbed, shot, and fed through a woodchipper (no, really), and our dark-haired protagonist escapes and manages to save one of her niblings! And doesn't even lose a hand, so that's pretty good, considering.
As is typical of the series, most of the effects are practical and it shows. The apartment looks real and lived-in, and the building itself looks like it has some history and some character. We only get brief glimpses of the family's unfortunate neighbors before Ellie kills them all, but we get an idea of their relationships to the family and so when Ellie becomes a monster and tears them apart it's actually got some weight.
Much like with Álvarez' movie, this doesn't have the cheeky humor of the Raimi installments, but I think that's good. The series has some identity and that's being respected even if the intensity gets turned up, and if these movies really do share continuity with, say, Ash vs. The Evil Dead (the TV series), I kind of want to check it out.
My Grade: B+
Rewatch Value: Medium
Next up: The Exorcist
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