Here at Empire, we have an ‘ouchies’ scale – an ooft-ometer, if you will, measuring levels of on-screen pain; it ranges from ‘blimey, that doesn’t look pleasant’, right up to a ‘sweet Christ, I feel a bit sick now’. Be aware, readers: even just the trailer for Evil Dead Rise, Lee Cronin’s follow-up to Sam Raimi’s seminal horror (or horror-comedy, or comedy-horror depending on which sequel you’re watching) saga, is a full-on five on the ouchie scale. If you’ve got the stomach, check out the Red Band trailer for an intense introduction to a new deluge of Deadite terror – one that, for the first time ever, takes the series away from the cabin-in-the-woods (and medieval castle) setting of the previous films, and relocates it to a claustrophobic LA apartment. Watch it here:
The scalping! The cheese grater! The tattoo needle! The glass chomp! Holy smokes, Croning is not messing about on this one – bringing serious pain to his is-it-a-sequel, is-it-a-reboot, who-cares-it-looks-great follow-up. And while it seems to have a gory sensibility more in tune with Fede Álvarez’s similarly five-ouchies 2013 remake, Evil Dead Rise has plenty of classic elements of Raimi’s stories too – verbally-abusive possessed Deadite corpses, chainsaws galore, a Very Bad Book, and a familiar incantation: “Kandarrrrr!”
And like the first two films, which find Bruce Campbell’s Ash (absent here) facing the loss of close loved ones in the midst of his brush with the occult, this one has a familial element at its core: as Lily Sullivan’s Beth reunites with her sister, Alyssa Sutherland’s Ellie, and finds the family – including Ellie’s three kids – facing Necronomicon nightmares. Cronin – who wrote the screenplay as well as directing – really seems to be leaning into the spirits’ horrible tendency to spew vile dialogue at their victims, as well as unleashing bucketfuls of blood.
Either way, it’s looking like a promising flesh (sorry, fresh) chapter in the Evil Dead series from the filmmaker behind The Hole In The Ground. No wonder he was handpicked by Sam Raimi himself. Let the gory story unfold…
Evil Dead Rise comes to UK cinemas on 21 April