The Evil Dead, the film that started the franchise that won’t stay buried, keeps reanimating as if the Necronomicon Ex Mortis is really being read. After Evil Dead II, Army of Darkness, video games, comic books, a remake in 2013, and a Starz series titled Ash vs Evil Dead, there is now a new movie coming out, Evil Dead Rise, setting the famed Deadite demons of the series in a high rise.
Evil Dead Rise is set in an apartment in a Los Angeles high-rise, in which two sisters, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and Beth (Lily Sullivan), live. The Evil Dead Rise trailer opens with Ellie walking over to a gas stove, banging down a pan, and then cracking eggs into it just by throwing them—shells and all—into the pan. Beth approaches slowly, asking, “What’s up, sis?” Ellie describes how she had the most beautiful dream as the trailer cuts to her, dressed for summer, walking toward an A-frame cabin in the woods. She enjoys a sit by the docks. Back at home, she’s still cracking eggs as she narrates. One of them is filled with blood.
A shot of endless rustic crosses and saint medallions hanging from a ceiling gives way to one of a hospital as she describes how in her perfect dream, all she wanted was to cut open her family and crawl inside their bodies. A shot of a little girl cutting off a doll’s head is followed by two sisters fighting, one ripping off the other’s scalp. The Evil Dead Rise trailer then begins playing Que Sera Sera as it cuts to scenes before: Beth playing with Ellie’s youngest, Ellie’s older kids unfolding cloth from a round a book familiar to fans of the series: the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, or Book of the Dead, the tome that, when read, opens up everyone to possession by Kandarian demons. A mysterious record gets put on, and the chanting begins.
The familiar possession traits begin with thumps, rattles, and a knock at the door. Ellie’s daughter notes that her mom doesn’t look so good, but mama says all she needs is a big old kiss. The girl opens the door, and all hell breaks loose: Stabbings, people getting tossed around, a cheese grater to the leg, and plenty of scared, scared kids. The littlest tells her Auntie Beth she’d be a good mom someday as it cuts to Beth, in the building’s parking area, revving up a chainsaw. More shots follow: Ellie rising from a lake, a Shining-like elevator spewing gallons of blood, and Ellie crawling out of a bathtub. Before she flies onto the ceiling and begins screaming, her kids ask, “Mom?” and she answers, “Mommy’s with the maggots, now.”
Evil Dead Rise opens in theaters on April 21, 2023.
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Source: Warner Bros./YouTube
