- Starring
- Alyssa Sutherland, Lily Sullivan, Nell Fisher
- Director
- Lee Cronin
- Rating
- R
- Genre
- Horror
- Release date
- April 21, 2023
Overall Score
Rating Overview
Rating Summary
In 1979, Sam Raimi took his beloved yellow 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale, a handful of friends, and a 16mm camera into the woods. Despite his limited resources and having a budget of less than $400,000, he made a film that would launch a beloved franchise with three movies…and two other films dressed up in Evil Dead costumes.
**UPDATE** It was recently correctly pointed out to me in the comments, that, unbeknownst to me, the teenage male character, Danny, is played by a 21-year-old woman. That’s just about the wokest casting there is.
Evil Dead Rise
Evil Dead Rise tells the story of a broken family who unwittingly summons an unholy terror into their lives after stumbling upon a copy of the skin-bound Book of The Dead (erstwhile known as the Necronomicon). They then find themselves in a struggle for their souls and lives, as they try to escape the ever-expanding rogues gallery of possessed friends and loved ones.
Evil Dead Rise is a poor imitation of its predecessors. This is a shame because it’s not for a lack of talent from the cast. Starring Alyssa Sutherland, who is best known for her role as Princess Aslaug in the History Channel’s Vikings, everyone gives a competent performance. Even the bit roles of various neighbors are performed adequately and they are treated as realistic people who find themselves in an extraordinary situation.
Unfortunately, the problems with the film are far more foundational. It suffers from a lack of imagination and is utterly devoid of the trademark tongue-in-cheek humor that has allowed the originals to stand the test of time. This failure falls squarely on the shoulders of its director and writer, Lee Cronin. Cronin’s inexperience is only matched by his predictability. Unlike, Sam Raimi’s unhinged zaniness, Cronin’s voiceless sequel relies on gallons of fake blood and a dozen Easter Eggs to wow audiences who he hopes don’t know any better.
On the few occasions when Cronin did actively try to pay homage to Rami’s film style, it was so jarringly different than the rest of the film and so hamfistedly shoehorned in, that I would find myself unceremoniously ripped from the film’s illusion by the allusion.
Even the performances, which I already stated were competent, could have been easily coached up by Cronin. There was never a sense of animal panic exuded by anyone (except maybe one of the neighbors…and that only briefly). Instead, the level of tension peaked and plateaued at about 6.5 out of 10 throughout most of the film. A director worth a d@mn would have been able to squeeze the extra juice out of this cast and could have certainly goosed it with some creative camerawork.
When the dawn arises and the shadows recede, Evil Dead Rise is a derivative and mediocre film better off forgotten. Do yourself a favor and watch the original trilogy or, if you are in the mood for a modern possession horror film that is at least better than this trite, check out The Pope’s Exorcist.
WOKE ELEMENTS
- **UPDATE** In a world in which actual Hawaiians are attacked as “not dark enough to play Hawaiians,” I don’t think that it’s too outrageous to take umbrage at a chick playing a dude. We dinged it pretty hard for this.
- The phrase “that’s culturally insensitive” is uttered without irony in reference to a question about drinking snake venom while on a trip to Bangkok. However, the rebuke is met with derision and the movie moves on. As an aside, snake wine made from fermenting venomous snakes and rice has been a part of Chinese culture for a thousand years.
- The same girl who is upset about perceived cultural insensitivity is seen painting a “save the planet” protest sign in another scene but it is a blink-and-you’d-miss-it moment” and climate change is never preached.
- The same girl has a mannish haircut. It’s impossible to tell if all of this is meant to be satirical. This being Hollywood, we’re erring on the side of it being woke…but I’ll prorate this and the two above it.
- In an early scene, a child (played by an 11-year-old but clearly meant to be much younger than that) is given a gift and told that it’s for “bad@$$ rock chicks.” This young lady then turns to her mom and “comically” says, “hey look, Mom, I’m a bad@$$ rock chick.” Because the willful corruption of the youth is great if it’s for a laugh, right?
- The dad is a POS who has abandoned his family.
- In the opening sequence, the only guy is an idiot.
OVERTLY NON-WOKE ELEMENTS
- Balancing out much of the aforementioned wokeness, one of the main characters finds out that she is pregnant, and, while she’s not happy about it, the moment that the unborn child is put in mortal danger, the audience hears its heartbeat, and the mother immediately comes to understand that she is a mother and she must protect the life inside her. Abortion is never hinted at as an option.
- The POS dad at least pays child support
- With the exception of the fellow from the opening scene, the remaining three guys who we see on screen are treated with respect and are heroic, if ineffectual.
- Even though this is a female-led film, none of the women are overpowered or perfect and wise beyond reason.
James Carrick
James Carrick is a passionate film enthusiast with a degree in theater and philosophy. James approaches dramatic criticism from a philosophic foundation grounded in aesthetics and ethics, offering insight and analysis that reveals layers of cinematic narrative with a touch of irreverence and a dash of snark.
22 comments
Jack
April 21, 2023 at 3:29 pm
Looks nothing like an evil dead movie and looks woke to me. So sad
[email protected]
April 21, 2023 at 4:10 pm
I’ll be reviewing it soon. Stay tuned.
