EVIL DEAD RISE was a lot of fun. A proper modern-day video nasty that earned its 18 certificate with gusto. Not a film for the squeamish, it’s unrelentingly vicious and bleak, harkening back to the original Evil Dead movie and not the more comic sequels that came later. And while I think it could arguably have benefited from a few small moments of levity to balance the scares, I also admired its brutal sense of commitment. It felt like a much more authentic sequel/reboot than Fede Alvarez’s 2012 version. The ending wasn’t as strong as I would have liked, I felt it became a bit predictable – and the final “big bad” didn’t quite land as well as it should have done. But overall, it’s still almost everything an Evil Dead fan could want. It deserves to revitalise the franchise again – and it was great to see a proper visceral no-holds-barred bloody horror movie in the cinema again.
On a not-totally-related note, I saw it at the new Everyman Cinema that’s just opened in Borough Yard. It’s pretty pricey (tickets are more than 20 quid) but it’s a really nice cinema and the sound system was absolutely fantastic. They must have a hell of a subwoofer there, because every thump of a demon-possessed woman on the door in the movie literally made my seat shake. Most impressive, would do again.
