The latest entry in the Evil Dead franchise opens on a familiar image, inverted for this new chapter — instead of a dilapidated cabin in the middle of an overgrown forest, there is an A-frame in a green meadow straight out of Midsommar’s idyllic Swedish countryside. Nestled snuggly against a lake, the cabin’s occupants have yet to come across the horrors of the Necronomicon. The opening scene is a microcosm of Evil Dead Rise itself, a nasty movie that cleverly subverts franchise tropes for a grisly and bitterly hysterical riff on motherhood in horror and the mythology that began with Sam Raimi’s 1981 cult classic. While it doesn’t quite reach the horrific highs of the 2013 remake, it rips through other splatter-fests with the finesse of a freshly whetted chainsaw blade.
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Evil Dead Rise opts for the urban landscape of Los Angeles this time around, forgoing foreboding forests for a claustrophobic and rundown high-rise apartment building. Beth (Lily Sullivan), a guitar technician who has just returned from touring abroad, visits her sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) on a rainy night. After an earthquake strikes and unearths some long-buried artifacts, the family, which also includes Ellie’s three children Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and Kassie (Nell Fisher), are trapped on the top floor of the building as something sinister takes hold.

The cast of Evil Dead Rise. 

The decision to set Evil Dead Rise in a city reveals its benefits immediately as director Lee Cronin’s camera swoops, swings, and rushes over cracked concrete into subterranean basements and up the elevator shaft to Ellie’s apartment. The director nods to the movement in Raimi’s original while showing off the ways the cityscape gives way to new horrors. There are plenty of references to the original film and the genre itself (including one excellent Nightmare on Elm Street joke) that shows Cronin’s respect for the genre. Conversely, there are clever updates that arguably make some rather problematic aspects of the franchise even better including the demonic tree and a particularly foul Deadite that is sure to result in plenty of nightmares.

What makes Evil Dead Rise work, though, is the family at the center. Sullivan and Sutherland are perfect casting as semi-estranged sisters reuniting over one terrible night. That the reunion is short-lived makes it all the more heartbreaking. Evil Dead Rise takes its time in setting up what’s to come, lagging a little as it establishes what’s at stake. Still, Sutherland, Sullivan, and the rest of the cast create a clear family dynamic that makes it all the more heartbreaking when you remember what’s about to occur. The film is also populated with side characters that live on Ellie’s floor, more fodder for the Deadites and while it’s tragic what unfolds, Evil Dead Rise remembers what made the original a classic.

Alyssa Sutherland in Evil Dead Rise. 

The 2013 Evil Dead, which was dubbed as a re-imagining of Raimi’s classic, retained the spine-chilling gore, but it lacked humor, trading laughs for grotesque cruelty. Evil Dead Rise, which was also written by Cronin, brings back the absurdity in spades while retaining the grimy aesthetic established by the 2013 film. While Evil Dead felt like a bloated corpse in the best way, Evil Dead Rise feels like a recently revived Deadite with a razor-sharp tongue (not to be confused with the razor that Jane Levy cuts her tongue on in the 2013 movie). From violent visual gags to perfect comedic timing from Rise’s young cast, the film is often laugh-out-loud hilarious between bouts of horrific maiming and terror.

Evil Dead Rise also opens the door for even more Deadite horror, and it will certainly leave audiences salivating for more. It retains a fine balance between abject horror and acidic humor even if it leaves a little to be desired by the end. That it lacks the punch of its predecessor or the cult classic feel of the original doesn’t really matter. Evil Dead Rise shows the ways a franchise like this (over four decades old at this point) can be taken to exciting new heights.

Evil Dead Rise releases in theaters on Friday, April 21. The film is 97 minutes long and rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and some language.