RCC
May 9, 2023 at 11:06 pm
One of those “three guys” seen on screen is actually a diversity hire trans dude, born female, cast in the film solely because “he” is trans. That’s the very definition of woke.
James Carrick
May 10, 2023 at 7:13 am
Well, $h!t. I had no idea.
Gabe
May 12, 2023 at 8:59 pm
That person playing Danny tries so hard to act like a man and fails so miserably, lol
Dan
May 12, 2023 at 10:39 pm
So disappointing as a HUGE fan of the series. Wokeness RUINS … EVERYTHING
Jeremiah
May 15, 2023 at 10:30 pm
That is too bad, ruining franchises does not pay.
Robert
May 19, 2023 at 2:01 am
49 feels like a severely over generous non wokeness rating. It should be in the LOW teens. unmitigated crap filled WOKEFEST. Couldn’t even get the first 20 minutes. Wokey-pokey hot wet garbage.
James Carrick
May 19, 2023 at 6:54 am
We have a system whereby we detract points for instances of wokeness and its influence on the each movie. We felt that the story itself didn’t sacrifice much in the pursuit of wokeness and originally had our non-wokeness score marked much higher. Then we found out about the trans-casting. That’s a big woke piece o’poo no no.
Thanks for your comment.
Derek
May 21, 2023 at 7:27 pm
I was wondering why this movie was being given nonstop 10/10 reviews everywhere I looked and felt like it was being propped up. Now I see the alphabet mafia was at it again. It was a miserable snoozefest. I actually fell asleep at the theaters.
Dredd Martyr
May 23, 2023 at 11:51 pm
Evil Dead’s worst film ever added to the franchise.
Danny is a visual mesh of Miley Cyrus and Justin Bieber, it was too distracting to take this character/actor seriously.
His sister with the boy haircut is a one face actor that is better off standing on the side of a street somewhere protesting for climate change. Respresentation has become more important than acting quality in today’s Hollywoke.
biden
June 4, 2023 at 11:04 pm
touch grass maybe spend some time with your grandkids hmm?
Jack M
May 24, 2023 at 6:59 pm
I’m so glad I found this site although I do wish I read this review before watching this film. The diversity trans hire really bothered me the whole film (I didn’t look anything up, but Danny looked like a girl to me that’s dressed like a boy) plus the “woke” sister that looks like a boy… So tired of Hollywood constantly pushing gender ideology (although at least this is not a kids film) I truly just can’t enjoys movies with even a “decent” amount of wokeness in it even though this movie had a “bearable” level of it, but I still just couldn’t enjoy it because of that. nice review !
James Carrick
May 24, 2023 at 9:09 pm
Thanks for the comment and the kudos. One of the reasons that we both rate the wokeness and detail it in the review is for exactly this scenario. We recognize that conservatives aren’t all alike, and what might be tolerable for some isn’t for others. Had we read this review beforehand and not needed to review, we’d have gladly skipped it too. 😉
Thanks again
Cody
June 4, 2023 at 12:21 am
If you look close at the bedroom door when the two women, Elle and Beth, are working out their phone call drama, you can see a piece if artwork. It say feminism is not a dirty word 😂. I had to turn it off a but later. Horrible remake.
James Meridith
June 24, 2023 at 3:44 am
Ya I’m calling woke. This movie is girl power to max.
MM
June 27, 2023 at 9:32 pm
I wish I would have read this before watching. I didn’t make it all that far as the girl Danny trying to pass as a dude just wasn’t working. Casting was all around terrible.
John Anderton
July 23, 2023 at 10:23 pm
Am I the only one who wasn’t bothered about Danny at all while watching the film? I watched the whole film without realising she was trans. Girls can be DJ’s and have dodgy haircuts too. It was only afterwards when the other half kept referring to Danny as “him” and I kept correcting her by saying that she’s clearly a girl. It hadn’t even entered my head that she wasn’t a she as it’s plain as day that she is. To me at least.
Jen
August 1, 2023 at 1:03 am
This movie had plenty of gore and was a fine installment to the evil dead franchise, lots of blood. They killed off the tran character so idk why y’all are complaining. It was about a low income family living in Los Angelos so makes sense they are gonna be liberal. Y’all really be calling this a bad horror movie because you don’t like the personal life choices of a character who got killed off in five seconds?
Nicole
August 14, 2023 at 8:50 pm
I need Danny was female from beginning. Feminine features.
Stu Mac
December 21, 2023 at 10:12 pm
As soon as I saw “Danny” it threw me off. I persisted for about 20 seconds further before I HAD to stop the film and look up the actor. Yep – trans aussie woman. Nothing against her per se, but you cant take a film seriously when they try to pass of an obvious woman on hormones as a child and act like nobody will notice. We notice. The cringeness from that element was so bad that I couldn’t bare to watch the rest of the movie.
Jennifer
January 22, 2024 at 4:59 am
I for one was very surprised that Danny was played by a biological woman and thought she did very well. The film was overly gory, with a much higher death list than I thought it was necessary, but I thought it was pretty well done. The non-woke factors were good, esp for an LA-based story. The demon even explicitly said “Two souls?” when realizing that the heroine was pregnant. And as much of a jerk as the first guy in the film was, he did die trying to save his girlfriend.