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Evil Dead Rise (2023)
74 Plays8 days ago
Rick & Trav take on a domestic deadite in EVIL DEAD RISE (2023). In the process they cover Otis-sanctioned elevator weight limits, Lee Cronin’s Lee Cronin-isms, and the true horror of dropping a box of pizza.
We are also dedicating this episode to Ricky’s neighbor Bob and his dog Xena, who he lost in a recent house fire. Gofund Me can be found here if you’re interested in helping Bob get back on his feet: https://gofund.me/875d60181
(00:02:10) - GoFundMe for Bob
(00:05:04) - Lee Cronin’s Lee Cronin Segment
(00:10:20) - Overall Thoughts
(00:18:00) - Themes
(00:21:12) - Production Notes
(00:26:17) - Box Office
(00:27:26) - Cast and Crew
(00:29:22) - Connective Tissue
(00:35:40) - Scare-O-Meter
(00:38:28) - Highlights
(00:45:20) - Deep Cuts
(00:48:00) - Awards
(01:19:20) - Scream Queen or King
(01:21:20) - Next Week
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Transcript
Introduction & Personal Well-being
00:00:11
Speaker
It's me. Don't let it take my baby.
00:00:53
Speaker
We are back. How's it going, Rick? going ah It's going okay, man yeah so i I compulsively have to ask that, even though right before we started recording, we're both sharing how we're doing right now. And it's it's times of stress, times of loss in our life. where you're laughing so You seem like you're doing okay. Yeah. well You laugh your way through it. That's ah my my take at it.
00:01:25
Speaker
It's not the healthiest way to approach things, but ah it it's kept me going here for 36 years. um Don't fix what ain't broke. Yeah. So...
Evil Dead Movie Discussion
00:01:37
Speaker
We got another Evil Dead movie we're going to talk about today. The last and most recent installment before we get to Evil Dead Burn, which is coming out next. vote By the time people hear this, will already be out.
00:01:51
Speaker
Yeah, it will it will have been out for two days. Okay. Okay. So apologies to those itching to hear our thoughts on the newest film, but you will hear those ah following Sunday. yep Let them marinate.
00:02:04
Speaker
a Slow simmer.
Fire Incident & Community Support
00:02:06
Speaker
Yeah, i that movie is aptly named right now. Evil Dead Burn. Yeah. do Do you want to share your fire story? that Not the whole thing. want to share not not okay I mean, there's two. I could talk about the siding on the rental house that I burnt with the barbecue that I sent pictures of to you, hoping that I could have a DIY solution, which is probably not going to happen. Yeah, I'll keep it short. Rills should not be backed up against the siding of a home, especially that siding is like cheap plastic siding.
00:02:38
Speaker
Um, yeah, had a very weird night last night. I'm, this is my last recording I'll do in New Jersey before I move, uh, going to do a job in Austin and then I'll be in Pittsburgh rest the summer with Sarah.
00:02:53
Speaker
And, um, yeah, I was just doing, working from home on a project and then looked out, the dog kept barking, looked outside and there was a house across the street just engulfed in flames. And, um, Nobody, no fire paramedics or anything was there yet. And people are yelling and there's no humans inside. It was determined, but I guess somebody said there was a dog,
00:03:14
Speaker
ah There was a screen door. went in for a little bit, like a few steps in, just called for it there was too much smoke. Anyways, um dog didn't make It was the short end of the story. I drove the owner to the vet so they could check on the dog where he was. The dog was actually put into a gurney into an ambulance. I've never seen that before.
00:03:34
Speaker
um Yeah. Because once the fire got department got there, they had their suits on, managed the fire, and then were able to locate the dog who was and unconscious, obviously.
00:03:47
Speaker
But yeah, man, just got me thinking a lot about just how quickly things can change and how important it is to have a community around you. I mean, i Bob is the owner's name. He's distraught. I mean, it's his dog and it's his house. But the silver lining is like he saw people in this small neighborhood all ages doing whatever they could.
