In my more delusional moments, I like to think of myself as a purist of a certain type of horror. The cerebral kind, packed with metaphor, symbolism, and a creak on the stairs. Gore and schlock is a nice distraction at best and lazy at worst. Then I watched the trailer for Evil Dead Rise and that snob was inhabited by a blood-thirsty creature that keeps shouting random words like GROOVY and BOOMSTICK!
I absolutely adore the Evil Dead franchise and I will challenge anyone to find me a horror series with the same run of quality as the Deadites and whoever they are terrorizing. The original Ash trilogy, a reboot so good it should be illegal, and the cruelly curtailed TV show, all of which are iconic in my book of the Dead. Sorry. No other franchise has so effectively married schlock and and more shock like this.
Evil Dead Rise, a reboot from Irish director Lee Cronin (if you haven’t seen his debut The Hole in the Ground, do it now), looks set to continue this ridiculous run of form as the Deadites finally get out of the woods (and the middle ages) and into one of these excellently eerie horror settings, a high rise apartment building. It’s a smart way to update the franchise and a shift from rural to urban compared to the original movies, and I’m excited to see what the new setting brings – and how it will change the way these creatures work in any way. The excellent Alyssa Sutherland is giving her jaw-unhinging best here, and I can’t wait to see how the film explores a mother-daughter relationship as the focal point for the horror. It’s a new storytelling avenue for the series to dive down, and, honestly, looks like it could be really interesting if this trailer is anything to go by.
It looks gory, it looks funny, it looks fucking scary. Bruce Campbell has described it as the scariest of the franchise yet, and if this eerie, unsettling trailer is anything to go by, he’s probably right. It looks like the Evil Dead will rip the living guts out of us for another decade. I will be there on opening night screaming BLOOD! BLOOD! If I start throwing red paint be sure to stay out of the splash zone. You have been warned.
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By Kevin Boyle
(header image via Polygon)
No But Listen 