SXSW 2023 Film Review: Evil Dead Rise
COME GET SOME
Every single Evil Dead movie is a bloody, gruesome delight, and now the tradition continues with Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise. A decade after a deadly-serious reboot turned the franchise on its head, this new installment finds a bond between sisters shredded by a disgusting waltz of Deadites, guts, and gore. Alyssa Sutherland brings her A-game as a twisted, cackling fiend: a physical performance for the ages. Minor spoilers ahead…
Nearly a decade ago, director Fede Álvarez picked up the chainsaw from Sam Raimi and flipped the Evil Dead formula on its head. Eschewing the vaudeville “splatstick” of the Bruce Campbell-led adventures for a new brand of outrageousness, 2013’s Evil Dead amplified its carnage with a grimy sadism that poured buckets of blood on its self-serious, cabin-dwelling protagonists. Flash forward ten years, and the Evil Dead franchise has once again found a new steward, this time in Irish director Lee Cronin (Hole in the Ground). Splitting the difference between Raimi’s playfulness and Álvarez’s brutality, Cronin finds a sweet spot in the middle that is - surprisingly - anything but ambivalent: Evil Dead Rise’s uproarious Deadite splatterfest had its SXSW audience yelping through its wince-inducing violence and demented humor.
Away from the series’ familiar home turf of cabin-in-the-woods terror, Rise finds a new - but equally - claustrophobic setting in a creaky, condemned high-rise. A crumbling tower on its last legs in downtown Los Angeles, the film’s (mostly) singular location is the home of beleaguered single mom Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and her three kids: Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and Kassie (Nell Fisher). When Ellie’s sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) - a perennial fuck-up who has been touring as a rock band guitar tech - drops by to patch up their frosty relationship, their uneasy reunion is interrupted by a sinister earthquake, splitting open the ground to reveal a long-buried Necronomicon. It isn’t before long that the classic Evil Dead mistake is made: incantations from the demonic tome are spoken aloud. The signature possession cam’s first victim? Ellie.
“Evil Dead Rise’s uproarious Deadite splatterfest had its SXSW audience yelping through its wince-inducing violence and demented humor.”
Of all the Evil Dead films, Rise is perhaps the clunkiest at getting off the ground. Its urban mise en scène requires a certain amount of unwieldy finagling to set all its infernal cogs in motion, but once it does, boy is it a treat. Whereas 2013’s Evil Dead found its dark pleasures in rending flesh from bone and spilling copious amounts of blood, Rise unearths the glint of Raimi impishness while preserving Alvarez’s penchant for gore. You’d be surprised to find that the infamous cheese grater scene from the trailer, now front-and-center in the film’s marketing, is perhaps the tamest of Evil Dead Rise’s party tricks: there’s a whole font of exaggerated viscera, vomit, and bugs just waiting to to be spilled. Anemic first act aside, Rise finds a rhythm to its bloodletting, primed to bring the house down. In the post-screening Q&A, star Lily Sullivan observed that effective horror is akin to music, and Evil Dead Rise - once it hits its stride - embodies the comparison with gutsy aplomb, crescendoing into a relentless barrage of decimated throats, blown-out eyeballs, and mangled torsos: it’s a gorehound’s dream come true.
“Mommy’s with the maggots now.” Of course, none of Evil Dead Rise would work half as well without its primary Deadite performer. Resurrecting the taunting, over-the-top instigators of Raimi’s Dead, Alyssa Sutherland fully commits to a terrifying performance as a warped, cackling demon; it’s a horror villain for the ages as she shambles, leaps, and terrorizes her own family. Sutherland’s insidious fiend is perhaps the closest the film comes to a classic Raimi flavor, delicately walking the line between cartoon camp and petrifying force. Sullivan’s Beth - picking up the mantle from Bruce Campbell’s Ash and Jane Levy’s Mia - also makes for a fine Evil Dead protagonist, adeptly shouldering the transformation from prodigal kid sister to guardian aunt amidst the film’s increasing cruelty to its heroes. And yes, just like its 2013 predecessor, Rise mines gleeful pleasure from being exceedingly cruel to its characters, especially the children. Embrace its “anyone can die” miasma of suspense, because by its outrageous third act, Evil Dead Rise will have you hooting and hollering through a tidal wave of blood and guts, beckoning you with the immortal words of Ashley J. Williams: “Come get some.”
