Critics and audiences alike love Evil Dead Rise to death. The fifth film in the iconic franchise created by Evil Dead trilogy director Sam Raimi, who serves as executive producer alongside series regular Bruce Campbell, scared up a 100% score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes out of SXSW and has settled at 89% certified fresh on the Tomatometer. Early reactions seem to agree the Lee Cronin-directed Rise is a bloody good time: 89% of verified ticket buyers have also given Rise a thumbs up, and reviewers have made the newest chapter in the Necronomicon the highest-rated installment of the franchise’s 42-year history.
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Evil Dead Rise sits atop the Tomatometer at 89%, rising above 1987’s Evil Dead II (88%), 1981’s The Evil Dead (85%), and 1992’s trilogy ender, Army of Darkness, at a groovy 69%. 2013’s Evil Dead re-imagining from director Fede Álvarez is still fresh but the lowest-rated at 63%.
“Those hoping for some form of Raimi’s — and to a lesser extent Alvarez’s — offbeat weirdness and humor in this Evil Deadreboot should temper expectations,” ComicBook critic Kofi Outlaw writes in a spoiler-free 3.5 star review. “This is definitely a moreby-the-numbers studio-approved horror film product, which has its fairshare of jokes and humor, but not really the goofy indie film campflavor Raimi added to the genre.”
Moving the action out of the woods and into the city, Evil DeadRise tells a twisted tale of two estranged sisters (Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland), whose reunion is cut short by the rise offlesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle forsurvival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable. Morgan Davies (Storm Boy), Gabrielle Echols (Reminiscence), and Nell Fisher (Northspur) also star in the new movie that was developed for the HBO Max streaming service before being upgraded to a theatrical-exclusive release.
“I think everything’s on the table at a point like this,” Cronin told ComicBook about a potential Evil Dead Rise sequel or prequel. “And I think from there it’s like, let’s see how audiences really react to it. I definitely have got stories that I feel like I could tell inside this universe.”
Cronin continued, “But equally, I think as I’ve proven with this, I’m also a filmmaker with my own voice. I’m not there to necessarily serve a continuing narrative all the time and probably have made a movie for me in terms of my taste that’s right at the edge, intensity-wise, because I think if I pushed it any further, it becomes something that isn’t me or that I’d want to make.”
Evil Dead Rise opens in theaters April 21st.
