Evil Dead Rise is the sequel to Evil Dead (2013), a loose continuation of the original 1981 cult classic The Evil Dead. Evil Dead Rise brings the carnage to an all-new setting for the Evil Dead franchise taking place in a Los Angeles apartment building. The movie has enough to set it apart from the other movies in the franchise while still retaining enough of the Evil Dead DNA that it still felt like an Evil Dead movie.

The story follows Beth, played by Lily Sullivan, who is a guitar technician struggling to reconnect with her sister’s family. Beth’s sister Ellie, played by Alyssa Sutherland, was the stand-out performance of the movie, truly selling the belief that she was a possessed killing machine, tearing people apart just seemed natural because of her performance. 

The rest of the performances weren’t particularly stand out but were good enough that they had me on the edge of my seat. The characters were fleshed out and had very well-defined personalities making me not want to see any of them get hurt. 

This movie has some of the most interesting cinematography I’ve seen in a while with some especially creative shots flipping the world on its head through the reflections of water. Some scenes were truly horrific. The sound in the movie was also amazing. Some scenes had my theater rumbling during the reading of the Necronomicon summoning incantations. 

The Evil Dead Franchise is known for its over-the-top kills and extreme amounts of blood and guts and this movie does not disappoint with some of the franchise’s most extreme and creative kills that had my entire theater cringing. Limbs were being ripped off and scalps being torn from skulls and more that would be a disservice to spoil.

The movie isn’t all positive though. The most distracting point in this movie is all of the times they use the film technique of Chekhov’s gun (for example if a gun is shown in act one it must be used by Act 3) after about the third time it happened it just got annoying and distracting leaving me to whisper to my friend every time we knew something was being set up. 

Overall the movie is an awesome, creative, and graphic movie that’s definitely worth the watch, especially in a packed theater. If you liked any of the other movies you will definitely like this one.