Evil Dead Burn unleashes the franchise’s most savage and terrifying ride to date, blazing onto big screens with an all-new chapter of carnage and demonic mayhem.
After the loss of her husband, a woman seeks solace with her in-laws in their secluded family home.
As one by one they are transformed into Deadites—turning the gathering into a family reunion from hell—she comes to discover that the vows she took in life... live on even in death.
Evil Dead Burn in cinemas July 10, directed by Sébastien Vaniček, and featuring Souheila Yacoub, Tandi Wright, Hunter Doohan, Luciane Buchanan, Errol Shand, Maude Davey, George Pullar, Greta Van Den Brink.
Nathan Gardner (Nic Cage) and his wife, Theresa (Joely Richardson), have moved, with their three children, out of the big city to a secluded farm in the woods outside Arkham, Massachusetts, for a bit of peace and quiet.
Stockbroker Theresa is recovering from cancer and Nathan is trying his hand at becoming a self-sufficient farmer.
However their lives are disrupted when a strange meteorite crashes on their land, polluting the area with a paranormal alien radiation.
HP Lovecraft's original story of The Colour Out Of Space has been adapted many times, but, beyond a shadow of a doubt the latest iteration, from writer/director Richard Stanely, is the most Lovecraftian.
A gorgeous, mind-bending, blend of the cosmic with the body horror of The Thing and Society, Color Out Of Space focuses on a trapped - and doomed - family, slowly worn down by an unknowable, extraterrestrial invader.
Certainly not for everyone, Color Out Of Space isn't a trashy teen slasher flick with obvious heroes and villains, but a terrifying encapsulation of the central theme of Lovecraft's oeuvre that "common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large".
There is never really any serious suggestion that the alien entity is even aware of the humans it is transforming by its simple presence.
My Copy - Not Used In Any Rituals!
The film bears obvious similarities with 2018's Annihilation, but Color Out Of Space is the stronger work of art by a country mile.
Across the board, the central performances are superb. Nic Cage channels Nic Cage as only he can, exhibiting the convincing levels of madness and sudden rage that he does so well, while The Magicians' Madeleine Arthur is impressive as teen daughter, Lavinia, whose rebellious nature expresses itself through dabbling in witchcraft.
Beyond the gooey body horror, there's some cringe-inducing - but thankfully brief - self-mutilation that might require some eye-covering by those of us with a particular aversion to such things.
As well as rooting the story squarely in Lovecraft country, Richard Stanley has sown his tale with Lovecraftian Easter Eggs, such as the Miskatonic University sweat shirt worn by visiting surveyor Ward (Elliot Knight, sadly no relation) and the tatty, cheap paperback copy - "by Simon" - of the Necronomicon (which we all own) that Lavina consults.
Quite possibly my favourite film of 2020, Color Out Of Space is breathtaking in the audacity of its vision, a modern rendition of a Lovecraft story that truly captures the horror of its set-up and the terror of those trapped within its incidental and inescapable prison.
Okay, time for some brief personal backstory: the only reason I started this Friday the 13th challenge was an incentive to get to Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday.
I wanted to watch them in order, to see if there was any foreshadowing for some of the moments I knew were coming in this entry in the franchise, even though it was one I definitely knew I'd never seen before.
Although it's not available via Sky Cinema or through streaming, Paul had bought me the DVD over a year ago - but I hadn't gotten around to watching it until now.
And, I have to say, I loved it. Primarily for the way it ties in not just to Nightmare On Elm Street (with Freddy's claw grabbing the mask right at the end), but also with the Evil Dead mythology.
I'd known about that link for ages (hence my keenness to see this chapter in Jason's story) but hadn't expected it to be so overt.
I thought it might be a shot of the Necronomicon (which also gives it some Lovecraft flavouring as well) in the background, or some such fleeting Easter Egg. but it's front and centre, when Steven Freeman (John D. LeMay) is exploring the Voorhees home and flicks through the ancient tome:
Completely ignoring Jason's fate at the end of Jason Takes Manhattan, Jason Goes To Hell opens with the FBI setting a trap for the supernatural serial killer in the woods near Crystal Lake, resulting in him being blown to kingdom come.
The pieces of Jason's body are taken to a morgue, where his still beating heart mesmerises the coroner (Deadwood's Richard Gant), sending him off on a murderous rampage.
Meanwhile, Crystal Lake is celebrating the lifting of its 20 year "death curse", with Joey B's Diner offering Jason-themed meals.
But tough guy bounty hunter Creighton Duke (The X-Files' Steven Williams) is having none of this, because he knows that Jason can only be finally killed by destroying his heart, and only someone of the Voorhees bloodline has the power to do that.
Jason's supernatural - Deadite - power is burning up his host body, so he needs to transfer the parasite within him to other bodies on his journey to find someone of his bloodline - not only are they the only ones that can kill him, they are also the only bodies that he is able to transform into his natural form (the zombie slasher we know and love from the later films in the franchise).
