Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Evil Dead Rise is exactly the kind of movie I want from the Evil Dead franchise: relentless horror, creative violence and characters who make the situation matter. Moving the Deadites out of the cabin and into an apartment building could have felt like a gimmick, but Lee Cronin makes that setting work. The confined halls and rooms become a trap, and there's nowhere for this family to go once the evil takes hold.

The film wastes very little time. It establishes the family and their problems, then lets things fall apart in spectacular fashion. I was impressed by how quickly it builds tension without sacrificing the people at the center. When the possession starts, you're not watching a group of strangers get attacked. You're watching a family turned against itself, which makes the horror feel much more personal.

The effects are terrific. There is an extraordinary amount of blood, some nasty body-horror imagery and plenty of moments that made me wince. I love when a movie finds new ways to make familiar supernatural threats frightening. The Deadites here feel dangerous and unpredictable, and the performances help sell their awful transformations.

What makes the movie more than a collection of gross scenes is the pacing. It's fast, but not so frantic that I lost track of what was happening. The story gives the characters understandable motivations, and even the quieter moments feel like they're building toward something. I didn't find myself checking how much time was left.

I also appreciated the way Cronin ties the film to the larger Evil Dead mythology without requiring viewers to have memorized every earlier installment. The Necronomicon and the possession give it an unmistakable identity, but the characters and location are new enough that the story can stand on its own.

I had a great time with Evil Dead Rise. It is vicious, disgusting and surprisingly emotional when it needs to be. For horror fans who want a genuinely intense theatrical experience, I think this is one of the stronger modern entries in the franchise.

Evil Dead Rise was one of the bloodiest, grossest movies I've watched, and somehow I was still completely invested in the story. I went in expecting lots of awful things because I knew what kind of franchise this was. I just wasn't prepared for how intense everything would feel once it got going.

What helped was that I cared about the family. They're living in an apartment building, dealing with normal family problems, and suddenly everything turns into a nightmare. The characters felt real enough that I wanted them to survive, and that made the terrible things happening to them much harder to watch. I wasn't just waiting for another gross effect. I was worried about people I actually liked.

There are so many moments when I wanted to cover my eyes or ears. The effects are convincing, and some of the body horror is almost impossible for me to look at. It isn't just blood. It's the way people move and the things happening to their bodies. I spent plenty of time saying no to what I was seeing.

The apartment setting made everything worse. You're supposed to feel safe at home, and suddenly the halls and rooms are full of danger. I kept thinking about how difficult it would be to escape when the threat is already inside the building. There isn't a lot of open space to get away from it.

I liked that the movie didn't feel slow. Even when the characters weren't being attacked, I was worried about what might happen next. The story kept me interested, and I never felt like I was sitting through scenes that weren't going anywhere.

It's certainly not a movie I'd recommend to someone who can't handle graphic horror. I know people who would be miserable watching this much blood and violence. But I can say it was well made, and it managed to scare me while giving me a story I cared about.

Evil Dead Rise was an exhausting experience, but in a way that made sense for this kind of horror. It delivered exactly the nightmare it promised, and I respect how effectively it did that.