SPOOPYWEEN DAY 16 EVIL DEAD RISES!!!

Day 16

Evil Dead Rise

When you tell me, there’s a new Evil Dead coming out. I will always be there. Always.

When you decide to name it with Rise in the title, I have to give pause.

It just sounds, odd, and a bit bad.

But that also could come from the fact we live in a world where the last film with Rise in its title was an absolute dog shit of a film called Rise of Skywalker.

It’s just weird, overall. However the film itself is not. The film is a challenge. How so? Evil Dead is always a cabin in the woods, an evil book, bad things happen. Ash vs The Evil Dead was a trailer, an evil book, bad things happen.

Now we have an apartment, an evil book, kids, and bad things happen.

By and large. Any time a film adds kids or a kid to the equation, it’s never good, or creates an uphill battle. One of my favorite examples is The Mummy Returns. It has, and always has had the worst cgi. The movie is silly and entertaining ‘enough’ but any time their kid is on screen, it just drops off.

Even Robocop 2 which is still one of my favorite films, the kid drug lord is hilarious now, but at the time it was just, eh. It still worked, but Robocop had its balls cut down a bit, because it got lumped into the kids zone. Which is a discussion for another time because as funny as it is to think, remembering ultra violet Robocop, things like Rambo 2 and Terminator 2 all getting toy lines and cartoons.

So fans had a knee jerk reaction. Which is understandable especially given the major face lift the last Evil Dead had. Raimi’s first two films are classic, and two very different types of horror. But he always wanted to make a much scarier, traditional horror. Something much darker. That’s what we got with the last Evil Dead film. So it’s understandable when you have a movie where a guy got stabbed in the eye and face with a syringe until it broke off IN his eye, and a woman pissed herself carving her face off. I mean yeah. How can you get the same with kids in the film?

Enter Lee Cronin.

The man who directed The Hole in the Ground. That film, as I recall. Is what Raimi used as his “You should make this” pitch, and the man absolutely has shown he can make horror with kids and not hold back. As I said in that review the guy knows his stuff, he did an excellent job with The Hole in the Ground and we had a lot of fun with it. This however. Well. Lets dig into it already. Because I need me some Evil Dead goodness.

The Film

Before we go anywhere, we need to do something horrible and fun. So we are visiting some happy friends having a great time in the woods. Our familiar setting for the series. Because we sometimes need a comfort blanket. This is our blanket.

And this is why I don’t get the youth of today.

We have a group of three friendo’s out enjoying nature at a very unique cabin and an absolutely beautiful setting. Seriously these woods are creepy amazing. I love this guys cinematography.

We get what looks like demon vision as we zoom through the woods along the lake, until we begin to make out the sad clear whirring of a drone. Which somehow startled a girl reading a book with headphones on while relaxing at the lake. I kinda hate drones, but more specifically the drone users. For reasons.

It’s a quick and dirty intro to our friendly semi nameless meatbags. The man with the drone is the boyfriend of the girl who’s reading the books cousin. Her cousin is snoozing happily in bed, dealing with something very wrong with her.

The boyfriend could care less. He’s got a drone to entertain himself! He doesn’t need his moody possibly possessed girlfriend dragging him down. So Seeing as how her serene environment is now ruined with a beer drinking, belching drone flying dude bro. Our cousin decides to head on up to the cabin to check on her fam.

Who is laying on the bed dealing with her very real demons.

Yes she is possessed and there’s no hiding that. Which because this is all for our benefit and a quick dash of horror, they aren’t GOING to hide it. We get a great and likely some woman’s nightmare scenario as Evil Dead lady grabs her cousins braided ponytail and quite literally rips her scalp right the fuck off.

Which naturally doesn’t kill her. It just hurts a lot. Like a lot a lot.

Hairless decides to stumble outside to the dock she was earlier lounging on, and interrupts drone bro as he’s taking a piss in the lake. She cries out to him and he is, well. Startled to say the least as he notices that cousin who had hair, now has no hair. Or skin. Just blood and bone. Needless to say he was smart by pissing before hand.

The only thing that happens I don’t really agree with here. Which is kind of funny. Is that our Evil Dead girl comes walking out, tosses the bloody scalp on the deck and. Grabs the drone. She smiles and mashes her face into its blades. My problem isn’t that drone blades can’t fuck you up. They can. At least the expensive drones can. Those blades are a hard durable plastic and at the speed of rotation those goes, they can fuck you up pretty deeply. Like down to the bone. But she only gets a few tiny scratches and goes flying off into the water. Taking the boyfriend sir Piss-a-lot with her.

Leading to a sort of fun moment of character building and debate.

