The horror saga, originally due to Sam Raimi, the one who is still attached to it, even if no longer as a director, seems to have room for more and more films. Or will it have to be said for more and more deaths, winks, gore, humor and setbacks. We now have a sequel, if not a prequel, Evil Dead: Awakening which will make more than one’s hair stand on end.

Not because of dismemberment and diabolical possession, but because it focuses on everything that happens within a family.

And when one of the members of the clan gets infected he dies, but doesn’t die and starts attacking the others, be it his sons or his sister, well, get ready, because here everyone defends themselves and if a girl finds herself in an extreme situation let’s say, where he had to impale a close relative, why shouldn’t he?

You must not have seen any of the evil Dead to understand this The awakening, precisely because it is the beginning, the origin is counted. There is a prologue of sorts, which we’ll see later how it interacts or not with the middle of the story, in which the occasional terrifying death occurs in a cabin by a lake.

So, don’t go to the cinema late.

Turn the page and we are in Los Angeles, in an apartment building close to demolition. So much so that few families remain to live there. So Beth’s (Lily Sullivan) unexpected visit is not welcomed by Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland, no relation to Donald or Kiefer, and seen in Vikings), mother of three children, two teenagers and a girl, and sister of the newcomer.

Beth arrives with a positive but unwanted pregnancy test, and we see that the relationship with her sister was good, until it stopped being.

Don’t open the book of the dead

Why isn’t so important here, but rather when Ellie finds herself possessed by a demon that she escapes from The Book of the Dead -yes, the one with pages of human skin-, which we won’t advance as it seems, Beth could very well be the only one who can defend her grandchildren from a mother who longs for them.

Of course, even if Bruce Campbell (!), the protagonist of Raimi’s trilogy, does not appear in any film that bears the title evil Dead there has to be a character capable of dealing with whatever it takes. And do what it takes to at least try to be successful.

Unlike, then, Sam Raimi’s trilogy, and while the 2013 franchise revival was directed by Faith Alvarez had strong, impactful effects, here director Lee Cronin (the cursed forest) introduces us little by little, but at a hasty step, into a real hell.

It’s a film with hints of humor, but totally gory, with nods to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre AND The glow. The deaths are macabre, they spent more on makeup and effects than on actors or locations: almost everything takes place in that cursed building.

“Evil Dead: Awakening”

Terror. New Zealand/USA/Ireland, 2023. Original title: “Evil Dead Rise”. 97′, SAM 16 R. From: Lee Cronin. With: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Gabrielle Echols, Nell Fisher. Rooms: Cinemark Palermo, Hoyts Dot, Cinépolis Recoleta, Houssay and Pilar, Showcase Belgrano and Norcenter.