Reviews
‘Evil Dead Rise’ Review – Gnarly Crowd Pleaser Forges Bloody New Ground for the Franchise
Bloody Disgusting’s Evil Dead Rise review is spoiler-free.
A lakeside cabin opening sequence in Evil Dead Rise, written and directed by Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground), operates as a declaration that the latest installment of this franchise will fit snugly within the world of Evil Dead while branching out into new terrain and ideas. That means a self-contained story that brings the gnarly gore and Deadite thrills, even when its lore isn’t quite as well defined as its visceral terror.
Touring guitar technician Beth (Lily Sullivan) takes one look at her pregnancy test while at work and decides to reunite with her estranged sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) for guidance. It’s been months since Ellie heard from Beth, and she has problems of her own to contend with. She’s now a single mother of three kids, Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and young Kassie (Nell Fisher), and needs to move thanks to a crumbling high rise apartment in a dire state of disrepair. The reunion between sisters gets cut short when an earthquake strikes their Los Angeles neighborhood, opening up a pit in the building’s garage that unearths a Necronomicon.
It’s up to a reluctant Beth to keep this family safe, lest they all find themselves dead by dawn.
In Lee Cronin’s attempts to forge new ground, the filmmaker never loses sight of what makes an Evil Dead movie, well, Evil Dead. The filmmaker pays tribute to the features that came before through iconic camera work, quotable lines, hero shots, beloved weaponry, and an admirable commitment to spilling the most blood possible. The cheese grater might’ve instantly catapulted into the spotlight thanks to a shining trailer moment, but Cronin finds no shortage of grisly ways to dole out punishment to his characters or come up with inventive new weapons to dismember and maim. On this front, Evil Dead Rise is an absolute crowd pleaser that’s best enjoyed with a rowdy crowd of fellow fans.
Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland are also knockout performers that make for a welcome addition to this sadistic family. Beth’s initial introduction as a perpetual screwup makes her well suited to follow Ashley J. William’s footsteps, and her transition from lost and scared into determined protector makes for winsome opposition to the absolutely demented performance by Sutherland as one of the more terrifying Deadite foes. Save for the utterly adorable precociousness of Nell Fisher, no other characters come close to these Evil Dead sisters.
That’s one of the more noticeable hiccups to Evil Dead Rise; a shaky first act spends a bit too long setting up the stakes for Beth and Ellie but quickly passes over most of the fodder in such a way that their fates don’t amount to much beyond a quick shock and a macabre laugh or three. The story is more self-contained than you’d expect. It’s minor comparatively; this is an Evil Dead movie, after all, and we’re here for the carnage and splatstick. But it’s exacerbated by a need for more firmly established rules and lore. We see images in the book, but what they mean never fully gets explored in a way that bridges the initial possession to the third act’s wild culmination of said possession. In terms of evil turns, nothing comes close to touching Sutherland’s performance either. Some Deadite battles can feel too easily won for this universe, even when they come with gallons of spilled blood and bodily fluids.
One hell of a second act that brings the chills, splatstick humor, and no shortage of viscera kicks up the energy levels to an unrelenting degree, and Cronin never looks back. The filmmaker fully commits to making an Evil Dead movie, pushing the boundaries and fearlessly ensuring that not even children are safe in this universe. When all is said and done, it remains unclear what exactly Necronomicon Volume Two unleashes and what it could mean for the franchise’s future, but his pursuit of delivering a gnarly new entry does enough right to keep you invested, on edge, and highly entertained. There’s a commendable thoughtfulness here when approaching certain recurring elements of the franchise.
Evil Dead Rise is nowhere near as nihilistic as the previous entry, yet it’s frequently as intense. A fantastic pair of leads in Sullivan and Sutherland- especially Sutherland- combined with an endless slew of franchise tributes and unhinged levels of viscera ensure a gruesomely great time at the movies. More importantly, it opens up the franchise’s possibilities and instills the sincerest hope that it won’t be another ten years before the next one.
Editor’s Note: This SXSW review was originally published on March 16, 2023.
Evil Dead Rise made its World Premiere at SXSW and will release in theaters on April 21, 2023.
Movies
‘Recluse’ Review – Harrowing Haunted House Horror With Lots Of Skeletons In Its Closet [Tribeca 2026]
A haunted house story is tense, terrifying storytelling when it’s properly executed. There’s been a growing tendency in horror to blend together harrowing haunted house stories with traumatic homecomings. A family member’s illness or death triggers a return to something dark that was intentionally left behind. Recluse hits all the tropes that one expects to find in this type of horror film, yet it manages to push this story in a daring, disturbing new direction that uses sound as a superpower.
