InRO Weekly — Volume 1, Issue 16

FILM REVIEWS
redeeming in and of themselves, and certainly don’t absolve the
film of its lumpiness, its narcissism, or some of its more juvenile
tendencies, but the more off-putting qualities aren’t inherently
disqualifying either. And there’s a bit of a perverse thrill in
something this unaccommodating being unleashed on audiences
probably expecting the latest iteration of “elevated horror.” In the
end, Beau Is Afraid is something like a long therapy session: it’s
expensive, self-indulgent, and should have probably remained
private. But there’s also a morbid fascination in observing it, and,
ultimately, the mother’s probably to blame. — ANDREW DIGNAN
DIRECTOR: Ari Aster; CAST: Joaquin Phoenix, Nathan Lane, Amy
Ryan, Parker Posey; DISTRIBUTOR: A24; IN THEATERS: April 21;
RUNTIME: 2 hr. 59 min.
EVIL DEAD RISE
Lee Cronin
The latest installment of the Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Rise,
opens with a sequence that will be instantly recognizable to
longtime fans of the series. Under the opening credits, an unseen
force propels itself, at breakneck speed, through a foggy forest,
across clearings and creeks, hurtling itself toward an
unsuspecting victim. It’s really a bit of cheeky misdirection: the
ominous, quickly moving presence is a small drone being piloted
by an obnoxious frat boy type, tormenting a young woman who’s
just trying to read by the lake. This smartly undercuts the tension
before things start to get grizzly, about five minutes hence, while
at the same time putting its own spin on one of the more familiar
visual tropes of these films. It’s also just a little bit clever — a
quality that’s otherwise in short supply in a film that, while
suitably gory and proficiently made, lacks any real sense of
invention or personality.
That woods-set prologue notwithstanding — the film eventually
circles back to how we even ended up there and who these
anonymous victims are, and in a decidedly perfunctory manner —
Evil Dead Rise differentiates itself from its predecessors by
setting its deadite mayhem not in a cabin in the woods but rather
in a dilapidated apartment complex in Los Angeles. It’s not quite
putting Jason Voorhees in outer space, but for a franchise that
leans so heavily on the isolation and vastness of the wilderness,
moving the action to an urban center rife with
modern amenities is an admirable upending of the formula. We’re
introduced to touring guitar tech and absentee cool aunt, Beth
(Lily Sullivan), who pops in to visit her older sister, tattoo artist
Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), and her three children on a dark and
stormy evening. Beth has only just learned she’s pregnant, and,
whether she’s willing to admit it or not, she’s looking to Ellie to tell
her everything’s going to be okay. However, she finds in Ellie a
woman at her wits’ end; she’s been abandoned by her husband
and the father of her kids while frantically trying to find a new
place for everyone to live as the building, which is falling down
around them, has been scheduled for demolition in a few weeks.
With Beth never being around to offer emotional support to Ellie,
cracks have emerged in their relationship, which lends the visit a
bit of an edge (Ellie even has the cruel habit of dismissing her
little sister’s career by calling her a groupie).
Speaking of cracks, a literal one opens up in the basement,
triggered by an earthquake (it is Los Angeles, after all).
Undaunted by the shaky foundation or the notion that venturing
into unlit, subterranean chambers is how one-third of all horror
films begin, Ellie’s eldest child and amateur DJ, Danny (Morgan
Davies), climbs down into an abandoned bank vault where he
finds a spooky yet familiar book (bound in human skin, penned in
blood, featuring incantations and horrifying illustrations… you
know the drill) and, even more germane to his interests, some old
records. Against the wishes of younger sisters Bridget (Gabrielle
Echols) and Kassie (Nell Fisher), Danny brings the book and the
vinyl upstairs and plays the record on his turntable. Hoping he’s
found an obscure beat he can sample, Danny instead is greeted
by a hundred-year-old recording of a priest translating the “Book
of the Dead,” and in the process unleashes an ancient, evil spirit
into the apartment building, setting the stage for a long night of
demonic possession and ultraviolence.
Directed by Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground),
Evil Dead Rise doesn’t so much resemble Sam Raimi’s seminal
1981 film The Evil Dead or either of its two sequels as it does the
dozens of disposable horror films produced under Raimi’s
production shingle, Ghost House Pictures (which mostly churns
out films in the 30 Days of Night, The Boogeyman, and The Grudge
franchises). Gone is any sort of hand-tooled ingenuity or reckless
disregard for the safety of the actors — the Raimi films, with
their Three Stooges-inspired violence and a tendency to put star
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