5/10
When Sam Raimi’s 1981 film “The Evil Dead” came out, it headlined conversations of controversially gruesome horror films. I’ve never seen the original (sue me), but when its successor came out in 2013, I was shocked to say the least. I’ve never seen a film that both scared me and made me gag at the same. So, when “Evil Dead Rise” finally hit the big screen this year, what did I do? I watched that shit (at night, for the vibes, ya know?). When it comes to horror movies, I try not to claim to be all-knowing because I really haven’t seen many, including lots of cult classics. But I’m still going to give you my opinion on this anyway.
I have pretty mixed feelings about this film. While it wasn’t terrible, it felt like a tired sequel to a franchise that never really needed to continue. The acting was still pretty good, and I’ll admit there were a few scenes that made my skin crawl, however it just wasn’t as mindblowing as I had hoped it would be. I did appreciate the references to other horror classics like “The Shining” and “The Thing”, but it doesn’t change the fact that I think it was an underwhelming addition to the franchise.
The storyline was honestly just lacking in many aspects; we didn’t really experience the gut-wrenching tension of seeing a family torn apart by the influence of demonic possession, and despite the action (which was pretty okay), it certainly felt quite rushed and almost kind of plain. Although, I will admit that the scene with the eyeball absolutely killed me and I never want to see it again because what the fuck.
With all that said, I can hardly say I’m surprised. Many franchises are affected by lacklustre sequels (just take a look at Star Wars), and this is very apparent in all things horror. We’ve seen it with Michael Myers, Jason etc., and sometimes all it needs is one film for a franchise to start fading away into monotonous storytelling.