Evil Dead Rise

Cursed with a wraparound that sets up precisely nothing of interest and a toothy volume of the Necronomicon that looks like it's escaped from Alfonso Cuarón's Harry Potter sequel (presumably the many rubbery DVD special editions issued by Anchor Bay have rendered the original design quaint in the eyes of these filmmakers), Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise is, otherwise, an excellent modern update of tape era horror. Rather than have a gang of semi-strangers abandon themselves to a rundown cabin in the deepest darkest woods, Rise builds itself around a single-parent family's attempts to escape a dilapidated apartment complex. These victims are not brought together by strange social obligation or misbegotten romantic overtures, they are all, instead, bonded in blood. These deeper connections trap them in cracked rooms, demanding that they fight and fight until their dying breath. So, after a sacred burial site is disturbed by a crate-digging teenager (the mausoleum in question explicitly cross-pollinating Sam Raimi's more animistic mayhem with the strained Judeo-Christian efforts to constrain it), a particularly cruel demon is unleashed into this mouldering would-be demolition site. 

Writer-director Cronin uses this atypical, for this series at least, set-up as a way to pick and prod at a household's worth of strained relationships. A pair of prickly teenagers aside, Alyssa Sutherland's Ellie, the mother in this group, feels abandoned by her sister. Lily Sullivan's Beth, the sibling in question, has sacrificed her own personal life (or perhaps more accurately, the familial aspect of it) in her efforts to climb the ladder in the concert touring industry. This ambition, clearly dear to Beth, is summed up in stark, reproachful language by Ellie. Remarks that, given how the building's other residents refer to Beth, Ellie does not keep to herself. In the original Raimi films, the possessed bodies of former friends and lovers were transformed into engines of pure torment. This violent mockery goes beyond just humorous torture in Cronin's instalment. The afflicted creatures attacking the ever-dwindling survivors are not simply spirits puppeteering the meat of a lost family member, they're an intelligence that has sunk into the memories and prejudices of their hosts, able to vomit up insults that genuinely sting. Beth clearly does believe she has failed in her obligations as both a sister and as an Aunt. Rise's Deadites never let her hear the end of it.