00:04:06
Speaker
um everybody was calling, nobody was like taking many videos. Um, people are so setting up a GoFundMe today and it was just like, sometimes all you have is the people around you. Um, so not to be a downer to start the episode, but I'm just thinking a lot about fire and burning and we're talking about evil dead burn next week. And, I burnt half of the house a yester ah last week. So just a theme right now. One and a half houses burned in the last few days. Basically. But yeah, my heart goes out to them. If if they do have a GoFundMe link, i might I might share it. I might tell people because this is a single old man divorced.
00:04:44
Speaker
that was All he had was that dog. I just feel bad for him. um But yeah, just thinking about Bob. And Zena, RIP Zena was the name of the dog. Zena. Oh, a girl dog.
00:04:57
Speaker
Yeah. Good luck editing around that, Trav.
Discussion on Film Titles and Marketing
00:05:00
Speaker
Actually, no, this one. You're editing this week. Yeah. This is all you, man. um Well, this is the Sunday Scaries.
00:05:08
Speaker
I'm Travis Telerik. I'm Ricky Townsend. Today, we are talking about Lee Cronin's 2023 film, Evil Dead Rise. This is our fifth installment now in our groovy road to Evil Dead Burn. Before we get into the movie, though, like we were just talking about...
00:05:26
Speaker
you know We make this joke because Lee Cronin recently, this year, just released The Mummy. More aptly named Lee Cronin's lee cronins The Mummy. Yes. Well, I have a question, Travis. Before you go on, so if you are cataloging your collection of films or if you like work at a library, do you put it under the L or does it go under the m is Or does it go under C for Cronin? Yeah.
00:05:50
Speaker
So let's talk about this a bit because it befuddles me. I don't know too many films that have the director's name in the film title. I know a few like writers like Bram Stoker's Dracula. So let's think about this. We have Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio, which came out. Was that the full title? Yes, yeah it was officially in there. okay You have Lee Daniels, the butler.
00:06:14
Speaker
you have Guy Ritchie's The Covenant because I guess The Covenant really wasn't doing it for the for the people. Yeah. but So there's a few. So I have a follow-up piece, though. Guillermo del Toro, Guy Ritchie. I wasn't familiar with that.
00:06:29
Speaker
Lee Daniels. He did Precious. He did The Butler. He did several episodes on The Empire. But like i wouldn't say he's I wouldn't say he's a household name by any means.
00:06:41
Speaker
So I guess maybe that one falls in the same camp as Lee Cronin's The Mummy in that Lee Cronin's a relatively new director. Like this was his third feature film, I think. His first, many people haven't seen. His second is what we're covering today in The Old Dead Rise.
00:06:58
Speaker
I don't know what Universal was thinking. This was a big production, right? A big studio picture. And it just befuddles me that they're like, if we slap his name on it, that's that's what's going to get butts in seats here.
00:07:10
Speaker
Oh, you're talking about The Mummy, sorry. Yeah, Lee Cronin's the mummy. Like, had he yet earned, or was there a reason for why they're like, I honestly think, on it I think it has to do with the fact that Blumhouse was very unfortunate in that right when they were mounting a marketing campaign for this film,
00:07:31
Speaker
development news of a mummy for with Brendan Fraser was coming out. So I don't know if you heard about this, but at one point the Twitter handle, was it not universal then that did Lee Cronin's the mummy? Was I incorrect there?
00:07:46
Speaker
it is I just assume all the mummy it is universal. is universal. Okay, okay. No, I'm saying it was universal, distributed it. ah Blumhouse has a contract universal. Got it, got it. Oh, yeah. although Sorry, all the mummy movies were universal. today Yes, because they still have the rights from back in the day, from like the Boris Karloff movie. um But it's just too it's like two concurrent.
00:08:07
Speaker
creative projects. Okay. They had to distinguish those. I think that, well, the Blumhouse, the Lee Cronin's mummy, it it tweeted out one day in all caps, like, Brendan Fraser is not in Lee Cronin's The Mummy. And then it did it again the next day, and then again and it did it like 15 different times. And I don't know if it was like making a joke or it was pissed. It was just a cathartic yell from the campaign, like, is this not the fucking mummy?
00:08:35
Speaker
Also, again, i I want to see it because it's but some people love it, some people hate it, but it's a big movie, and we should watch it before our... second annual spooky awards yeah which don't worry folks the first annual is dropping very soon um but apparently it's not much of a mummy story it's like more about a possessed corpse yeah you know it's funny we've praised the evil dead franchise with allowing young new directors take the franchise in a different direction And so, you know, you could say this is what the mummy was doing. Universal was doing with its IP.
