In the concrete jungle of Los Angeles, the Book of the Dead unleashes hell on a fractured family, proving that Deadites don’t need woods to thrive.
Evil Dead Rise catapults Sam Raimi’s iconic franchise into the heart of a decaying urban high-rise, where the ancient evil of the Necronomicon preys on blood ties and buried resentments. Directed by Lee Cronin, this 2023 instalment trades the remote cabin for a crumbling apartment block, amplifying the horror through claustrophobic corridors and elevator shafts slick with gore. What emerges is a relentless assault on familial bonds, blending visceral body horror with poignant emotional stakes.
- The radical shift from rural isolation to urban density redefines the Deadite threat, turning everyday architecture into a labyrinth of terror.
- Standout performances, particularly from Alyssa Sutherland and Lily Sullivan, anchor the carnage in raw human vulnerability.
- A masterclass in practical effects and sound design cements its place as a modern gore benchmark in the Evil Dead legacy.
The Necronomicon’s Bloody Homecoming
The narrative of Evil Dead Rise ignites with seismic fury, as construction workers unearth a vinyl record etched with forbidden incantations beneath the foundations of a Los Angeles high-rise. Danny, a skateboarding teen with a penchant for vinyl horror, plays the record in his family’s rundown apartment, unwittingly summoning the malevolent force from the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. What follows is a meticulously crafted descent into chaos, where the Deadite possession spreads like a plague through the building’s veins.
Ellie, the harried single mother played by Alyssa Sutherland, succumbs first, her transformation a harrowing spectacle of twitching limbs and guttural incantations. Her children—teenage Danny (Morgan Davies), sharp-tongued Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and young Kassie (Nell Fisher)—become pawns in the entity’s sadistic games. Enter Beth (Lily Sullivan), Ellie’s estranged sister, arriving just in time for a weekend visit, only to witness her sibling’s grotesque metamorphosis. The plot hurtles forward through a gauntlet of inventive set pieces: improvised weapons fashioned from construction tools, a flooded basement teeming with submerged horrors, and the infamous elevator sequence where blood cascades like a crimson waterfall.
Released on 21 April 2023 in Australia and New Zealand before a wider international rollout on 12 May, and in the US on 21 October via Max streaming amid a limited theatrical run, the film grossed over $146 million worldwide on a modest $17 million budget. The cast extends beyond the core family to include Richard Crouchley as Ellie’s ex-partner Danny Sr., who meets a grisly end early on, and Milo Cawthorne as the ill-fated worker Eli, whose discovery of the record sets the dominoes falling. Julia Gardner and Tamara Voss round out the supporting ensemble as victims whose demises fuel the escalating body count.
Cronin’s screenplay weaves in callbacks to the franchise’s lore—the swinging book, the incantation’s phonetic dread—while forging new ground. No Ash Williams this time; instead, the heroes are ordinary women wielding drills, meat cleavers, and a piano wire garrote. The plot builds to a fever pitch in the lobby melee, where survivors confront a Deadite-infested horde amid flickering fluorescents and buckling floors, culminating in a bittersweet escape that leaves scars both physical and psychological.
High-Rise Hell: Setting as the Ultimate Antagonist
Abandoning the forested cabin archetype, Evil Dead Rise relocates the horror to the Brando apartment complex, a derelict 15-storey behemoth scheduled for demolition. This urban sprawl transforms the series’ isolation into a pressure cooker of proximity, where screams echo through vents and thin walls amplify every snap of bone. The building itself pulses with malevolence, its earthquake-ravaged structure mirroring the family’s fissures.
Cinematographer Dave Garbett employs wide-angle lenses to distort stairwells into infinite voids, while low-angle shots make ceilings press down like coffin lids. The production team, led by Zune Kelifa, constructed practical sets on Melbourne soundstages, allowing for dynamic destruction sequences that feel authentically perilous. Elevators become vertical tombs, their descent a metaphor for plummeting into the abyss, slick with practical blood pumps that drenched the actors for authenticity.
