- Directed by Lee Cronin
- Written by Lee Cronin
- Stars Mirabai Pease, Richard Crouchley, Anna-Maree Thomas
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 36 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=smTK_AeAPHs
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It looks good with loads of gore and realistic special effects. But it stalls and stays stalled, leaving us as trapped as the people in the film, watching variations on the same thing happen over and over. We didn’t think it was nearly as entertaining or captivating as the franchise’s previous movies or television series.
Synopsis
We open with a POV shot as something zooms through the woods as credits roll. Oh wait— it’s a drone, controlled by Caleb. Teresa asks him about Jessica, who’s back at the cabin, sick with something. Caleb is Jessica’s boyfriend, and Teresa’s feeling like a third wheel at the cabin in the woods.
Jessica starts quoting from “Wuthering Heights,” the book that Teresa is trying to read, but then she rolls right out of bed and vomits all over. She’s not looking too good, but good enough to rip Teresa’s scalp off. Jessica goes out to the dock and grabs Caleb’s drone, and she rips his whole head off. Jessica is clearly possessed. Credits roll.
One day earlier, Beth is in a club’s restroom taking a pregnancy test; she’s not pleased with the results.
We cut to Bridget and meet her whole weird family. Beth arrives and makes Ellie jump. Beth tells little Kassie that ghosts aren’t real. Ellie’s husband, and the kids’ father, has left them. Suddenly, there’s an earthquake, and it leaves a deep hole under the parking garage. There’s an old bank vault down there, so Danny climbs down to investigate. He finds a box full of old records and photos as well as a creepy old book.
Danny shows the book to Bridget, wondering if it’s worth anything. It’s got jagged Venus-flytrap teeth that open when he bleeds on it. Inside, there are pictures of demons and weirdness. Bridget insists that Danny take the book back in the morning.
Later, Danny plays one of the records, and it’s got strange chanting followed by a priest introducing the “Book of the Dead” to his followers. The recording tells all about the book. It then reads a resurrection ritual, and we see something coming toward their apartment building and possessing their mother, Ellie.
Beth, Danny, Kassie, and Bridget immediately see that something’s not right with their mother. She says, “It’s in me, “ then goes full Exorcist. They soon find out that they can’t leave the building due to the earthquake damage. Or maybe it’s the dark forces conspiring against them.
Ellie soon dies. Neighbors Gabriel and Mr. Finds pray over her body. Then she gets up, not dead anymore, but clearly not quite human either. She bites out Gabriel’s eye and makes neighbor Jake choke on it. Mr. Fonda shoots Ellie, but that barely slows her down; she kills him too.
Danny shows Beth the book of the Dead. Ellie cuts Bridget’s face, and she’s soon “infected” as well. Beth finds her eating some glass and looking all demony. Kassie impales Bridget’s head with a pointy stick.
Beth listens to more of the recordings, and it says the demon can’t be stopped. As she listens to the recordings, Bridget infects Danny in the kitchen before stabbing him to death. Somehow, Ellie gets back inside and attacks Beth. Soon, Ellie and Bridget appear dead, at least for a while.
Beth and Kassie try to get to the fire escape by way of the hallway, and all the dead neighbors get up. The two get into the elevator and try to go down, but the elevator soon starts filling up with blood. The blood’s weight causes the elevator to fall to the lobby and explode (a scene straight out of “The Shining”).
Beth and Kassie make it out to the parking garage but aren’t alone. The now-merged-into-one monster grabs Kassie, and all Beth has to work with is a chainsaw. They all, somehow, end up on the back of a “tree doctor’s” truck with a built-in wood chipper. This gets really messy, but the monster definitely isn’t coming back from that.
Beth consoles Kassie, and when they leave, they take the chainsaw along… just in case.
We watch as one of the building’s tenants comes down from a different floor. It’s Jessica, and she invites Caleb and Teresa to her lake house for the weekend…
Commentary
It’s got the demonic point-of-view shots and the Book of the Dead from the previous films, but that’s really about the only connection to the previous “Evil Dead” films. If you look into the trivia, there are several homages and callbacks to the other films, but they’re so subtle that you won’t notice them in the film itself.
The makeup and gore effects are absolutely great. That said, we were honestly bored through most of it. There’s no mystery here; Ellie gets possessed and spends the rest of the film trying to kill her trapped family. It’s just a matter of watching one battle after another until it’s over.
It’s well made and looks good, but it’s awfully bland and doesn’t even begin to approach the quality of its predecessors.
Meh.