00:09:11
Speaker
But I just don't think it was nearly as well received as um what we're praising the evil dad for. Like, this is great. Like, we don't need the same story we told. We want new characters, make it darker. Right. This is a lot of what the new evil dead installments are doing. And they try to do it with the mummy and everyone's like, yeah I mean, I just want Brendan Fraser.
00:09:30
Speaker
Right. give me a Give me a swashbuckling good time. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think Lee Cronin just wanted to tell a story about his mummy.
Evil Dead Rise & Character Analysis
00:09:38
Speaker
Like it's it's a personal story about his mummy.
00:09:44
Speaker
Anyways, we're not talking about Lee Cronin's The Mummy this week. We're talking about ah is his prior film. We're not talking about Lee Daniels, the butler either. We're talking about Lee Cronin's yeah Evil Dead Rise.
00:09:55
Speaker
Evil Dead Rise. Yeah. So yeah, we'll we'll go into a lot of production notes here in a bit because it was, again, another hiatus between film releases as they were stewing what they wanted to do next with this IP.
00:10:09
Speaker
i think it was 10 years here between this and ah Evil Dead 2013, which Fede Alvarez's movie we covered last week. But ah before we get into all the production stuff, tell me about when when did you see this movie? Did you see it in theaters? Did you stream it? No, I saw it twice in theaters. I loved it so much. So I actually, um I went to go see Evil Dead Rise and an hour and I was loving it. And an hour into it,
00:10:37
Speaker
I realized that like I was unsure about something I left out that Emmett might get, my dog. It was like one of those moments where like did I leave the stove on? It got to the point where I could not enjoy the movie. So I just left. I just left. I went to go check on Emmett. I like got him some water. i I took him out of the crate. I forgot what I did. And I still came back and finished the movie.
00:10:56
Speaker
But I missed like 45 minutes of it. And so then I've never left a theater and come back. i was I was too into it. Yeah. You know, it's obviously a different experience once you miss the whole second act pretty much.
00:11:11
Speaker
um But I loved what I saw. And I came back and watched it again and loved the entire thing. And for a while, it was my favorite Evil Dead movie. I want to talk. We should do our rankings at some point um before Evil Dead burn.
00:11:23
Speaker
um I mean, it's only an hour and 35, I think, run time. So you missed half the movie. yeah Was Evan okay? I presume Evan okay. It was fine. It was all in my head. i i yeah I don't know. I was just concerned. I was getting a little paranoid. The edible probably didn't help.
00:11:38
Speaker
Yeah. What about you? What did you see in theaters? did you you were No, this was streaming. on your life is ah What was going on in your life in 23? Man, what was going on in my life? then i wasn't going to the i wasn't going to the movies nearly as often. think I've brought up a few times now that my girls are a bit older and I can take them to enjoy movies as well. And now that we do the pod, and I go see some for myself. Like early 2025 or late 2024 was my resurgence of getting back to the theater, where 2020 through end 2023, I don't think I went to the movie theater once.
00:12:10
Speaker
Um, so this was streaming, you know, it's, it's, uh, again, touching on production notes. This was going to be a direct to streaming release, um, that, crazy you know, New Line Cinema tested with their audiences and it tested really well. And they said, oh, let's put in theaters, which is a good thing they did because today it's the highest grossing, uh, movie in the franchise. Again, we'll see if Evil Dead Burn tops it, but, um, yeah, so I was watching it streaming. It was initially meant for streaming and it it's,
00:12:39
Speaker
I liked it. I think it's really good for what it's trying to do. It just didn't stand out like above and beyond maybe kind of my reactions to some of the other films. I mean i really like the um the setting of this film, right? Yeah. so This kind of breaks away from the cabin that we're experiencing in The Evil Dead, the original, Evil Dead 2, Evil Dead 2013, and takes us to a new setting in this just like...
00:13:06
Speaker
condemned apartment building, as condemned as condemned can get, it feels like. And it was a really scary setting. And there's a few horror movies, like 1408, like they're based on the Stephen King book set in an apartment, but not many.