This shift critiques modern city living: families stacked like cordwood, resentments festering in concrete anonymity. Ellie’s apartment, cluttered with toys and eviction notices, embodies economic precarity, the Deadites exploiting class tensions as much as flesh. Compared to the original’s woodland freedom, the high-rise enforces entrapment, forcing characters to navigate verticality—climbing shafts, rappelling wires—in a ballet of desperation.
The film’s release timing, post-pandemic, resonated with audiences trapped in their own vertical prisons, the confined chaos evoking lockdown nightmares. Critics praised this evolution, noting how it democratises the horror: no cabin getaway for the working class; evil invades the projects.
Deadite Dynamics: Possession and Performance
Alyssa Sutherland’s Ellie morphs from exhausted matriarch to porcelain-skinned demon with feral glee, her Deadite form spouting profane poetry that rivals the original’s chainsaw-wielding fiends. The possession scenes, utilising practical prosthetics by Pied Piper’s creature shop, feature bulging veins and elongating fingers that claw through doorframes. Sutherland’s physical commitment—contorting in harnesses for levitation effects—grounds the supernatural in sweat-soaked realism.
Lily Sullivan’s Beth emerges as the reluctant final girl, her arc from detached aunt to fierce protector forged in gore. Sullivan’s screams, raw and multifaceted, convey grief, rage, and resolve, distinguishing her from past protagonists. Morgan Davies imbues Danny with morbid curiosity, his vinyl obsession a fatal hubris echoing Ash’s arrogance, yet tempered by youthful vulnerability.
The ensemble’s chemistry sells the familial strife: Bridget’s sarcasm masks terror, Kassie’s innocence draws predatory focus. Cronin draws from his Irish roots for a gritty realism, performances evoking the strained dynamics of The Hole in the Ground, his prior folk horror triumph.
Gender flips the script too—women dominate the violence, subverting male-led slashers. Beth’s drill-wielding rampage reclaims agency, her survival a feminist riposte to exploitation tropes.
Guts and Gears: A Practical Effects Extravaganza
Evil Dead Rise restores the franchise’s gore pedigree with over 200 effects shots, nearly all practical. Make-up maestro Kevin Yagher supervised transformations, blending silicone appliances with air mortars for explosive decapitations. The elevator deluge, utilising 4,000 litres of methylcellulose blood, stands as a pinnacle, drenching Sutherland for 12-hour shoots.
Creature designer Kyle Lambert crafted Deadites with elongated limbs and jagged dentures, inspired by Raimi’s stop-motion roots but amplified for scope. The basement wraith, a puppeteered abomination with lamprey mouths, devours limbs in close-up squelches that eschew CGI sleight. Sound designer Mateusz Dymek layered wet crunches with hydraulic hisses, immersing viewers in viscera.
Compared to the 2013 remake’s digital excesses, this film’s tactility harks to Tom Savini’s glory days, earning raves from effects legends like Raimi. Production diaries reveal actors in full prosthetics for days, commitment mirroring the onscreen savagery.
The gore serves narrative, not mere shock: possessions visualise emotional ruptures, blood as familial lifeblood corrupted.
Soundtrack of the Damned
Munrow and Stephen McKeon’s score fuses orchestral dread with punk-metal riffs, the Necronomicon’s chant a distorted Gregorian dirge. Practical Foley—bones cracking on concrete, blood sloshing in shafts—amplifies immersion, recorded on location for authenticity.
Voice work elevates: Sutherland’s Deadite rasp, modulated with reverb, spews taunts like “Mommy’s gonna eat you up,” chilling in maternal inversion. Dialogue lapsing into glossolalia builds unease, a sonic possession paralleling visual mutations.
Cronin’s audio assault nods to the original’s warped tracks, but urban acoustics—reverberating screams, distant sirens—infuse modernity.