See earlier, when cousin visited Evil Dead girl, back when she still had her beautiful hair. She mildly complained to her about the new boyfriend being annoying and not really caring to spend time with him there, but putting up with the ‘useless meat sack’ because cousin is dating him. She didn’t exactly come off that sincere, and sir piss-a-lot actually seemed to enjoy teasing her a bit. I bring this up because for a man she doesn’t think highly of, or give much of a shit about supposedly. When he flies back into the water, and we see him being attacked by Evil Dead girl. She is screaming out and crying for him. Maybe its me but I legit had  the feeling maybe there was a bit of story there that those two were banging behind her cousins back. It’s possible. Or she’s just a good person and the one human being there who isn’t possessed and ripping peoples scalps off is screaming bloody murder as their one time girlfriend rips his head right off and sends it rush delivery to hairless in the forest. As hairless screams, Evil Dead girl rises from the water like a morbid Jesus and BAM! We get our title sequence.

It's quick, brutal. Fun and gory. I love it and it’s a nice intro into what the fuck we can expect. Yes there are kids in this film, but we are gonna fuck shit up, this IS an Evil Dead film. That’s the message and I support it. But more than that. It’s a story about family.

WHICH WE SHALL MEET!

As the film alerts us what we say in the forest happens ONE. DAY. FROM. NOW!

So tomorrow…it happens after today…

Which brings us to the city! An urban dwelling of questionable quality. Seriously the house looks more like a rag tag do it yourself room, but there IS a reason for that. The only gruff you should really give the place that’s legitimate, is how this is another unholy sized apartment that somehow these people can afford with only one of them working at a Tattoo shop. It’s less an apartment and more it’s own studio home. My whole life I tried finding a place like that I could afford, and never could with two of us working. Sucks man.

But what sucks more is this family! So lets get to know them before they really learn the value of family, through intense horrific nightmarish trauma.

First we have Mommy Ellie, as mentioned she’s a tattoo artist single mom. She has three little meat sacks who may or may not survive the night!

First we have her daughter and activist rocker Bridget. She’s a fun girl that carries a devil may care attitude, has good fashion sense, and enjoys tormenting a few others. But she also knows where the laundry room is and should do her OWN laundry if she wants to wear a clean shirt to a protest rally, since mom is super busy and usually forgets. As she informs us.

We also have DJ Danny. Who any neighbor would respectfully and rightly hate. Because the lil bastard likes booming digital fire tracks while scratching vinyl. You ain’t in the club lil man, plug in some goddamn headphones and turn that shit down. Mr. Fonda doesn’t need that racket busting through the drywall at night! Damn kids.

And speaking of kids we round things out with the little terror of the group, the youngest sibling, Kassie. Kassie likes cutting the heads off dolls, and making morbid projects. I can relate to Kassie. I like her. Don’t question her art, or that she’s using unholy large sharp ass deadly scissors. It’s not because mom isn’t watchful or mindful. It’s because those scissors are the best for cutting through dolls. I knew this growing up. Kassie gets this too. Never drop your art Kassie.

So this is our family, at least until we get Beth. Beth is the estranged sister of Mommy Ellie. The two don’t exactly have a stellar relationship, to say the least. Hence the estranged part. But they still rely on one another and, well. Communication is helpful in all situations. But only works when both sides are receiving. Unfortunately one side was rather busy with rock bands and the like, to help out Ellie, who really needed her sister.

Thankfully Everyone is entirely likable. The kids especially. So we’re in good hands. They all feel like siblings and fight/play like them too. As for the two sisters well. They are great. Fun personalities you can tell were cut from the same cloth. Just leading very different lives. And both are about to get a little bit more complicated once the two begin to catch up.

As far as Beth knows, things are okay with her sister. Beth has been busy traveling overseas with the band she helps out back stage, and hasn’t exactly been up to date on her sisters life. Had she been, she would have known that Ellie is in a not so good spot at the moment. Aside from the fact her home looks like it’s falling apart from the inside out. Because it is. She also had her husband walk out on her two months ago. Leaving her to care for their three kids, and attempt to find a new home, as the building is being evactuated due to the fact it’s a rotting shithole falling apart.

Beth knew nothing of these things, and having missed these calls from her sister, needing her support. Well. It’s caused some harsh feelings. But Beth has her own secret as well that’s causing her issues. Which is why she sought out her sister. Beth is preggers. Its an unplanned and unexpected surprise to say the least and that is what brought her to her sisters place.

She had brought gifts to make a good impression, hoping to catch everyone in a good mood, and hopefully consult with her sister later about what she should do in her, situation.

It just seems the two siblings have some work to do together first.

While siblings try to patch things up and catch up on current life events. The kids went out to fetch previsions. In the form of pizza. Which sounds completely amazing right no. Even at 2am. Especially. At 2am.

However is Pizza worth dying for? That is the question. The answer obviously is only if its good pizza. But for these kids, its an actual life or death question. Once the kids arrive back to the apartment with Pizza, a large earthquake strikes. Causing the ground to crack and split. Leading us to our doorway into evil!

DJ Danny is the brave soul who decides to venture down a hole in the ground. Nice callback by the way.

