Reviews
‘Evil Dead Rise’ Review: Demented Moms and Devilish Scares
What reason do I have to pretend that I wasn’t at least a little biased about Evil Dead Rise from the jump? Every review, and every reviewer, is defined by their biases. I hope by now, reader, you’ve come to understand mine. To err is human, to get unreasonably hyped about deadites and chainsaws is just me being honest.
My point is, I loved this movie, and I knew I would love this movie. If the other Evil Dead films aren’t your cup of tea, I won’t bite your head off about it (I’ll even let you keep your hand). But be warned, this is much of the same…in that it’s a surprising tonal fusion of Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead (2013) and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead 2. And even if neither floats your boat, I think this one is still worth a watch.
Need a primer on all things Evil Dead? Check out our Horror 101 article on the franchise here!
Evil Dead Rise: A New Urban Nightmare
Evil Dead Rise follows Beth (Lily Sullivan), a sound tech for a rock band escaping her personal problems by visiting her estranged sister and mother of three Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) at their L.A. apartment in disrepair. When an earthquake tears a hole in the apartment’s parking lot floor, the unearthing of a new Necronomicon and its inevitable reading summons the usual suspects. The demons take Ellie for a joyride to unleash the mother-of-all-deadites on the building, and it’s up to Beth to save her nieces and nephew from mommy dearest.
Such a drastic change in setting from the franchise’s usual wooded cabins to urban confines is subtly addressed in the movie’s cold open. Usually, I would dislike the opening for being a flash-forward, but I enjoyed it this time for how explosively evil it is. It shows that Lee Cronin knows how to set the mood just right, hitting us from the jump with the mean-spiritedness of something like Evil Dead (2013) while ratcheting up a lot of the blatant camp that was missing from that movie (not Evil Dead 2 levels, but close enough).
Perfectly Balanced Horror: Camp Meets Terror
Evil Dead Rise delivers on being disturbing without diving so deep into the well of sadness that 2013 did and even has some moments of levity (depending on how dark your sense of humor is). The movie is a wonderfully balanced 97 minutes that slows down and speeds up exactly when needed.
This film definitively has my favorite deadites, which is something I didn’t even think about until now. While the ones in Alvarez’s made me want to scrub in a hot shower, and Raimi’s had incredible makeup and actors in both the films and television, Cronin’s deadites are all just magnificent bastards that you can’t wait to see meet the other end of a boomstick.
Alyssa Sutherland’s Ellie: The Ultimate Deadite Villain
Sutherland’s Ellie is the ultimate example of this: not only is her brutality so perfectly played physically, but her ultra-expressive facial acting and devious voice make her born for this role; she’s probably going to land as my favorite antagonist in film this year, if not one of my all timers. Ellie’s lines are instantly quotable, since much of the dialogue for the deadites is suped up a lot compared to previous films’ promises of swallowing souls and creative cursing. One line flew over my head as creepy dialogue with slightly silly wording; I later realized it was a subtle jab at Beth’s biggest insecurity and fear. There are layers to these mind games, and the deadites really steal the show this time around. They also pull out a couple demonic tricks wholly unique to this film, with their big finale being exceptionally fun in its grotesquery.
The younger members of the cast are pretty good, with Danny (Morgan Davies) standing out for being able to turn up the terror with his reactions. Gabrielle Echols character of Bridget only really hits her stride towards the middle of the film, but when she does, her performance ends up being a serious highlight. Sullivan makes Beth sympathetic and plays to the arc of her character wonderfully, making you want to root for her the entire way through.
Why You Should Watch Evil Dead Rise in IMAX or Dolby Atmos
In terms of cinematography, you should watch this in IMAX or Dolby Atmos (I did the latter) if it is safe and reasonable for you to do so. I say this because the sound design in this is incredible. I know this train of thought is exaggerated a lot by critics because all movies are designed to be seen in theatres, but this is the first time I’m saying it and genuinely feeling it for a release this year. With Scream 6 and many other films I’ve seen, the audience enhances the experience.
But with Evil Dead Rise, your experience the first go around will be entirely different if you can have true surround sound bombarding you. The way the music is mixed is stellar, but it’s the diegetic sound that really stands out in this film. Between the earthquake, the stabs and shots, the supernatural voices, and the absolute torrents of blood, the sound in this film is impeccable, and it’s worth every penny to see this with one of those ear-busting sound systems.
