Evil Dead Rise: A gory good time

*Contains spoilers

Over the past 40 or so years, The Evil Dead franchise has achieved a rare feat in Hollywood as it is one of the very few horror franchises yet to have a bad film in the series. Coming from the mind of series creator Sam Raimi, there have only been five films in the series. The series' latest entry, Evil Dead Rise, is directed by Lee Cronin and is more than a welcome addition to the franchise.

Evil Dead Rise strays away from Raimi's almost comical perspective on the films and is much closer in tone and spirit to 2013's Evil Dead.

As can be expected from a film that ran through 6500 litres of blood during its production, this is not a movie for the faint-hearted. However, for the gore hounds and those familiar with the franchise in general, this movie delivers exactly what you would expect from an Evil Dead movie.

The film is 96 minutes of campy fun and it knows it. The dialogue in the film is very self-aware and dark humour is used extremely effectively. The movie builds up suspense in its scenes to perfection and subverts the audience's expectations by using humour where the viewer would normally expect a jumpscare.

The atmosphere of the film is wonderfully horrific as it gives the viewer a sense of claustrophobia. The sound design is also amazing as this was one of the loudest theatre experiences I have had in a long time, but not in a way that felt overbearing. Every decibel was used effectively.

The movie's cinematography is also gorgeously unique. One particularly beautiful example is the use of the point of view of the peephole of the apartment door to showcase the carnage going on outside.

The cast of the film delivers amazing performances despite being relatively unknown. Alyssa Sutherland gives a show-stealing performance as single mom Ellie who gets possessed by a deadite early on in the film. Lily Sullivan gives us an instantly iconic final girl in Ellie's sister Beth.

No character is safe in Evil Dead Rise regardless of age, as is illustrated by the unfortunate fates of Ellie's children. The film is extremely violent and brutal from the very beginning with a crazy cold open that leads into one of the best title cards ever.

Evil Dead Rise does not reinvent the genre or break any new ground in the horror landscape. The film is full of classic horror tropes and clichés. It is a violently campy thrill ride and embraces it. However, the film executes all of these tropes extremely well and with the perfect level of self-awareness.

The film's plot does catch up to it in the third act, however, as the film suddenly devolves into a level from a Resident Evil game when the deadite monster turns into a big slow one. The action still continues but it feels somewhat forced and illogical compared to the fantastic previous acts. Perhaps an extra ten minutes could have helped solve this issue.

Despite a somewhat abrupt ending to the movie, it accomplishes everything it set out to do. At 96 minutes, Evil Dead Rise is an extremely easy watch and every horror fan should check it out.

Juhayer Khan is disposing of all the cheese graters in his house. Send help at [email protected]