Evil Dead Rise Review: Snatching Scalps & Souls!

Hold onto your scalps everyone! From Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema, the anticipated bloody horror film franchise is back for more scares. Evil Dead Rise first debuted at SXSW on March 15, 2023 and from the large positive reviews, hit the big screen on April 21, 2023. Director Lee Cronin didn’t miss with the fifth installment bringing in an estimated $23.5 million at the box office opening weekend. The film follows two estranged sisters trying to survive the night and save their family from the evil deadites.

The opening sequence follows three friends Teresa (Mirabai Pease), Caleb (Richard Crouchley), and Jessica (Anna-Maree Thomas), vacationing at a quiet, remote lake cabin where Jessica is ill and unknown to her friends she has been possessed by a Deadite, a demonic entity. Once Jessica’s behavior worsens, the terror officially begins! She scalps Teresa and kills Caleb with his drone before she levitates out the water into the air as Teresa who is still alive watches in horror.

The film transitions to just one day earlier as we meet our leading lady, Beth (Lily Sullivan), who is a touring guitar technician taking a pregnancy test in the bathroom. And from the looks of it, she is less than thrilled with the results. She reunites with her estranged sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), a single mother of three, living in a crumbling Los Angeles apartment complex which is by far creepy and dilapidated from the crappy garage buzzer to an old-school elevator you’re bound to get stuck in. When Ellie sends her children: aspiring-DJ Danny (Morgan Davies), activist Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and cute, innocent Kassie (Nell Fisher) out for a pizza run, the sisters catch up as Beth learns Ellie has problems of her own including having to find a new place to live. When an earthquake rocks the neighborhood, a pit breaks open in the parking garage where the Necronomicon is discovered along with vinyls underground. As a rainy night at home turns into a hellish nightmare, Beth must do whatever it takes to keep her family safe and alive, or else they’ll all be dead by dawn.

Evil Dead Rise met my expectations in so many ways. I also have to praise both actresses Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland for remarkable performances making a perfect addition to the franchise. Sullivan portrays a character who is lost and scared looking for guidance and ultimately transitions into a badass bodyguard, opposed to Sutherland’s character who prior to possession would absolutely do anything to protect her children, later transforms into a terrifying Deadite trying to harm her family physically and psychologically.

This movie is jam packed with jump scares, horror homages, laughable jokes, and plenty of creative kills and weapons. Evil Dead Rise holds its own successfully from creative weapon “Staffanie” to the O-M-G cheese grater prop to the infamous chainsaw. I was more than pleased and entertained while watching from start to finish - not to mention everything coming full circle by the end of the movie. And for all the Evil Dead fans, we even got a cryptic cameo teaser from Bruce Campbell - so listen closely! This franchise is always a bloody good time!

Evil Dead Rise is now playing in theaters. Rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and some language with a runtime of 97 minutes.