Hapless doof Steven Freeman ends up getting framed for one of Jason's murders, but soon discovers - through a meeting with Duke - who Jason is really targeting and why.
He busts out of jail and sets off to track down the body-hopping killer.
On one hand, Jason Goes To Hell is quite unlike earlier entries in the Friday the 13th series, but it's a real hardcore '80s gonzo trio that extrapolates on the supernatural elements that were woven in Jason Lives and The New Blood, so we already know he's operating in a world where these things are possible.
Jason Goes To Hell is also full of definitive details about the franchise: such as the killer being born of Elias and Pamela Voorhees in 1946, he supposedly drowned when he was 11, he's responsible (prior to this movie) for 83 confirmed kills (and many more unconfirmed), the existence of the Voorhees home (which, surprisingly, we've never seen before) etc
So, as someone who sees movies like this through the eyes of a gamer and comic book reader, I'm totally grokking all these stats, and attempting to headcanon them into my own vision of Jason's mythology (which now embraces Freddy and Ash, of course!).
Rachel took one look at the Blu-Ray sleeve for Evil Dead Rise and proclaimed: "Oh my God! Doesn't that give you nightmares?"
From that reaction, I suspected I was on to a winner with the latest entry in the evergreen Evil Dead franchise.
But writer/director Lee Cronin's Evil Dead Rise did more than simply earn its place among the other flawless horror flicks to bear the Evil Dead moniker, it far exceeded my expectations.
After a grisly cold open that serves as a slight misdirect, focus shifts back 24 hours to a condemned tower block in Los Angeles where pregnant guitar technician Beth (Lily Sullivan, from the Picnic at Hanging Rock miniseries) is reuniting with her estranged sister, tattoo artist and single mum Ellie (Viking's Princess Aslaug, Alyssa Sutherland).
Ellie sends her kids - teenagers Danny (Morgan Davies) and Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and youngest child Kassie (Nell Fisher) - out for pizza, when an earthquake strikes.
The kids are in the parking garage under the apartment complex. Danny sees that a hole has opened up, seemingly leading into a dusty old bank vault of some kind.
He drops down to investigate - unperturbed by all the crucifixes hanging from the ceiling - and comes away with a collection of old records and a strange book, which he thinks might be valuable.
Unwrapping the book in his bedroom, the fun begins... it is, of course, the Naturom Demonto aka The Book of The Dead aka the Necronomicon.
When he plays the records, he discovers they are recordings from the 1920's of a priest who'd found the book and sought church permission to translate it. When he was refused, he and a couple of other rebellious priests did it anyway... recording passages of the book onto the Shellac 78.
Naturally, if you've seen any of the other Evil Dead movies you can guess what happens next.
Ellie becomes possessed by the summoned Deadite and goes on a rampage, seeking to swallow souls and rain down chaos in her wake.
Transformed Ellie is a terrifying creature, both from her physical brutality and the psychological torture she is able to inflict on her children and her sister.
Cronin's script cleverly transposes the "innocents trapped in an isolated cabin in the woods" setting from the original films to "innocents trapped in an isolated apartment in a rundown tower block", and it works wonderfully.
The constant action mixes canny foreshadowing of carnage to come with an abundance of Evil Dead standards (from a flying eyeball and a chainsaw to key lines of dialogue).
With pitch perfect pacing, this gradually escalates - as more people fall prey to the Deadites - to an amazing, over the top, grandest of Grand Guignol finales with so much blood... oh, so much blood.
Trapped inside their small home, the protagonists - and, ultimately, the antagonists - have access to a vast array of sharp kitchen implements, and other household objects that can easily be converted into weaponry, which leads to an abundance of creative violence (NB. the already infamous cheese grater moment is thankfully quick and not quite as graphic as it could have been).
Outside of the Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Rise takes visual cues from numerous other horror films, as diverse as [REC 3] and Aliens (Kassie might as well be called Newt).
If it lacks anything, it's the broad slapstick humour of the Ash (Bruce Campbell) era movies, although the final confrontation definitely has its moments. Instead the 96-minute movie veers, in that respect, more towards the gritty verisimilitude of the parallel universe iteration/remake from 2013.
This is not a criticism, but an observation, because I didn't feel that Evil Dead Rise needed non-stop knockabout humour.
Without a doubt this is one of the best films I've seen this year. I love pretty much all flavours of horror, but my favourite is this kind of action-adventure horror, pitting man against monster.
Evil Dead Rises satisfies that craving, while leaving me hungry for more sequels from Lee Cronin, who has proved himself a worthy successor to Sam Raimi et al who gifted us with the original Evil Dead.
Evil Dead Rise is now available on Blu-Ray and DVD in the UK.
My pop culture Odyssey: a slice of super-powered geek life with heavy emphasis on pulp adventure, superheroes, comic books, westerns, horror, sci-fi, giant monsters, zombies etc
