EVIL DEAD RISE

EVIL DEAD RISE is the fifth in a series of supernatural horror thrillers that began in 1981, but this time a young transgender teenager unwittingly unleashes a demon who terrorizes the teenager’s mother, two sisters and the mother’s sister in a rundown apartment building. Like the first movie in 1981, which was originally rated X, EVIL DEAD RISE is an ultraviolent, super bloody gore fest, but with a little torture porn thrown into the mix, and only two humans escape from the demon, so the plot is depressing and sickening rather than satisfying.

The movie opens with a sequence where some campers at a cabin in the woods are attacked by their demon-possessed friend. It then flashes back to show how the demon got freed and came to the cabin.

Separated from her husband who suddenly left her, a mother named Ellie and her children are living in a rundown apartment. Ellie gets a visit from her younger sister, Beth, who’s just found out she’s pregnant. The children, teenager Bridget, her young sister, Kassie, and their young transgender teenage “brother,” Danny, take the family car to get pizza.

On the way back, an earthquake strikes and reveals a hole in the first-floor parking garage. The hole leads to the underground bank vault that used to be part of the property before the apartments were built.

Despite orders from Bridget, Danny climbs into the hole and enters the bank vault. The vault is pretty much empty except for a large safety deposit box containing some old vinyl records and a strange-looking “leather-bound” book. Danny sticks two records and the book into his backpack.

Back in his room in the apartment, Danny opens up the book, which has a bunch of old, scary drawings of people in pain, being tortured and being killed. He starts playing one of the records. He has to physically speed up the record because it’s in 78 speed. On the record, a priest from the 1920s says the book appears to be part of a series of books on magic and sorcery. For some odd reason, he thinks the spells in the book can be used for the good of humanity. So, he starts reciting one of the spells.

Danny’s sister Bridget tries to stop the recording from playing, but it’s too late. A demon is released and possess the body of their mother, Ellie. Ellie starts attacking Beth. People from next door come to help, but she attacks and kills some of them.

Beth and the children manage to lock out Ellie into the hallway. However, Ellie eventually manages to sneak her way back into the apartment. Bridget becomes the first of the children to be physically wounded and possessed by the demonic force that’s possessed her mother. Beth and Danny manage to kill Bridget before she harms them.

So, the question becomes, will Beth, Danny and Kassie survive?

Like the first movie in 1981, which was originally rated X, EVIL DEAD RISE is an ultraviolent, super bloody gore fest, but with a little torture porn thrown into the mix. For example, the demon-possessed older teenage sister starts eating glass before she starts attacking her siblings and her aunt. The occult movie has a light moral premise only because the humans are trying to stop the demon-possessed humans. Just two people escape the demon, however, which means the monster is never banished, just avoided. So, EVIL DEAD RISE is depressing and sickening rather than really satisfying. The only other good news about the movie’s content is that the foul language is limited, though not absent.