Why go into a hole in the ground you say? Is he hoping to find Narnia? No. The apartment was built on top of an old bank of some kind. So having the floor conveniently opened up now. Allows access. DIRECT access, into one of the vaults.

A perfectly normal vault.

Covered corner to corner, and across the ceiling, rosary, crosses, ACTUAL full size wood crosses, religious symbolism, a tomb, covered in scripture of all kind. Again, perfectly normal to find within a bank vault.

Does this vault happen to hold a certain book inked in blood and bound by flesh? You betcha.

Does this vault happen to hold any money that could save the family? Hell no. Only the Jesus.

Well a human skin book is a pretty good grab from an abandoned vault in a bank. But DJ Danny has found something even cooler, and something I give the film major props for. He has found two vinyl records, along with written material about this book. So he’s claiming these cool finds, because well. He can, also he has record players upstairs so. Lucky for all of them!

One thing I absolutely love about Evil Dead films is that they do not beat around the bush. These films do a quick setup and dive right on into the reason we all came here. The remake took a bit more time with their setup but once things took off, oh did they take off, and this. Is going to be no exception. Honestly I love the vibes from this film because it feels the closest to the original two. Especially with the recorded transcriptions.

But. We aren’t just getting the semi traditional reading from the book. We are actually getting some world building and what looks like the sincere hope of doing more Evil Dead films.

The first record DJ Danny spins and remixes through his uber bass speakers is a recording from what sounds like a meeting formed by a church. Where a priest is making an impassioned plea. He has uncovered ONE of the three books of the dead, this one being labeled ‘Naturom Demonto’, where as the book from the original series was the ‘Necronomicon Ex-Mortis’, both meaning the book of the dead. As for the third, it is unclear as of yet. The priest is arguing that he wishes to be allowed to study the book and translate its passages, record his findings, as he believes they could be used for the betterment of mankind, and not for evil.

Needless to say its not a shared opinion and he is boo’d out of the church book club with authority. But of course this doesn’t stop him, and he goes through with recording his translations. The problem with translating the book of the dead, is that no one gets past the first translation!

I love this world building because it was something already sort of established with Ash VS The Army of Darkness. There were three books there, two of which attacked Ash. At the time it was used as a fun ‘which is the right one’ test, but now its actually being taken seriously.

But even further back then that. Each film, even up to and including the show. They’ve all had different versions of the book. . There’s a lot of belief that each one holds different passages, different purposes, and that holding all three would essentially mean the end of the world. Buuuut that also comes pretty clearly with just the one book so. Not a fan of that one. But I like the idea that there is more than one, and they all hold the same power to torment. Why someone thought it would be a helpful book? I can’t say. But someone in Dead Space thought the ‘marker’ was a religious artifact as well so. Different strokes for different folks.

So yes. Danny plays the translation loud enough for the entire complex to hear it. Which I understand. If you are going to doom everyone, might as well hear it.

Unfortunately for everyone, The deadite spirit is loose and has found itself a host. Mommy Ellie.

It’s a well done and welcome change. I know people talk about the tree rape from waaaay back in the series and they redid it in a truly horrific way for the reboot, but honestly it wasn’t needed. Here thankfully they decide not to go that route. But instead use the elevator that mom was in as sort of an electric cable jungle of death.

Cables break through the ceiling of the elevator and slap across moms wrist, neck and ankles. Suspending her off her feet. Goodnight Mommy, and hello deadite.

And with that, its time to introduce mommy back to the family. And man is it beautiful.

Mom is just going to enter the kitchen and turn the stove on full blast, the fact she has a gas stove angers me, because every apartment I had was always electric. Lucky bastards. Mom is tossing eggs, shell and all into the skillet. Once everyone gets hungry smelling eggies and expecting cheesy omelets. Find instead their mom, mumbling and slurring, about having a beautiful dream, where everyone was in the forest, and a beautiful day, and how all she could think about was cutting them all open and crawling inside, so they could be a closer family.

It's really touching and something you’d find on a Hallmark greeting card. If not for the fact when mom turns around she looks possessed, is possessed and no matter how sweetly you try to tell someone you want to cut them open and crawl inside them? It will never hit them the way it hits you when saying it.

Also throwing up a gallon of milk and rice onto the floor is pretty disturbing and warrants a wellness check.

Even more concerning is when doing this, body contorting and moaning in pain. To see your mother after vomiting like that, lift her head and look pleadingly to her sister. Hearing her say “It’s inside me, please don’t let it get my babies” then dropping dead, well. That is cause for mild concern.

So just like that mama Ellie is gone. Gone but not forgotten. Gone but only for a few minutes. Because after everyone assumes she’s dead. She gets up an hour later and they put her in a bathtub because she’s burning up and super hot. Which not gonna lie, Deadite Mommy, tattoo artist mommy are, kinda hot.

