Evil Dead Rise

Available on Netflix

The fifth instalment of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead franchise was an undoubted commercial triumph, grossing more than $146m worldwide against a production budget of $15–19 million, and even managed to achieve the rare feat of being a mainstream horror that successfully courted critical favour.

On face value, it’s not hard to see why Evil Dead Rise would be a hit with the majority of cinemagoers. It is unashamedly bloody and often downright scary, a claim that is underpinned by the fact that more than 6,500 litres of fake blood was used during the making of the film.

My issue with the picture is that none of its gratuitous violence is earned. The screenplay concocted by director Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground) is riddled with wooden, exposition-laden dialogue that contributes to some truly rotten acting from what is a largely unheralded cast, resulting in a film that, despite all of its gruesome machinations, is completely devoid of stakes.

This is a shame because the setting of Evil Dead Rise - a dinky apartment in a run-down tower block - is pretty ingenious, lending itself brilliantly to the franchise’s central plot device of an innocent person being possessed by a dark and murderous entity. However, none of the prior relationships of this film’s unfortunate soul are well established, leaving her malevolent about-turn to feel inconsequential.

While Cronin definitely has a knack for unsettling body horror, his storytelling leaves a lot to be desired, as is evidenced by the moment in which his film directly copies one of the stand-out moments from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. While undoubtedly intended as a homage, it was a scene which just made me wish I was watching a horror film that earns its gore.