00:13:19
Speaker
And ah I thought this did a really good job um kind of using this setting for the premise here. Rosemary's Baby takes place in mainly an apartment.
00:13:30
Speaker
There is the um movie Devil, which is, I think, an apartment elevator. Like the entire movie is like in the elevator. um Well, since we're talking about the content of this film, I can do the synopsis quick. um A twisted tale of two estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.
00:13:58
Speaker
um I agree you hit on one of my favorite things about this movie and as that is its sense of space. Like you said, we're out of the cabin in the woods for the, well, for the second time because Army of Darkness, yeah he's hurled into ah the media medieval ages, but that kind of stands alone on its its own, doing its own thing.
00:14:19
Speaker
um And they really make use of what a high rise is or like, you know, kind of ah a lower income condemned in many more ways than one, whether it's like the claustrophobia or, or playing with the elevator or your neighbors that you kind of know that you don't know using the, the, what do you call The people and that warped perspective. I just think that like usage in this film, great people.
00:14:43
Speaker
ah I just think that it, it made a lot, it it did a lot with its setting. um I mean, the title is really clever too. Evil Dead Rise, you're in a high rise. Oh.
00:14:55
Speaker
Yeah. Cheeky. So I also, i also really liked this, this um pattern we're now seeing with the franchise in their cold opens. Like the intro is amazing. The title drop is like,
00:15:11
Speaker
Title drop was great. It's one my favorite things I've ever seen. Just as as the demon is floating above the water, the huge letters, Evil Dead Rise are... are Rise up with Rise from the horizon as well. um How did you feel that this movie balanced the tone between zany and...
00:15:34
Speaker
and gritty slash grizzly violence. I mean, it's like Fetty Alvarez did it where it's a lot more grizzly and gory and scary.
00:15:45
Speaker
There's still a few instances of humor. Like, again, we have ah another installment here in the franchise of ah someone choking on an eyeball, like getting shot into their mouth. um So you still have some like, again, the humor, like we said, for evil Dead 2013 is just how like suspending your disbelief momentarily for just crazy kill sequences.
00:16:10
Speaker
um But there's only a few instances of that where i think I think it's funnier than the last one. You think it's funny? Yeah, I think, I think so. i want It's more tongue in cheek.
00:16:21
Speaker
I maybe as a dad, the um drug drug, rehab kind of storyline and why that's dark with um the character Mia in Evil Dead trying to kick the habit.
00:16:36
Speaker
I like it, but I can't relate to it as much. Like this one really hits home with a, you know, a mom taking care of her three kids and- Can you relate to apples an absent father, Trav?
00:16:47
Speaker
Yeah, she's she's the one, well, no, she's the one possessed. And so like- You know, there's a lot of trauma with, especially initially in the movie when she starts to turn of the kids wanting to save their mom and wanting to help her, but her also now being the monster, which is, um I guess that's just a tougher watch for me. There's less humor in middle finding the rest of the movie when that's kind of the you know driving conflict.
00:17:13
Speaker
It's interesting you say this, and i I wonder if I would feel differently if I had kids, but like, if you think about it, that that concept for this movie, the idea that a mother of three children, these are children. They're teenagers. They're 17. The one we've probably seen 15. The youngest one's like five years old or so. Oh, eight. Okay. I don't know. I don't know the age. I'm just saying like it's it's almost unimaginable how dark this concept actually is for these kids, not only to see their mother do these things, but to be killed essentially by their mother um is, is, is pretty, it's almost so wild. You don't even think about it. It's like, you kind of have to detach from it. But ah again, and the same with evil death 2013, I do think, I do think they were intentional about a lot of themes and the the theme of motherhood here. I mean, I really, and I really felt like, Beth's character was similar to Ripley's character in Aliens.
00:18:12
Speaker
a um In her relationship with Newt versus Beth's relationship with Cassie, you have a reluctant mother um in in Beth, and you have a mother ah somebody who really wants to be a mother in Ripley. But the similarities I saw was like they had a surrogate daughter that they took care of in the midst of danger and like they rose to the occasion and like became a mom without having to be a literal mom in that case, you know? The idea of motherhood and like it's not always tied to like your umbilical cord. and It's like what you do.