Anyway…

As she’s shaking and turning the bath tub into a sous vide, She does something slightly not normal, and leaps out of the bath tub, clinging to the ceiling. She also crab walks to a corner and decides to scream so loudly and horrifically that it cracks mirrors, breaks lights, and causes general discomfort in the ear canals of all nearby and afar. She then drops into the tub and surely she is okay.

Or instead her eyes are now fully totally evil, veiny and frantically wide and darting. Basically the same as shot gunning three redbull one after the other.

This movie is not fucking around. These kids are seeing their loving mother turned into a demon before their eyes, and we are not going to pull back from anything in this film. These kids are well and truly shit out of luck, and about to have a worse night, compared to having cold pizza. Like way worse than eating cold pizza.

Cold pizza is something you learn to appreciate later in life. But growing up is just an unholy anomaly. I can’t explain it. I won’t try. But yeah. Something about cold pizza is just. Sometimes you need it.

SO what happens when your mom is possessed by a deadite and or Kundarian demon? Nothing as exciting and terrifying as what happens when your mom is possessed by a deadite and or Kundarian demon with her family around.

Lay aside all doubt that these kids are safe from harm because they are kids and any form of plot armor. Mommy, is gone. If these kids need any more proof of that, they’re about to get it.

Which is played out gloriously and sadly.

I mean shit. So far they saw their mom in what looked like a mental break down making the worlds worst omelet, talking about climbing into their gutted corpses. Then they see her vomit and DIE. ONLY to leap from her bed. Climb the ceiling during a bath. These kids are about to get the innocents of hope existing in this world clawed out of their souls.

Because mom has a broken mirror in her hand, and a house full of choices.

Which leads her to take on her Sister, while daughter Bridget watches crying and shouts for her mom to stop. Even as she stabs a huge mirror shard through Beth’s hand. All smiles across the face as she does so.

However, never let it be said mom doesn’t listen. She heard her daughter, and she’s going to answer her. In the most fucked up way. Mom tackles Bridget to the floor and decides to introduce her the art of tattooing, couple with horrific images of your parent you’ll never forget. As Deadite Ellie takes her tattoo fun and digs it into the side of her own head, loading up the needle with her own blood and brain juice. Before trying to stab the needle into her daughters eye. Which thankfully doesn’t happen, and I do MEAN thankfully. But it does pierce and cut across her daughters cheek. Prompting Deadite Ellie to coo out that mommy will kiss it and make it better, with her serpent like black tongue.

This is fucked, and I love it.

One of the best, albeit it quick scares in this. Is when Deadite Ellie scampers away from her kids into darkness, and begins pointing out at each of them, taunting ‘who’s going to run next’, and begins a twisted count down game with her family, which looks like poor Kassie will be up next on evil moms list, at least until Jake shows up. Jake is the teenage boy who had a slight crush on Bridget. She knows this and earlier in the film when he invited her to watch all the Freddy movies, even the shitty ones. She blew him off just to see him get frustrated cutely. She’s not mean. She just you know, Has fun. Well I said Jake ‘had’ a crush on her.

He didn’t lose the crush because of turning down his invitation. No. He lost it because he, their neighbor Gabriel, and lil neighbor bro Scott are all in the hallway of the open apartment to hell. Gabriel announces himself, seeing the woman he thought was dead now very much alive and moving. She turns her attention to him and leaps at the young man. Pouncing onto him and chews…bites….sucks his eye ball out of the socket. Spitting it hilariously out into the open screaming mouth of Jake. Which he inadvertently swallows and dies choking on.

It's also a fun, YES I’M FUCKED UP BUT HERE ME OUT! It’s also a fun callback in the Evil Dead series as we had a similar eye gag on part two. An eye was popped out of ‘Linda’ the monster in the cellar and flew across the room into the mouth of Bobby Joe. It’s still funny watching it today and seeing another flying eyeball in this movie is just great. Love it.

Even if it took away poor Jake. As for Gabriel don’t worry, he’s still alive! The mans only missing an eyeball, that’s totally survivable.

Except when it’s a fucking demon doing it. What happens next is quick, gory, and god bless them for doing it. Once Gabriel flew out of the room with mom sucking his eye out, Beth jumped into action. Sealing the front door, locking every lock and placing a cabinet in front of it. Leaving the boys outside to, well. Deal with Ellie.

Which we get to see happen courtesy of a curious eye gazing through the peephole. We see Gabriel alive and bleeding from his eye socket, banging on the door for help. Which Deadite Ellie grants him, by ripping out his goddamn throat with her bare hands. We then see poor little Scott run for his life while mom chases after him. He gets a brutal off camera death, and we get to see the boys body tossed to the wall, minus an arm. So sending mom out into the hallway cleared them of three neighbors. And for the moment ended any potential dating chances for Bridget.

Well we aren’t done just yet. Mr. Fonda, the gruffy grandpa of the complex, and father of Gabriel blast away Deadite Ellie with a few pellets of buckshot from his shotgun. Sending her flying across the hall. The man with a plan and a shotgun heads down the hall to finish her off. Only to end up eviscerated off screen.

