There's a whole lot of blood and not much else in "Evil Dead Rise," the latest chapter in the horror franchise, which could use a little of the spirited, campy, wink-wink charm of the original entries in the series.
Here, we spend most of the runtime locked in an urban apartment building where the Necronomicon, the series' fated Book of the Dead, has unleashed all manner of unholiness on a mother, her sister and her three children. World-record levels of red stuff are spilled in the film's blood-drenched climax, but it's no substitute for the film's lack of wit or self-awareness.
Alyssa Sutherland is Ellie, mom of three, who lives in a wholly decrepit (and unconvincing) section of Los Angeles. (New Zealand stands in here for the City of Angels.) Her sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) comes to visit on a night where an earthquake opens up a hole beneath the building, and Ellie's teenage DJ son Danny (Morgan Davies) comes across an odd looking book and, whaddya know, its nifty vinyl accompaniments. After remixing some LCD Soundsystem tracks in his bedroom, he tosses on the record and, whoops, awakens the dead. Ellie is first to be infected with the sickness, and all sorts of nastiness unfurls, as Beth — who has recently learned she's pregnant — and the children are forced to fight for their lives against the mother of all evil.
