Evil Dead Rise: Where Everything "Just Happens to Be"

*MILD SPOILERS*

I went into this film excited to see it due to all of its good reviews. I knew it wouldn’t be like the originals nor as funny without Ash, but since good horror films are needles in a haystack from the gargantuan amount of subpar content being churned out, I was ready for a good thrill.

My critic colleagues failed me and audiences everywhere with their glowing reviews of something that, barring the FX, was a lazy reproduction of borrowed horror nostalgia, that beats the already dead horse, into atoms.

Cue the gratuitous blood!

It Begins…again

The story begins with a flash forward and the usual white young people on a remote cabin trip. We don’t know how at the time, but one of the women has been infected with Evil Dead energy and begins the slaughter of her friends.

Flashing back, single mother Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and her three children are eking out an existence in a mostly abandoned, run down apartment complex that apparently was (just happens to be) built over an old bank.

Ellie’s sister Beth (Lilly Sullivan) makes a return to see her sister and nieces and nephew, after a long absence being on the road with concerts. We come to find that Ellie and Beth’s relationship has been strained by Beth’s past unwillingness to stay in touch.

Source: Warner Brothers

An earthquake strikes while the kids are alone in the parking lot, which just happens to leave a walkthrough hole right above the bank vault where, for some reason, the Book of the Dead is being stored. Danny (Morgan Davies) the middle sibling, explores the old vault and finds some old LP records, along with the book.

Since Danny just happens to be an aspiring DJ, he just happens to have the turntables to listen to these LP’s, which of course, is generally rare in most homes now. He also happens to have the right equipment to format the LP’s sound into perfectly clear language, that ends up waking up The Book.

The evil energy attacks the unaware Ellie in their rickety elevator and the chaos begins…again.

In all honesty…

Hats off to the FX/makeup crews. Their work was by far the best part of this show. Sutherland looked and performed amazingly, and was seriously creepy. I just wish they would’ve given her a way better story to act with.

The lack of story and the absolutely ludicrous “just happens to be” party ruined the rest of it. Everything and everyone was set up to make everything work just exactly how the filmmakers wanted it, in utterly boring, too easy, uncreative ways. That’s lazy screenwriting.

For one, how would Danny have this incredible sound system complete with speakers if the family was so poor they had to live in a building that was going to be demolished in a month?

Source: Warner Brothers

And what happens when the sound system breaks but they need to listen to another record? Low and behold, Aunty Beth is a sound engineer who happens to know how to fix it. Hooray!

At a different part, demonic Ellie gets shut out of the apartment. After hours of looking for ways in, a random cat shows up in the ventilation system, then giving her an “a-ha” moment.

Just after, the youngest child Kassie (Nell Fisher), who was also fantastic, mentions that the super’s cat goes up there every now and then. Really? When the hell would that ever happen except within a script with lazy writing? They set a cat up in the ventilators simply as a means to remind demon Ellie how to infiltrate the apartment.

Also, if Ellie was possessed by smaller amounts of the Evil Dead blood in the elevator, why weren’t Beth and Kassie when they were practically drowned in it?

The “just happens” and convenient plot points/holes continue to occur over and over again, setting up characters and story arcs with inexcusably weak, easy ways to push the already struggling story forward. I bet there are student screenwriters who could write scripts with more heart and creativity, but professionals, not just the writers, aren’t held to the same standards, and continue pumping out garbage with the greatest of glee.

On top of that, plenty of scenes are just “borrowed” from other horror movies. Whether or not it was meant as an homage, I don’t want to spend good money on old stuff I can stream practically free at home.

Did anyone above the line, barring the actors, have to do any real thinking or creating? Clearly not with the script, nor the many borrowed scenes.

My advice? Skip it. You’ve already seen all of this in other, better films.

If you want to see the good FX/makeup, save the big bucks and wait to stream it. There are great apps you can get for an entire month for less than one movie ticket, and see way higher quality content all around.

The viewers are the ones who tell the industry what we want to see with our money. We don’t have to settle for garbage anymore.