Masterful Special Effects: Practical Meets Digital
This movie’s special effects are that expert synthesis of practical and digital you often hear about but don’t always get to see. Some of them were so seamless, I was having trouble distinguishing which was which, and that’s just how I like it when you’re hitting me with waves of gore and skin-crawling uses for household objects (cheese graters sound comfortable to anyone?). The effects are outright masterful complements to creative sequences that utilize the building to its fullest.
When it comes to the rest of the visuals, I already know some people will complain about the lighting. The movie is visually very bright, even in scenes where it should be darker. The apartment is so well-lit that I had forgotten that the power was supposed to have been shut off. It wasn’t enough to take me out of the movie or irritate me, but I figured I might as well note it since I do the same for many of my other reviews.
Evil Dead Rise: A Rewatchable Horror Gem
In the end, Evil Dead Rise is a damn good film, a nearly perfect horror film in my book. On re-examination, I’m sure I’ll find more little things that bother me or question the execution of a scene here or there, but I can’t see myself disliking this movie at all. It was exactly what I wanted it to be: a pulpy, bloody, campy, artistic mess that is ironically everything you’d want in a neat package, with a high rewatch value to boot. Watch it and watch it in theatres if you can.
Evil Dead Rise is available to stream on HBO MAX.
Luz: The Flower of Evil is a movie simultaneously charged with and mired in ambition. It’s genuinely comical how overly ambitious of a first-time film it is for writer-director Juan Diego Escobar Alzate: a microbudget, shot on location in the mountains of Colombia, character driven psychological horror film meant to explore the very nature of good and evil while also tackling cults and misogyny.
So, it’s shocking how much of it works. Not all of it works, not at all, but it is cohesive enough to serve as a surprising experience with the colorful aesthetic it employs and incredibly dark places it goes to.
What Is Luz: Flower of Evil About?
After the death of their mother Luz, three sisters in a rural cult community find their faith waning. The three are the centerpiece of an elaborate theology crafted by their cult leader father, a man who is becoming more difficult to deal with by the day. So, when he brings a mute boy into town, chaining him up and claiming he’s the people’s messiah, an already tense situation devolves into outright madness. What ensues is the slow dissolution of the cult, and the torturous end of an already fractured family.
Let this usual synopsis section also serve as a content warning: the film does depict sexual violence very early on, about 25 minutes into the film. It’s not Irreversible levels of horrifically long, but it’s also not particularly brief and still graphic content by its nature. It can be difficult to stomach, so I’m mentioning it now for those who would rather avoid that sort of thing.
A Ponderous Arthouse Folk Horror About Good and Evil
The film has shocking moments, but it’s not very interested in shock value. This is first and foremost a slow burn, a piece of arthouse folk horror that is more about bleeding out than it is about a violent demise. The most obvious comparisons are to The VVitch and Midsommar, but even that feels like an inappropriate mix, even when it leans towards Aster’s commercial darling or Egger’s colonial nightmare.
Fundamentally, Luz is a study about people who mythologize suffering and cruelty and excuse it as being driven by outside spiritual forces rather than their own decisions. It’s about deconstructing harmful religious and cult mentalities, and it wears its philosophy on its sleeve (aggressively so). Alzate creates a visually and textually fascinating meltdown of his characters and the community they find themselves within.
I would say it’s a “descent into madness” if it didn’t feel clear that the characters were already in a tailspin right at the film’s outset. The script, especially through its second act, starts to feel repetitive and a little simplistic, with a somewhat anticlimactic ending and dialog that starts to feel less naturalistic and more tedious. But it’s an interesting dissection of a family, even if it’s rough around the edges.
Hyperreal Sense of Color, But Shaky Directing and Writing
The film’s most obvious and striking feature is its hyperrealist palette, bearing a rich Technicolor aspect that permeates throughout the entire runtime. Colorist Felipe Martinez U paints the mountainous countryside with such vibrancy, a simple but very effective contrast to the dying days of a cult the story centers on; bleak, muddy times, punctuated by vibrant nature all around. Aesthetically, it’s pretty clearly visually inspired by the early works of Pedro Almodóvar and the visual warmth of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man.