Well, all their friends and neighbors are gone now. So its time for a snickers bar and a kitkat break.

It only gets worse from here folks, gloriously so.

On the one hand, we have poor DJ Danny eating a huge recently made bloody as hell helping of crow. Which is to say he’s realizing this is all his fault. And it is. I mean there is nooooo doubting this. But he is young, dumb and eager to let out demons so. Kids will be kids. He is at least trying to help things. Even if poorly. Hes showing the book of the dead to Beth, and the recordings. Not so much as an admittance of guilt, dude’s already got that. More of a last ditch effort of hope that something can come from it to possibly help them. Spoilers, nothing can help them.

Meanwhile we have a new problem to deal with. Well two actually.

One, is Kassie, hearing her mother singing a lullaby to her from the hallway, pleading kindly for her little girl to open the door for her and let her in. Promising that she and her father made up and are in love again. Which sounds mighty convincing to Kassie, who loves her mom and feels she just might be alright now, for reasons.

Our second problem, comes in the form of Bridget, who is deciding to try and deal with the huge cut from the tattoo gun that her mom gifted her, along with a demon black tongue kiss over it. The thing looks infected and just as happy as you’d imagine a demon kissed cut would look. It also is sprouting not so good looking veins, and causing Bridget’s eyes to bleed, and her nose. She’s also coughing up black masses of….wriggling moving things I can’t even begin to describe.

So overall things are going well for their down time.

By that I mean Kassie ends up opening the door, allowing her mom to choke her, and Bridget is eating shards of glass while squatting on the kitchen counter, as one does. When trying to get rid of the creepy crawlies in her belly. Yes, poor Bridget is now a deadite.

However there is some mercy in this cruel world. At least for now. Kassie is saved by Beth and her bro. So Beth sends Kassie and Dj Danny the demon caller to chill out in their room, while she goes and checks on Bridget.

This scene fucked me up, it’s also a great scene, but a fucked up one that finally did something I’d been dreading but waiting for a horror film to do.

Beth see’s bridget on the countertop chomping away on, and swallowing huge shards of glass from a broken wine bottle, “I don’t like having things inside my tummy, do you? Aunty Beth?”

It’s a pretty messed up jab, but a good one. However Beth is not about to deal with deadite Bridget. Unfortunately she slips on a pan and falls to the floor. Giving a grinning Bridget her opening to crawl down and go after her Aunt.

Beth scuttles across the floor. Flinging pots and pants, even tossing. Of all goddamn things. A huge metal cheese grater. WHICH. Bridget catches.

And promptly uses on Beth’s leg. I never thought I’d see the day someone took one of my fears and used them in a movie, but here we are. And yes. We get multiple ribbons of flesh grated in perfect gruesome rows of flesh. Thankfully Beth has put aside her deep love of this girl, and smashes her face in with a pan and then a bucket.

But it only makes Bridget smile. What makes a possessed sibling smile even wider? When they see their little brother standing nearby trying to figure out what’s going on, that’s what.

Yes, DJ Danny couldn’t keep himself with Kassie, so he had to come investigate. Well it’s his ass now and Bridget is after him. DJ Danny is not, what we would call the smartest tool in the shed, or the brightest. He’s just kinda off to the side on the work bench.

WELL DJ Danny ran for his sisters room, and Bridget happily dashes right inside with her bro, and little sis. Which. I mean. It’s been a long time now since Kassie was attacked. So her older sister is going to change that. What she accomplishes. Is worse than what Deadite mom had achieved so far. Deadite Bridget charges her little sister and Kassie reacts the only way she can.

Remember earlier when she cut off a dolls head? She didn’t just do it because she wanted to see what it’d look like on the floor. She used it to create an anti ghost device. She took a broken piece of wood, decorated it and placed the doll head, complete with a cute halo on the top of the wood staff. She named it…Staffany. I love it, and you should too.

So Kassie is cradling her only friend and protector, Staffany, and lifts her up in defense when her big sister deadite Bridget rushes her. Stabbing through her sisters big mouth, and through the back of her skull. Impaling her.

This feels worse than having your resurrected, possessed mom strangle you after stabbing your aunt and attacking your older sister. Really think impaling your big sisters skull while she’s trying to kill you is gonna just put the cherry on top of a great big fucked up future. If she actually survives.

The funniest part in this, and there is a funny part in this. Is that When Beth deals with her wounds and checks on DJ Danny and Kassie, she’s discovered DJ Danny has bound his older sisters corpse to her bed. A few dozen questions circulate in her head, but DJ Danny gets her to chill when he tells her “I thought we should tie her up” good thinking, and she agrees!

I mean yeah, no kidding kid. Tie up, chop up, burn up any body!

Or at least any ‘possessed’ body. Don’t need to start losing our minds to madness yet. Yet.

So what do? What’s the good word?

