'Evil Dead Rise' Movie Review: An unrelenting scare fest!

Evil Dead Rise

Film: Evil Dead Rise
Cast: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher, Gabrielle Echols, Mia Challis, Jayden Daniels, Tai Wano
Director: Lee Cronin
Rating: 3/ 5

The ‘Evil Dead' series creator Sam Raimi has exhibited tremendous restraint with respect to his stupendously successful horror franchise. With only 5 issues in over forty-five years, the audience has been eagerly awaiting a new issue… it's after all been a considerable while since the last one came out. The latest in the series, "Evil Dead Rise," comes from Irish writer/director Lee Cronin, who uses devilish imagination and structural simplicity to ratchet up the fear factor. To top it up, Warner Bros has released this film in single shows at the turn of midnight. The naturally spooky nighttime atmosphere, a pitch-dark theatre, and unimaginable sounds that come at you with unnerving regularity make the experience jumpy, jittery, and gasp-inducing!

The story here is about kids who find an ancient collection of records following an earthquake that opens up a hole in the floor of the parking garage. The mysterious records give birth to bloodthirsty demons, thrusting the young threesome into a primal battle for survival. Imagine having some of these demons as your family.

The traditional group of friends going off on a lark into a cabin in the woods has become trite and repetitive. This film focuses on a family living in a run-down apartment building in downtown Los Angeles. Single mom Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) is the first one to be possessed by a Deadite… there's a connection to a rocker sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) that you'll better understand once you watch the movie. We see Ellie psychologically and physically torturing her own children. Her youngest, Kassie (Nell Fisher), and her teenage ones, Danny (Morgan Davies) and Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), are put through the wringer here with violence and extreme gore while a grimy, grueling tone and tenor squeeze out onto the screen.

The key scene here ( one with the cheese grater) has been playing in the trailers - nevertheless, there's loads of creative carnage spilling out with the consistency of a pre-programmed machine. There's all kinds of suggestive and obvious elements spurring on a breathless run of doubt and fear. Every body part gets traumatized as highly imaginative and creatively presented grievous bodily harm shows up on the screen. Blood flows like a river in spate as broken bones, decapitation, dismemberment, stab wounds, shotgun injuries, and stabbings with long sharp objects, keep the carnage going at a nifty pace. And there's no let-up!

The sounds are cacophonous, the impaling bloodbath almost keeps you reeling and the jump scares creep up at you with surprising efficiency. The few people in the seats during this midnight screening could be seen cowering in fear and at times even shrieking out loud. Even the gags keep you on tenterhooks.

Cronin the master conjurer, uses a destabilizing mix of varying camera angles while zooming in and out through a flaming palette of rich colors while the haunting score with inventive sound design by Peter Albrechtsen mixes traditional sounds with those unheard. Sullivan and Sutherland's performance does the rest. They appear so primely attuned to the nightmarish situation that their actions feel real. The screenplay doesn't bother with character development, instead, it focuses on satanic spirits to overwhelm you with the fear factor. With so much blood and gore at his command, Cronin sends the tension sky-high as the abhorrent sight of tortured orifices and maimed flesh wreaks havoc on your sensibilities. Production designer Nick Bassett and director of photography Dave Garbett deserve unstinting praise for helping Cronin develop a sound unassailable base for ratcheting up the tension while keeping the atmosphere potently claustrophobic and shocking. Such unrelenting purveyance is bound to traumatize the uninitiated while keeping the fans wonderfully entrenched!