Even the naturalistic tendencies of Terrence Malick make an appearance here, though how much of that is just in the gorgeous location scouting and how much is actually emulated by Alzate is up for debate. All around, the film lacks polish. The camerawork is amateurish in some ways, slightly cramped and occasionally uninspired in its framing. Sometimes the oversaturated look of the film can feel a little saccharine and heavy, but the pop of color here feels purposeful enough that I can forgive it as being highly stylized rather than trying to mask the weak points of a first-time director.
Is Luz: The Flower of Evil Worth the Watch?
In the search for great Latin American horror, Luz was an odd duck to stumble upon to be certain. But I’m a champion of strange birds with a lot of character, so you do the math.
Luz: The Flower of Evil is a struggle of a film, hard to watch at points despite how visually appealing it can be. It’s a brutal, bleak piece of psychological folk horror that certainly has a thin audience and will test the patience of even those the premise appeals to. But it does have as much substance as it does style, even when it treads into murky waters, and for that I think it’s worth the watch.
If you’re not watching Indonesian horror, you’re missing out. The region is producing some of the craziest genre movies around right now, thanks in no small part to the efforts of writer-director Joko Anwar. His latest, Ghost in the Cell, which celebrated its North American premiere at Fantastic Fest 2026, combines everything we love about the filmmaker’s work—supernatural scares, inventive kills, and gnarly gore—along with a strong vein of comedy and political satire.
What is Ghost in the Cell About?
Ghost in the Cell centers around Dimas (Endy Arfian), a journalist whose life falls apart after he tries to run a story on corporate corruption and mysterious worker deaths. Wrongfully convicted of the horrific murder of his boss, Dimas finds himself with a one-way ticket to Cell Block C, where he quickly meets a colorful cast of prisoners—the good, the bad, and the seriously nasty. Among the good guys, there’s Anggoro (Abimana Aryasatya), who is constantly getting into trouble for defending fellow inmates, and Six (Yoga Pratama), who claims he can see people’s auras.
As if Dimas’ situation couldn’t get any worse, his arrival seems to trigger a series of brutal killings in the prison. Bodies are showing up mangled beyond recognition and displayed in positions that wouldn’t look out of place in Hannibal. It soon becomes clear that Dimas isn’t behind the murders, which begs the question: what did he bring in with him?
Anwar Embraces Horror-Comedy Whole-Heartedly
Prison is a scary place, and Anwar makes great use of the setting, with the action moving from the dingy showers where predators lurk to the bleak cellblock where inmates are at the mercy of their captors and the cafeteria where rival gangs eye each other up with ill intent.
But for all the human misery contained within the film, Ghost in the Cell is ultimately a horror-comedy, one that isn’t afraid to lean into broad slapstick and quippy dialogue when it wants to raise a chuckle. The tonal shifts can take a little while to adjust to, especially if your previous experience with Anwar comes from his more serious horror outings like Impetigore. This might be a problem if the film wasn’t actually funny, but Ghost in the Cell has enough laugh-out-loud moments to make you forget about any whiplash.
Ghost in the Cell Is a Genre-Bender to the Max
Comedy isn’t the only new flavor that Anwar has tossed into the mix. In Ghost in the Cell, dance sequences and martial-arts fight choreo sit side-by-side with some of the most extreme gore scenes seen outside a Terrifier movie in recent years. Then there’s the eerie way the spirit presents before it kills (trypophobia sufferers, beware) and the extensive critique of political corruption, power, and inequality. It’s an everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach that shouldn’t work on paper, but under Anwar’s assured hand, it does.
It helps that for all the slapstick, the film lands a surprisingly earnest message, amplified by its vast ensemble cast. Dimas and Anggoro at times feel like main characters, but everyone in Ghost in the Cell has a big part to play, and that’s the point: in seemingly impossible circumstances, there’s strength in unity.
Ghost in the Cell Is an Endlessly Entertaining Blend of Goofiness, Heart, and Gore
If you’re looking for nonstop scares, you won’t find them in Ghost in the Cell. What you will find is a delightful blend of horror, comedy, and action that is apt to leave you grinning from ear to ear.
The film doesn’t skimp on the gore, throwing flesh and fluids at every surface. But it’s also charmingly goofy, with a cast that doesn’t take itself too seriously and a script that’s all too happy to devolve into a comedic dance scene when it feels like the spirit might strike. In every sense, Anwar is doing the most, and the end result is a film where there’s nary a dull moment in sight.
