Evil Dead Rise will leave behind the usual cabin-in-the-woods setting for a bustling apartment complex in Los Angeles. After a lengthy absence from the family, a woman named Beth goes to L.A. to visit her older sister Ellie, a single mother raising her three children in a tiny apartment in the middle of the city. They’re launched into a nightmarish fight for survival when they discover a copy of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis in the building and unwittingly release the flesh-eating demons residing within its pages. Evil Dead Rise promises to deal with the universal themes of motherhood and a parent’s desperate struggle to protect their kids (through the lens of brutal, bloody horror).
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The creepiest moments from the red-band cut of the trailer rekindle the zany, full-throttle, pedal-to-the-metal approach that Raimi took to his groundbreaking original films. There’s a tattoo needle to the eye, a cheese grater to the leg, and an outpouring of blood evoking the elevator scene from The Shining. A scalp is ripped off the top of a skull and a frying pan is filled with crackling eggs and crimson blood. It has plenty of unsettling one-liners, like “Mommy’s with the maggots now,” and the trailer even sees the return of the Evil Dead franchise’s signature weapon: a revving, blood-drenched chainsaw. And writer-director Lee Cronin has told Empire magazine that the horrifying imagery seen in the trailer is “just a taste of the grind.”
The Evil Dead films have a special place in the hearts of horror movie lovers. The 1981 original inspired a generation of horror fans to pick up a camera and make their own low-rent scary movies with their friends. This gnarly indie horror gem became a staple of the midnight movie circuit and made Bruce Campbell a globally adored icon. The sequels continued to push the envelope further and further with even bloodier violence, even more twisted humor, and even more bonkers special effects. No idea is too wild or outrageous to be in an Evil Dead film, and if the trailer is an accurate representation of the movie it’s advertising, then it seems as though Cronin’s new reboot is boldly continuing that tradition.
Based on the trailer, Evil Dead Rise has gloriously recaptured what makes this franchise so great. It puts a fresh spin on the story – swapping out a cabin in the woods for an apartment in the city and swapping out a group of friends for a fractured family unit – but maintains the same tone and style that fans are familiar with. Like its classic predecessors, the trailer is full of gonzo, anything-goes visuals and shamelessly dark humor, and builds a tangible sense of dread around the threat of the Necronomicon and the demons it unleashes. Every parent fears that something horrible will happen to their kids, and Evil Dead Rise will realize that fear in the most jaw-dropping ways possible.
Like Fede Álvarez’s immensely satisfying 2013 reboot, Evil Dead Rise has modern filmmaking technologies at its disposal to make the horror feel more real. The homemade effects of Raimi’s original low-budget Evil Dead movies gave audiences the comfort of artifice. No matter what Raimi subjected Ash to, it didn’t look real enough to make viewers feel truly uneasy. But the new CG effects look hauntingly realistic. When some poor soul has their scalp ripped off, it looks real enough that the audience can feel the excruciating agony. Evil Dead Rise is poised to be even more of a gut-punch than its predecessors.
Although it was originally set to go straight to streaming on HBO Max, Evil Dead Rise was switched to a theatrical release after the movie turned out to be unexpectedly awesome and Warner Bros. executives got a renewed faith in its prospects. It seems to be a worthy addition to the Evil Dead canon and a whole new benchmark for the series’ signature gruesomeness. If the grisly, petrifying trailer is anything to go by, then horror fans are in for a gory treat when Evil Dead Rise arrives in multiplexes on April 21.
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