Evil Dead Rise
Cert: 18 | ★★✩✩✩

Jewish director Sam Raimi’s film The Evil Dead was famously banned in the UK when it was released in 1983. The ban was part of the crackdown on what was then referred to as “ video nasties”.

The Evil Dead was eventually unbanned in the UK in the early 1990s and three more films made their way onto our cinema screens, but none had as much cultural impact as Raimi’s original, and one suspects the ban had more than a little to do with this.

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Evil Dead Rise fails to capture the horror of previous film in the franchise (Warner Bros)

Now, 40 years after the release of the first movie, the franchise has added a fifth film to the series with Raimi and legendary Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell acting as executive producers.

This time the story follows Beth (Lily Sullivan), a rock concert technician who is reunited with her estranged sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and then finds herself in a pretty tight spot.

Beth and Elly’s reunion hits a snag when a strange book is unearthed by one of Elly’s teenage kids. As an evil entity is unleashed on the family, Beth battles to save her nieces and nephew from the evil presence, but is it already too late?

Writer-director Lee Cronin does his best with a fairly lame premise and a narrative that purports to deal with deeper socio-economic issues, but barely scratches the surface.

Instead, Cronin resorts to the most basic horror tropes and unimaginative jump-scares in a film that feels outdated and stale.

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Nell Fisher as Kassie (Warner Bros)

There are some interesting nods to the earlier films throughout and some half decent performances for the young cast but, all in all, there is a lot about the film that just doesn’t add up.

The worst thing is that it is simply not scary enough. It is a real shame as this movie had potential, especially considering the history behind the franchise. Alas though, I was bored for at least half of its 90-minute running time.