The least Evil Dead of the franchise

I understand why Evil Dead purists side-eye Evil Dead Rise. If you took the Necronomicon out of this movie, it would still work. So, yes, as an Evil Dead movie, it feels like a departure. As a movie about a demon absolutely wrecking a single-parent household? It fucking rules.

Its big swing is the setting. Instead of staying in the cabin-in-the-woods lane, Rise moves the main event into a high-rise apartment, then bookends it with the cabin scenes. The apartment doesn’t automatically make the movie better, but it does give the horror a different shape. The peephole shots are particularly clever and effective: the fisheye view where you can see what’s in front of you, but you can only listen to what’s happening down the hall.

Because this is an Evil Dead movie, the characters have to discover the Necronomicon. An earthquake opens a hole in the floor of a creepy parking garage, and Danny has zero problem crawling right in. Doing dumb shit is like a rite of passage in the horror genre, but in Evil Dead movies, the discovery of a franchise object adds to canon. This is an old bank vault in an underground basement of an apartment building that also seems to be some cult research center? Either someone called it in, or they slapped a few Evil Dead references on a non-franchise script.

It’s also missing the camp. There are funny moments—“meat puppet” and “titty-sucking parasites” got me—but Rise mostly plays serious. It has the blood and the Deadite nastiness, but not quite the deadpan ridiculousness you find with other installments.

Because I’m not a franchise purist, I didn’t care as much about continuity, but I did care about the amount of barfing that happens. WHY IS EVERYONE THROWING UP? Not normal vomit, either. This is industrial-strength, gallons-per-minute, “did the demon possess a fire hose?” puking. It happens so often it actually seems like canon.

It’s not enough to make me hate this film, which has given me the most memorable moments of the franchise. The peephole carnage. Bridget crouching on the kitchen counter, eating a wine glass and talking about the creepy crawlies in her tummy. Ellie’s demon face…

Rise knows exactly what it has in Alyssa Sutherland, who makes an outstanding Deadite. There is something so right about the way she performs possession. And that’s where Evil Dead Rise works for me: the performances. The cast sells it. Maybe it’s not the most Evil Dead of the franchise, but it happens to be my favorite.