MOVIE

From page A3

know what’s coming. One by one, characters are turned into the possessed demons/zombies known as “Deadites.”

The Deadites have the ability to sound like the normal versions of the people they’ve possessed, but that’s just a ruse to trick other characters into opening themselves up to attacks and possession. Characters have to make tough decisions about who they can save and who they need to kill. And it’s all incredibly gory.

The scares are relatively effective. We get some nice long shots of characters in gruesome makeup, where a lesser movie wouldn’t let us get a good look, lest we have time to register that the effects are shoddy. The movie has some creative ideas for violence, though it’s hard to not be taken out of the movie by the thought of how badly the filmmakers wanted an excuse to use certain weapons. There’s also a typical-bytoday’s- standards overreliance on quiet tension and jump scares, as if the Deadites are being dramatic on purpose.

I know they’re into manipulation, but they’re not great at capitalizing on the element of surprise, so they’re basically doing it for the film’s audience and not their intended victims.

If “Evil Dead Rise” were really bad, it would be easy to trash it and say that it couldn’t be as effective with $19 million as the original was with $350,000. It’s not bad enough to warrant that kind of dismissal. The actors are doing their best to give breakout performances, and the teams in charge of the violence and gore effects are clearly having a blast.

But it’s also too bland for me to say that I was ever really enjoying myself. I guess the kind of charisma I need in a horror movie is something money can’t buy.

“ Evil Dead Rise” is rated R for strong bloody horror violence and gore, and some language. Its running time is 97 minutes.