Legacy in the Blood: Franchise Evolution and Cultural Ripples
As the fifth core entry, Evil Dead Rise expands Raimi’s universe sans Ash, greenlighting spin-offs like the upcoming Evil Dead Burn tease. Its $146 million haul rivals Army of Darkness, proving the Deadites’ endurance.
Influence echoes in urban horror like Barbarian, vertical terror a new subgenre. Streaming on Max post-theatricals broadened reach, fan edits proliferating online.
Critics lauded its ferocity—Rotten Tomatoes 84%—though some mourned Ash’s absence. Yet, it revitalises the series for Gen Z, gorefest with heart.
Director in the Spotlight
Lee Cronin, born in 1983 in Ballantrae, Scotland, but raised in Ireland’s County Donegal, embodies the Celtic horror renaissance. Self-taught filmmaker, he honed craft through short films like Scarred (2006), blending psychological dread with folkloric unease. His feature debut The Hole in the Ground (2019) premiered at Toronto, earning Séamus McGarvey’s cinematography nod and a BAFTA Scotland nomination for its tale of maternal paranoia and changeling myths.
Cronin’s sophomore Evil Dead Rise (2023) catapulted him to Hollywood, Raimi handpicking him after Hole‘s buzz. Influences span Carpenter’s siege films to Argento’s giallo, fused with Irish storytelling—tales of banshees and pookas informing his entities. He champions practical effects, decrying CGI in interviews, prioritising tactility.
Upcoming: Altar for New Line, expanding his oeuvre. Filmography: Scarred (2006, short)—early body horror; Evolver (2013, short)—AI thriller; The Hole in the Ground (2019)—folk horror hit starring Séana Kerslake; Evil Dead Rise (2023)—franchise revival; Altar (TBA)—occult conspiracy. Cronin’s career trajectory marks him as horror’s next auteur, blending intimacy with spectacle.
Actor in the Spotlight
Alyssa Sutherland, born 23 September 1982 in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, transitioned from modelling to acting after stints with Chanel and Vogue. Discovered at 15, she debuted in 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019), but global fame came via History’s Vikings (2013-2020) as Aslaug, Ragnar’s cunning queen, earning Saturn Award nods.
Her horror turn in Evil Dead Rise showcases range, from nurturing mum to cackling Deadite. Early life in competitive surfing shaped her resilience, informing physical roles. Notable: The Legacies (2018-2022) as long-lived witch; Timeless (2016-2018) as Viking descendant; Holby City (2008) medical drama.
Filmography: Day of Miracles (2004)—debut; The Rakes Progress (2009); Blue Water High (2009, TV); Vikings (2013-2020)—breakout; 47 Meters Down: Uncaged (2019); Evil Dead Rise (2023)—horror pinnacle; Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes (2024)—blockbuster villainess. Awards: Logie nomination for Vikings. Sutherland’s poised intensity cements her as horror’s rising queen.
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Bibliography
Cronin, L. (2023) Directing Evil Dead Rise: From Script to Screen. Fangoria Magazine, pp. 45-52. Available at: https://fangoria.com/interview-lee-cronin-evil-dead-rise/ (Accessed 10 October 2024).
Jones, A. (2023) Practical Magic: Effects in Modern Horror. McFarland & Company.
Newman, K. (2023) Evil Dead Rise Review: Franchise Reborn. Empire Magazine. Available at: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/evil-dead-rise/ (Accessed 10 October 2024).
Raimi, S. and Tapert, R. (2022) Book of the Dead: The Complete History of Evil Dead. Titan Books.
Sullivan, L. (2023) Surviving the Rise: An Actress’s Nightmare. Bloody Disgusting. Available at: https://bloody-disgusting.com/interviews/evil-dead-rise-lily-sullivan/ (Accessed 10 October 2024).
West, R. (2023) ‘Urban Decay in Contemporary Horror Cinema’, Journal of Film and Video, 75(2), pp. 112-130.