Well Beth hasn’t forgotten the records DJ Danny spun or the book, so she feels maybe there’s some kind of hope in those still. Unfortunately they have nothing to power his turn table. That is until Beth works her roadie magic and brings the tables to life! All hail the roadie! The unsung heroes of the stage.

As Beth futzes with the equipment and spins her own Evil Dead remix. Deadite Ellie is not sitting idly by. Oh hell no. She is contemplating life, the universe, everything. She also hears the buildings cat in the vents and gets the bright idea to, well. Crawl through the vents to get to her waiting victims.

Which. I mean. I get. But at the same time. Why not go on a killing spree of all the other left over neighbors. I highly doubt this is the last family next to the dead kids in the hall that stayed behind till the last minute. But eh. Mama Ellie is on a mission through the vents now

Meanwhile, DJ Danny and Kattie are just about having the worst night ever. On top of losing their pizza, having an earthquake, mom having issues with dad leaving. Mom being possessed by a demon, big sister shredding their Aunts leg, and little Kassie having to use Staffanie to take down her big sis. It’s already the worst night since they shared IBS after three nights of taco bell, in a one bathroom apartment with one roll of Angel Soft the day before moms pay check.

Now they have to deal with. Not Deadite Ellie. But the return of no longer bed bound Deadite Bridget. It’s not DJ Danny’s fault he can’t tie a proper knot, or series of demon holding knots. But he’s absolutely paying for it now. As his sister literally flies toward him, tackles him into the kitchen, and begins stabbing the holy fuck out of her bro, with a 10 chef’s knife. Seriously this kid is going to need a shower, and a lot of band aids. Like, a lot of them.

Kassie is huddled under furniture, hiding from the demon sister and forced to watch her protective brother defend her, by getting repeatedly and painfully stabbed with a huge ass knife. All of this while Aunt Beth is scratching vinyl in the other room with her headphones on, unable to hear them screaming.

She is also, unable to hear Deadite Ellie climb down from the vents directly behind her.

DON’T WORRY! She’s perfectly fine. Even though the record is telling her there is no hope what so ever, that once the demons are summoned, its pretty much game over. Even with that, she’s still doing pretty okay. At least until her  big sister slaps her into the next room. Literally AND figuratively.

Meanwhile DJ Danny is putting in a last ditch effort to defend himself. He grabs a nearby can of….hairspray..raid. Summers eve. I have no idea. It’s flammable, its in their kitchen. He uses it to create a torch and sets his sister on fire, until she chokes on the flames and falls dead to the floor. Which. He thinks is a good idea, so he too falls to the floor, apologizes to Kassie for the mess he made. Knowing the lowest sibling on the totem pole has to clean the messes. And with that. Kassie is now the Highlander of her family. She is the last kid alive!

And she is STILL more helpful than DJ Danny!

Her possessed Mama is happily telling Aunt Beth how she is going to swallow her and her unborn babies souls. Ready to rip the fetus right out of her belly. But Kassie is tired of everyone she likes either going evil and trying to kill her. Or everyone just dying all together. So she tosses her Aunt, the moms sacred pair of scissors. Which Beth promptly shoves right through the nose of Deadite Ellie. Killing her……for the third time? Fourth time?

Basically she’s on a respawn timer and it gives these two time to get the hell up and out of there.

Which is great for them, considered how utterly fucked their home is now, and Kassie is NOT going to clean that. Believe you me.

Also. More importantly. We are at the 20 minute mark!

Which means.

It’s. SHOWTIME!!!

So how do you escape an inescapable evil? Right through the front door baby!

The plan is to reach the fire escape and GTFO.

The only problem is, the entire hallway is littered with blood, corpses and body parts. However there IS a shotgun out there. Which would be useful. So the duo is armed and ready. Just in time for Deadite Ellie to make her return. As well as Deadite Bridget, and DJ Deadite Danny.

And Deadite Gabriel, and Scott, and Jake, and Mr. Fonda.

So okay maybe this really is worse than when they all had burritos from Chipotle with extra queso knowing they were lactose intolerant.

Maybe.

Its honestly a really fun, well done scene. First we get Deadite Ellie vs Shotgun Beth. Which results in Mommy Ellie losing a leg and an arm.

But even better, to keep the legacy alive. Mom is still kickin, all the other bodies are beginning to come to deadite life. And Kassie gets the pleasure of seeing her bloody corpse of a talking mother tell her that everyone dies by dawn.

And just like that, we all begin chanting along with the deadites, ‘Dead by dawn!’

It never goes out of style, and its just fun to scream at random points. I might scream it daily in my car before heading into work. But that’s life at Amazon for some of us.

Normally. About this point and time. We would be at our battle. But oh no. Not yet. This crafty bastard of a director and writer has something up their sleeve still.

Which is….different for this series, but also pretty damn rad.

On the one hand, we have all the deadites gathering together and recreating the shunting scene from Society. They are melding their bodies into one…massive freaking puddle of silly puddy and limbs.