It’s a unique lens to experience a familiar story about family secrets, generational trauma, unresolved grief, and the importance of not just legacy, but preservation. It’s a hell of a directorial debut from Henry Chaisson that’s guaranteed to get under the audience’s skin as they’re dragged through this painful, toxic tale.
Recluse is a gothic haunted house story where an isolated audio engineer, Joan (Sasha Frolova), returns to her family’s estate to check in on her father after he suffers a terrible accident. Joan suddenly discovers something much more sinister that paints her family’s tragedies in a very different light. Chaisson’s debut functions as a fascinating companion piece to this year’s undertone, which does a lot of the same things.
These two films make for a fascinating case of parallel thinking that tackles comparable subject matter through a similar lens, albeit in a bigger, less claustrophobic story in Recluse’s case. In fact, it’s the perfect horror film for anyone who was let down by undertone and didn’t feel like it brought enough to the table. It’s a considerably more conventional horror film, but this isn’t meant to denigrate its high quality. Recluse may hit some familiar notes, but it’s a scary, well-crafted haunted house horror story that goes for the jugular.
A gripping mystery that involves the tragic, unresolved circumstances that surround Joan’s mother teases a chilling connection to the recent horrors that have afflicted her father. Joan desperately tries to put these pieces together and give her family some sense of grander peace before she’s pulled under and becomes another victim of this festering curse that’s systematically worked its way through the Wyatt family. By doing so, Recluse digs into some deeper commentary on collective trauma, a very literal look at the “sins of the father” adage, and how one selfish decision can ripple through generations and fracture off into different dilemmas. By the end, Recluse has brilliantly flipped the powerful concept of legacy on its head by illustrating the horrors and sense of entitlement that can be born out of this idea.
A legacy is just another name for a curse under the right context.
”Listen” is a simple but powerful command from Joan’s father that she briefly obsesses over. In a way, it becomes Recluse’s grander mission statement, whether it’s in response to Joan listening to the people in her life, the signals that her body and mind are telling her, or the world’s greater whims. It’s important to reconnect with these grounding pillars, especially when it feels like control is slipping away.
Recluse excels with how audio and soundscapes can create entire universes that are full of rich details that transport individuals to these environments. There’s also a level of objectivity when it comes to audio recordings and the evergreen permanence that they’re able to provide. Joan’s career as an audio engineer makes sense for someone who wants to cling to hard evidence and proof of existence. It provides great insight into Joan without ever getting lost in contrived exposition.
Joan’s entire life is built around audio engineering, and so it makes sense that Recluse features excellent sound design that really goes above and beyond with its production elements. All of the sound design is expertly handled and turns the film into something special. These auditory elements intuitively keep the audience on edge so that they’re more susceptible to the actual scares that eventually strike. The smallest sound effect gets turned into a crushing, cacophonous assault. It’s a really effective way to build terror. Writer/Director Chaisson also handles the film’s music, which achieves a sublime, unnerving dissonance that further heightens the free-floating anxiety.
The story at the center of Recluse is slightly generic in some respects, but the film’s visual language and tone make it feel distinctly memorable. It also doesn’t hurt that the home that Joan returns to is basically an eerie art studio that’s full of contorted paintings. Recluse never struggles to generate mounting dread and terror that pump through every scene. Powerful, thoughtful cinematography consistently reinforces the film’s themes. Joan is constantly reflected in different surfaces or viewed through mirrors. She’s also often confined to tight, constricting framing that all speaks to her refracted identity during this moment of loss and her attempts to regain agency and control by making sense of something that’s seemingly unexplainable.
Recluse is full of truly disturbing visuals that make it seem like Joan is lost in a dream that turns out to be an extended nightmare. It’s a surreal journey reminiscent of invasive psychological horror like Silent Hill, with a touch of Sinister and Hereditary thrown in for good measure. There are so many individual frames that could endlessly fuel urban legends and creepypastas.
It does a great job with how it presents Joan’s fragile state of mind, where chilling flashes of the past sneak up on her and unresolved trauma manifests into unsettling imagery. There are endless shots that are obscured in darkness, or shadow is creeping in from the corners of frames like a suffocating force of nature. It’s very rare that a scene is fully lit. It leads to a very lonely, isolating atmosphere that’s easy to get lost in.
Chaisson’s debut stands out from the many other high-minded haunted house horror films without succumbing to the same pretensions that often drag down these stories. It’s a grief-stricken character study that’s full of upsetting visuals that scratch at something visceral and raw. The horror elements connect, and the answers to its grander mystery provide an appropriate and believable sense of closure. Those who are looking for an atmospheric horror film that isn’t afraid to be different while still channeling something real will appreciate Recluse.
Recluse made its world premiere at Tribeca; release info TBD.
You must be logged in to post a comment.