Evil Dead Rise (2023) - Movie Review

I’ve never gotten on the hype train for the Evil Dead series. I certainly appreciate the legacy of the films themselves (a world without Evil Dead is a world without Braindead, and that would be a sad world to live in), and I don’t think any of them are bad necessarily. I just can’t seem to get into them as much as others have. The first Evil Dead just doesn’t do much for me (tree rape doesn’t exactly warm me up to a film), and while Evil Dead II is quite fun, I struggle to consider it more than just alright all things considered.

Army Of Darkness… yeah, okay, that film goes hard, I can’t front. After truly hitting his stride with Darkman, Sam Raimi really cut loose to deliver a properly gonzo and aggressively goofy bit of medieval fantasy action-comedy ridiculousness. But even with how much I enjoyed it, considering the sharp change in setting and tone, part of me thinks that I got into this because of that change, rather than anything to do with the shared IP.

Now for the tricky bit: As an overall entertaining movie, Army Of Darkness is the franchise’s peak. But in terms of a proper scary film, I liked Fede Álvarez’s reboot/sequel thingy from 2013 more than either the original or Dead By Dawn. I really got into how it toyed with the franchise formula, using the Deadite possession angle as metaphor for addiction and withdrawal, making the astoundingly blood-soaked finale feel genuinely cathartic in how much progress Mia had made to get to that point. I’m also just a fan of how Álvarez handles atmosphere in films like that, really bringing the dread out of the situation.

With all of that in mind, I went into this latest addition to the franchise on a mixed note. I may feel a bit left out as far as the entertainment value of this franchise as a whole, but Evil Dead 2013 had me hoping that this could give me more of that expansion on the original material that could get me on-side with it. And yeah, it certainly did its own thing with the franchise lore, but I once again find myself a bit underwhelmed by the result.

Doctor Strange In The Multiverse Of Madness (2022) - Movie Review

Bryan Singer’s X-Men changed superhero cinema in a big way. It proved that not only could comic book characters survive and thrive on the big screen in the new millennium, but what makes them worth reading about can effectively be translated into something watchable; this is something that superhero flicks struggled with for years prior. But I’d argue that Sam Raimi did just as much, if not more, for the sub-genre than Singer did.

Where Singer bent the edges of those characters to make them fit, Raimi instead made the cinematic artform bend to the dynamic visuals of the printed page. His Spider-Man trilogy remains a touchstone for the sub-genre to this day, and in a lot of ways, it reached heights that most of the MCU hasn’t been able to yet. So… yeah, hearing that he’d be helming a new capeshit feature had me wanting to see him come back on top, after spending the last several years either directing forgettable fluff or producing some particularly egregious horror movies.

The Unholy (2021) - Movie Review

It was inevitable that we’d get to this point. After working as part of the DisneyToon machine in the 2000s, and breaking out into the mainstream to properly embarrass Disney licenses in the 2010s, it was only a matter of time before Evan Spiliotopoulos stopped merely writing unnecessary stories and started directing his own. Admittedly, I wasn’t expecting that transition to take the form of a Raimi-produced horror film, but seeing him attached as director to a new movie still isn’t as shocking as it should be. What is quite shocking, however, is how much this film is already starting to sour in my memory less than an hour after watching it. And my thoughts on it weren’t exactly glowing to begin with.

Crawl (2019) - Movie Review

In a year where the biggest hitters have been culminations of several years’ worth of production work-up, films like this are easily cherished. These low-stakes, high-tension B-movie genre exercises where the focus is placed more on making the audience feel something rather than just see something. It follows in the footsteps of previous review subjects like The Shallows in pitting a tough and determined woman against the forces of nature, and much like Shallows, the under-90-minute run time means that there’s no time to waste time. And the end result is a very taut, very gripping, very wince-inducing offering.

Poltergeist (2015) - Movie Review

Thanks to filmmakers like Michael Bay and Rob Zombie, the words ‘classic horror film’ and ‘remake’ are nowadays associated with the burning down of cinemas in fits of anger. Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes production company is responsible for a large number of remakes that do little more than castrate the icons attached to them, and Rob Zombie’s take on the Halloween series makes my bitching about Lou from Hot Tub Time Machine 2 look minute in comparison. Sam Raimi, the man responsible for some of the greatest cult classics ever created with the Evil Dead trilogy, is admittedly far less guilty of milquetoast horror than others. However, when your producer credits also include the Boogeyman trilogy, The Possession as well as the widely unnecessary Evil Dead remake, forgive my scepticism at this working out too well. So, how does this film hold up to the Tobe Hooper/Steven Spielberg original?