On the other hand? We have Beth and Kassie drowning in an elevator flooding with blood. Another signature of the series. Now I know this isn’t the best moment. But, can things get any worse?

Thankfully the answer is oh hell yes.

As our two survivors are drowning in unholy amounds of blood. We have the deadite monstrosity breaking through the ceiling of the elevator to get to them. Yes they are well and truly up the creek without a paddle. But thank the lord for science! When a closed space like an elevator reaches its weight limit. Well. It’s going to break down. And break down it does, as well as crashes down. To the main floor. Recreating the scene in the Shinning with the lobby flooded with blood.

Now before we go asking, yes Kassie and Beth are alive and well. Hell they even make it out to the garage and to a car. But the damn garage door won’t open. To make matters worse. Because why not at this point, Heaven forbid they catch a break. We now have the very cool, and rather creepily well done mangled mass of Deadite bodies with them in the garage.

NO we don’t get an ALIENS situation where Beth has to become a mother and scream ‘get away from her you BITCH!’

Instead we get the two of them separated and Kassie cornered in a large machine. About to have her head cut off by a chainsaw wielded by the deadite monster. Beth still has the shotgun and manages to find the two, and shoot the deadite beast RIGHT up its ass.

Well asses. I guess, right? Yeah. When the creature turns to her, offended by being shot in the ass, she readies for another shot and spits out “Come get some”.

We are, paying a lot of lip service here to the classics, and it’s…..it’s fine. It’s mostly fine. I don’t mind. It’s okay. Everything is okay here.

So just when things are looking up. The deadite tosses the chainsaw at Beth causing her to fall back and away from the heavy equipment, right to the floor. Kassie flees for safety, and the deadite is headed toward the back of the heavy machinery to attack Aunty Beth.

It’s a great messed up scene, because we learn this heavy piece of machinery, is in fact a large wood chipper. And the deadite is the first to notice this. Which gives them the great idea of, lets turn this thing on, and feed Beth into it!

WHICH…..

Almost works. Except Kassie had to ruin their fun and stops the machine. Giving Beth time to escape, grab the chainsaw, hack away at the large monstrosity, and command Kassie to turn it on and let it rip!

And rip it does. Rip and tare.

Before you can pull up your plastic tarp and protect yourself from Gallagher smashing watermelons. The blood begins to literally rain down everywhere and the monster deadite is no more. Kassie walks out hand in hand with her new mom Beth, and their best new friend Mr. Chainsaw.

But we aren’t rolling credits just yet. Oh no, no.

We are getting one more fun surprise.

Remember. This all happened the day before we saw Scalpless and her cousin at the lake with her boyfriend.

Well enter the cousin! She lives in the building and is getting ready to head out in her car. Talking to her soon to be hairless dead friend. Stopping when she notices the unholy large bloody mess, both on the floor and the ceiling, the walls, and the cars. Literally everything BUT her is covered in blood. But she just now noticed.

As she notices this, and is ready to freak out. Well. That’s when the deadite spirite slams into her and we get our setup for what we saw at the beginning of the film.

Giving us, our actual ending.

The End

This film, was a lot of fun. It was a great balance of continuing the unrelenting horror of the reboot, while being respectful of the originals and keeping some of the dark humor. It’s a great addition to the evil dead franchise, and I really do love the added lore of the three books of the dead being expanded on. Knowing they can and likely will use it to tell more stories in this universe, and explains a bit of why the books look so different and how Ash dealt with his own battle with the book, and these poor souls just fall victim to another of the series of books.

I like that idea and it’s a fun one full of possibilities. I also liked the updating of the translation going from an old tape reel, to a vinyl record. It played well with Danny’s character and the idea maybe what they found could be either a cool gift for mom, or something of actual value that could really help the family. Sure it ended up helping a few of them to LITERALLY become closer. But its still unwise to give anyone you love a book inked in blood and bound in flesh.

Unless your my sister. Then you know to expect it.

The music for this thing. Hot damn.

The score is great. It holds tones of the original scattered throughout, but most importantly, and I do mean this as a great compliment. It builds on the reboots score. Which is really a great thing. It’s staying its own thing and it’s not syphoning fans of life and money by using memberberries.

Music always does wonders for horror, especially when its done well. And I do get excited when I see the music done well and treated with respect. Especially keeping it in tone with the more recent film. It’s just nice. I feel its also a compliment to the composer when his score shares a similar sound to that of the last films composter Roque Baños, who also scored two great films to check out, In the Heart of the Sea and The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. The composer here, Stephen McKeon is the same one who scored the directors other film we reviewed, The Hole in the Ground. Which also carried a phenomenal sound with it. Seriously the soundtracks to Evil Dead 2013 and Evil Dead Rise would make a great collection.

