If you’re a fan of the blood-soaked, horrifying, ruthless, gut-churning, every-second-of-the-way kind of films, then “Evil Dead Rise” should be your next theatrical watch. While there are quite a few issues with the film, including wardrobe choices and confusing accents, “Evil Dead Rise” is your latest horror film to just have pure fun with. To enjoy such a film with an engaged crowd is experience enough to recommend it. With the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis resurfacing due to an earthquake and the curiosity of a child, unspeakable evil is unleashed on an apartment building in LA this time around. Frankly, there isn’t much LA in this film, but either way, it’s a blast, and if we step aside from the fact that it is a part of the larger franchise and watch it as a stand-alone, it’s quite enjoyable but falls a little short in terms of a hooking plot. Surely, people aren’t very interested in a plot when they want a bloodbath. With that said, let’s jump straight into the goriest scenes of “Evil Dead Rise,” a family drama like no other.
Trigger Warning
Scalps Are For Losers
In true “Evil Dead” style, the movie doesn’t waste a second to begin its gorefest. Poor Teresa, who wants to take a rain check on the isolated cabin in the woods, ends up getting the top of her scalp ripped off by the hand of her dear cousin Jessica. Interestingly, “Evil Dead Rise” does a full circle and brings us back to this moment at the end of the film after the absolute pandemonium of the previous night’s events with Ellie and her family. Teresa’s unfortunate fate was decided after she mentioned killing Jessica’s boyfriend for being “half-brained.” Remember, kids, do not talk about somebody’s brains in a secluded cabin in the middle of nowhere with no help—not that it’s going to save you; it’ll probably just make your death a little less “mind-blowing.”
Eyeballs Are A Choking Hazard
In a simultaneously preposterous and incredible turn of events, Ellie’s first kill is the handsome and helpful young neighbor Gabriel. The poor boy who says a prayer and helps Beth shut Ellie’s eyes when she “died” attempts to bust open the door to an unoccupied house in order to get access to the fire escape to take Ellie’s body out. When he comes back to check on Beth while Mr. Fonda, another one of the neighbors, gets his shotgun to bust open the door, he notices Ellie is standing and walking about. Unfortunately, when he says her name, she jumps onto him, biting his face, or so we think, until she lifts up her head, and Gabriel doesn’t have an eye anymore. But that’s not it! She then regurgitates said eye and spits it out so that it lands in the open mouth of one of the younger boys at the scene, who then chokes on the eye. Nah, kids, you were supposed to turn around and run the other way, not stare open-mouthed.
Bulb For Food
We have seen people bite into bulbs before (Karen Gillan in Oculus), but the sweet little Bridget eating the bulb after retching out a thick stream of maggots was rather hurtful to watch (hurting my brain, for sure). When she says, “I don’t like anything in my stomach,” and a piece of glass from the bulb slowly threatens to poke out of her tender neck, that’s when we turn around and never look back. After the loss of Bridget, we thought there was no turning back from this; there would be no survivors.
Graters Are For Cheese
Or calves? One of the more thrilling scenes of the film is when Beth trips on the pan filled with eggs and shells left on the floor by Ellie as if she knew it would be in a position to trip Beth, although why crack the eggs in the pan? Probably to scare the kids who are about to have their souls taken, but we digress. Bridget, who jumps down from the kitchen table, Spider-Man style, gets punched by Beth and tries to find any weapon to violently harm the pregnant woman. Yes, you got it. She reaches for the grater and slowly grates Beth’s calf as she screams in pain and grabs a pan to hit Bridget’s head with. (I just want to know: how was she able to stand and be normal after the incredible pain that would’ve caused her? bleh)
Staffanie Will Keep Them Safe
Young Kassie is rather resourceful and brave. She opens the door with Ellie looking like a deranged zombie with no fear, and later, when Bridget comes at her, and Danny isn’t fast enough to get her, she uses staffanie, the weapon she created by cutting off the head from a baby toy (this family is a little out of it) and installing it on the top of a broken staff with a really sharp edge. An audible gasp and profanity ensued when young Kassie used a staff and pushed it through Bridget’s mouth all the way to the back of her skull and through the other end. Of course, Bridget then pulls it out of her head slowly and calmly with a straight face, then collapses (fortunately).
Special Mention: Danny’s Blood-Soaked Death
Danny’s death is not even remotely one of the goriest of the lot, but his blood-soaked (thanks to Bridget vomiting out an entire lake of blood on him) face after getting stabbed in the chest by his dear sister Bridget before he looks at his other sister and apologizes, was one of the best scenes of the film, bringing a second of emotion in the total carnage otherwise. Then he closes his eyes before he’s turned into pure evil too. If only Danny had been a good boy and left the book alone as Bridget had warned, tsk tsk.
Knife In The Nose
We’ve already established that Kassie is the most enterprising character in the film. Apart from creating one of the deadliest weapons and using it on Bridget, she helps her Aunty Beth just before Ellie is able to dig into her stomach and kill her and her embryo by passing her a pair of large scissors, the same pair she had stolen from her mom to cut up the baby and hide under the couch. Smart girl. Beth does the best thing she can with a pair of scissors and stuffs it in Ellie’s nose. An added bonus is that we get to see Ellie pull it out tediously when she wakes up again.
The Final Scene
This wouldn’t be a list of the goriest scenes if we didn’t mention the grandiose, for lack of a better word, death of the creature formed by the bodies of Ellie and everyone she killed mangled up together. As an ode to Ash, Beth has access to a chainsaw, but she’s too far from it and is being pulled into a woodchipper. Again, it is Kassie who saves the day by turning off the chipper; the force and confusion allow Beth to escape the creature and grab the chainsaw in a goosebumps-inducing scene. Beth uses the chainsaw on Ellie’s head as the creature’s body gets shredded through the chipper. After the body is gone, Ellie’s head continues to talk, calling her by her nickname, “Betty boo” Beth replies, “Only my sister gets to call me that,” and shoves the head back into the chipper with the chainsaw. Leaving us with not one but two final girls! Which was your favorite scene in “Evil Dead Rise”? And did it live up to your expectations of bloodiness?
