{"id":57797,"date":"2023-04-24T14:13:31","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T18:13:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=57797"},"modified":"2023-04-24T14:13:35","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T18:13:35","slug":"movie-review-evil-dead-rise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2023\/04\/movie-review-evil-dead-rise\/","title":{"rendered":"Movie Review – Evil Dead Rise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                It\u2019s weird when a super-low-budget cult movie like 1981\u2019s \u201cThe Evil Dead\u201d gets a well-funded sequel. So many elements are bound to be better with a properly-paid crew of professionals, as opposed to amateurs with a scraped-together budget. The 1981 film cost $350,000, though I\u2019d believe you if you told me it never got beyond five digits. \u201cEvil Dead Rise\u201d cost $19 million, and it looks like a perfectly-competent modern horror movie. But that\u2019s exactly the problem with this movie, it rarely rises above the level of \u201ccompetent.\u201d The original undeniably did some things that were less than competent, but it wouldn\u2019t have had the flavor that gave it success (and warranted this update) if it didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

                The new film starts with an homage to the original as we get a fast-paced first-person perspective of a trip around a campsite. Turns out there\u2019s nothing otherworldly about it, it\u2019s just a drone controlled by a prankster. We\u2019re soon introduced to an uninteresting group of young adults. One of them has been in bed all day, clearly affected by\u2026 something. Things go south and thankfully we\u2019re soon introduced to an entirely new set of characters. I\u2019m grateful that this opening was a fake-out, but I could have done without it at all. My guess is that it \u201chad\u201d to be included so the movie could claim it has a campsite scene (the setting of the original) whether it needs one or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                The new characters are a struggling family in a dilapidated apartment in Los Angeles. Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) is doing her best to raise her kids, Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and Kassie (Nell Fisher) without her absentee husband. Her sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) comes to visit, and is happy to pitch in, but she\u2019s struggling with problems of her own. Things go from bad to worse when an earthquake hits. Everyone\u2019s okay, and there may even be a silver lining in the form of a cracked-open bank vault just below the building. Bridget warns Danny not to steal from the vault, but he thinks a certain old book he finds might be worth something. Too bad this book is\u2026 The Book of the Dead!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                Fans of any incarnation of \u201cEvil Dead\u201d know what\u2019s coming. One by one, characters are turned into the possessed demons\/zombies known as \u201cDeadites.\u201d The Deadites have the ability to sound like the normal versions of the people they\u2019ve possessed, but that\u2019s just a ruse to trick other characters into opening themselves up to attacks and possession. Characters have to make tough decisions about who they can save and who they need to kill. And it\u2019s all incredibly gory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                The scares are relatively effective. We get some nice long shots of characters in gruesome makeup, where a lesser movie wouldn\u2019t let us get a good look, lest we have time to register that the effects are shoddy. The movie has some creative ideas for violence, though it\u2019s hard to not be taken out of the movie by the thought of how badly the filmmakers wanted an excuse to use certain weapons. There\u2019s also a typical-by-today\u2019s-standards overreliance on quiet tension and jump scares, as if the Deadites are being dramatic on purpose. I know they\u2019re into manipulation, but they\u2019re not great at capitalizing on the element of surprise, so they\u2019re basically doing it for the film\u2019s audience and not their intended victims.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

                If \u201cEvil Dead Rise\u201d were really bad, it would be easy to trash it and say that it couldn\u2019t be as effective with $19 million as the original was with $350,000. It\u2019s not bad enough to warrant that kind of dismissal. The actors are doing their best to give breakout performances, and the teams in charge of the violence and gore effects are clearly having a blast. But it\u2019s also too bland for me to say that I was ever really enjoying myself. I guess the kind of charisma I need in a horror movie is something money can\u2019t buy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Grade: C<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvil Dead Rise\u201d is rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and some language. Its running time is 97 minutes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver                 It\u2019s weird when a super-low-budget cult movie like 1981\u2019s \u201cThe Evil Dead\u201d gets a well-funded sequel. So many elements are bound to be better with a… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":57798,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[2286],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57797"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57799,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57797\/revisions\/57799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57798"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}