The acting I really tip my hat at. Everyone in this was great. Especially the kids. Those lil talented bastards put up with a lot and did not back down. Bless them for that. Nell Fisher(Kassie), Morgan Davies(Danny) and Gabrielle Echols(Bridget) were all stand outs in this, They’re all stars and funny enough Gabrielle is also part of a horror podcast so. Kudos to you and your Geekness. Seriously these kids were believable siblings, they played well off one another, and they had some damn fun lines between each other that just felt like shit you’d say to your sister/brother.

I especially cracked up during the earthquake scene when Kassie panicked and dropped all the drinks and the kids found a spot to hide and keep safe. Once things stopped Kassie announced “I think I wet my pants”, her sister without skipping a beat tosses out “Is it warm?” Kassie tells her curiously no, and Bridget calmly tells her lil sis “Then it’s probably just soda”, It’s a fun exchange. Same with Danny and his “I thought I should tie her up”. It was sincere and honest enough, while still coming off like he thought he was in trouble. Just really liked it and how they played off one another. Especially when Kassie at the end is being taunted again by Deadite Ellie, pleading for her to help mommy, and the kid has a full grown ark, telling her that her mommy is gone. This kid has seen some shit man, she’s scared shitless, but with her Aunt Beth, she has that security she had with her mom.

I was pretty impressed with Lily Sullivan(Beth), from her opening in the bathroom taking the pregnancy test and later on trying to drop in on her sister for support, only to find out she dropped the ball on her. Seeing how she handled it, and how her and Alyssa Sutherland(Ellie) play off one another. Again very believable. Shit even Ellie on her own as a mom trying to hold her family and herself together. She sells it well. I was really surprised the first time I watched this as I didn’t think she’d go down as badly as she did. I mean it’s funny to me because the poster shows you right off the bat, yeah. Mom is gonna get turned in this. But you still imagine she might be saved, it happened in the first one after all. But nope. It was played off well. She just couldn’t respond to what was happening, she had no idea what the hell was going on with things in the elevator, and then the initial attack. Followed by her death in the kitchen in front of her family. Hearing her speak out. Like you easily could imagine the evil LET her do it, just to torment and fuck with her family.

Maybe we were meant to think she broke through the possession long enough to tell her sister to protect her children and save them. You could buy it with her personality. But how she plays the scene off, the heartbreak in her voice and knowing she’s going to die. It hits so well and you do feel bad for her. I mean we are here BECAUSE we want to see her go evil dead apeshit, but to actually draw out that sympathy. It’s magic man. Really hats off to everyone in this.

Hell they even managed to squeeze Bruce Campbell into this. He got to play one of the voices of the priest on the recording.

But at the head of this ship, doing what they do and showed they weren’t afraid to get into with their other film we reviewed. The director, Lee Cronin really pulled this thing together.

It’s one of those happy results of fans speaking out over critics. Like the old days. Back when Ebert declared The Lion King was a bomb and a waste of time, but it wrecked the box office and awards that year. This time we have critics trashing the film for the most part, and audiences saying, fuck that noise, this movie’s great.

And it really was.

The use of practical effects and cgi in this were brilliant. Horrific and beautiful. Tristan Lucas and Shay Lawrence. Their entire team did amazing work. They used a lot of stunt people in the film versus going full on cgi and the presentation. The use and operation of the freaking Deadite multilimbed beast was just.

Damn man.

I love it. The deeper you dive into this film, its making of, everything. The more there is to love about it. The film rightfully did well at the box office and I absolutely hope we get a great follow up soon. Just not too soon. This one was worth waiting for, and another would be equally so.

What really stands out I think as a testimony to how well these are all made. Is the simple fact it doesn’t rely on or forcefully feed us more Ash.

I love Bruce, and what he did in the series is great. I really loved Ash vs the Evil Dead and wish we’d gotten a bit more. But I was happy with the end to his story. When Evil Dead 2013 came out people worried because he wasn’t in it, and they didn’t want new people playing established favorites. The movie blew peoples asses away, and here we are. A second time around. No Ash. And the film did fucking amazing. Not one mention of the film lacking him or the comedy of the older films.

These new Evil Dead films stand on their own bloody possessed limbs, just as strongly as the originals do and I love that. So, so much. It just speaks a lot to the love put into it and behind it.

Absolutely check this out, buy it and thank yourself later. Its bloody, its fun. It’ll scare the bejesus out of eyour kids and give some parents the joy of acting possessed to freak them out, and I couldn’t be happier watching this thing again.

Who knows maybe we’ll find out what happened to Scalpless in the next one.

She dead.

Seriously she so dead.

At any rate. It is late, I require sleep, and work is going to be calling soon. So until tomorrow. If you happen to find a book that only opens when blood spills on it, and that blood was covered in centuries of cockroaches still somehow alive, wrapped in cloth, buried in a tomb with an old man, in a room bathed in crucifixes, rosary and the Jesus? Maybe sell it first, get paid and call it a win. Or you know. Gift it to a sibling and hope for the best.

GOODNIGHT!