Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Movie · 2023 · Horror, Thriller · 1h 36m · R · English

Curator score: 3.5/10 (942K ratings)

Mommy loves you to death.

Overview

A reunion between two estranged sisters gets cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.

Ratings

Director

Lee Cronin

Production

Pacific Renaissance Pictures, Wild Atlantic Pictures, New Line Cinema, Renaissance Pictures

Cast

Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols, Nell Fisher, Mark Mitchinson, Jayden Daniels, Mirabai Pease, Tai Wano, Noah Paul, Melissa Xiao, Billy Reynolds-McCarthy, Richard Crouchley, Anna-Maree Thomas, Bruce Campbell, Nedim Jahić, Greta van den Brink

Where to watch

Max

Curator Review

Verdict

A nasty, efficient possession movie that trades the franchise’s cabin-in-the-woods setup for a claustrophobic apartment nightmare. It’s strongest as a relentless creature-feature with practical gore, mean streak, and a surprisingly effective family-under-siege angle.

Best for

  • fans of high-energy possession horror
  • viewers who want practical effects and gore
  • people who like cramped, siege-style thrillers
  • audiences open to a darkly comic tone

Skip if

  • you want slow-burn psychological horror
  • you dislike extreme gore and body horror
  • you need deep character development over set-pieces
  • you’re tired of demonic-possession formulas

Overview

Evil Dead Rise is a blunt instrument in the best way: loud, grisly, and designed to keep tightening the screws. Moving the carnage into a high-rise apartment gives the franchise a fresh pressure-cooker setting, and the movie makes excellent use of walls, hallways, elevators, and thin floors to turn ordinary domestic space into a trap.

Worth noting

The film works less as a mystery than as a sequence of escalating shocks, and that’s largely the point. It leans hard into practical gore, grotesque transformations, and a nasty sense of humor, while the family dynamic gives the violence a more emotional edge than pure splatter. The performances help sell the panic, especially when the movie shifts from dread to full-on survival mode.

Bottom line

It may not be the most inventive possession film ever made, but it is one of the most confidently executed recent ones. If you want a slick, mean, crowd-pleasing horror ride that knows exactly how far to push its audience, this delivers.

Top Letterboxd reviews

Jay (4★) · 18481 likes

do NOT pass the goth kid the aux! they will start playing century old readings of the necronomicon ex-mortis book of the dead!

aaron (4★) · 10790 likes

strong contender for best title card of all time really

Framesofnick (4★) · 10289 likes

Me one microsecond without the zaza Edit: I’ve reflected on this review and found it to still be funny 3 years later. Great movie tho

Wes (4★) · 9257 likes

Hot Moms in Your Area Looking to Get Exorcised! CLICK HERE

Patrick Willems (3★) · 7197 likes

Features three different colors of puke. Thumbs up.

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Topics

horror, thriller, possession, body horror, practical effects, claustrophobic, gore, siege, darkly comic, supernatural

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