00:18:51
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, i don't know where the dad is they're like when his dad coming back. so i don't know if he's completely of the picture. just gone temporarily. Yeah. They're they're like estranged. Things aren't going well. Yeah.
00:19:03
Speaker
And so she's already having a tough time and these kids are looking for a parent. And when their mom turns so early, like you said, they they find a parenting ah maternal figure in their aunt, Beth, who who shows up and has to step into big shoes, right? As soon as shit hits the fan. And so I agree, that's probably the the biggest theme here in in this film.
00:19:25
Speaker
yeah yeah And you going back to your good going back to your point, I just, it's, so yeah, I think that's well done. um And they play to that theme well, but because of that, like there are some funny moments throughout the film, but maybe why I didn't find it as funny amidst that as as maybe some of the other prior films.
00:19:44
Speaker
they She has three kids, you have three kids. At least you're not an apartment, Trev. You moved into a bigger house. that That apartment building looked like it was in rough shape.
00:19:57
Speaker
I've lived in Not same exact place like that, but I've had my fair share of apartments that were on the cheaper side of things and neighbors that come in in and out of there that are a bit nomadic or ah they living on the fringe, if you will. And I thought that the cast of characters that were outside the doors and on the and on the ah peripheries of the main action happening in the apartment was pretty realistic.
00:20:24
Speaker
You got like two little horny kids want to hang out the daughter. You got an old grumpy man. You got this like religious freak and you got a cat walking around. But yeah I guess the humor for me came in with it in the ridiculousness of it all.
00:20:39
Speaker
Like whether it was the kills, whether it was the things that ah Ellie says, which is like she's going to be my star when it comes to best lines. She's got probably one of my favorite lines in the entire franchise.
00:20:53
Speaker
um But yeah, i can i can I recap a little bit of development i'm here about about how the story- you want to into production notes?
00:21:04
Speaker
Unless you have something else about like what you thought about the movie. No, let's do it. Let's do it. So um for anybody who didn't listen to our episode on 2013, I'll just make this shorter. But after the success of that film with Fetty Alvarez, the idea was for Fetty to make an Evil Dead 2, like a sequel to his 2013 film. And then Sam Raimi was trying to spin up support to do an Army of Darkness 2 or...
00:21:33
Speaker
Evil Dead 4, however you want to look at it. A sequel to his 93 film. And then, depending on how well those each did, they do a crossover between Mia and Ash.
00:21:43
Speaker
Obviously, that never happened. Fetty's project kind of fizzled out. um But Evil Dead 4 then turned into Ash vs. Evil Dead. ah Beloved a three season TV series on stars. um I think Fetty stayed with ghost house pictures, Rami's ghost house pictures um doing other projects, but ah Sammy's initial idea of this being like an incubator for,
00:22:10
Speaker
you know, new filmmakers, he he stayed true to that. And so I'm sure Fetty was a little disappointed that he couldn't take the reins again. But um Sam watches that movie that you mentioned earlier, Trav, Hole in the, ah the Hole in the Ground 2019. I've never seen it. I don't know much about it. It's like a supernatural kid movie. Like it's not a kid's movie. It's like about a supernatural kid, like a scary moment. have not seen either.
00:22:33
Speaker
Okay, it's like Omen, Insidious-esque, you know? It got well-reviewed. was just like little Sundance movie. It didn't get a lot of play. Got okay reviews. But then they collaborated on anthology together.
00:22:47
Speaker
ah do you remember the late Quibi, Travis? I do remember Quibi. Who can forget Quibi? that That Super Bowl ad and so much praise for this new streaming platform that lasted, what, like three months, if even?
00:23:04
Speaker
Uh, eight, it made eight months. Okay. Okay. Uh, good old Jeffrey Katzenberg. But one of the few things they did in those glorious eight months was a really interesting concept. Trav. I want to want to know your take on this as a horror guy and a guy who like, I think we have conversations about regional differences.
00:23:24
Speaker
This is a, this is an anthology called the 50 States of Fright. Mm hmm. And it's like two seasons worth of a bunch of episodes, some spanning across multiple episodes about state-oriented stories, like horror stories. So obviously Sam was on about Michigan. So his was called The Golden Arm, and then parentheses, it's Michigan, because that's the state that it's focused on. Lee Cronin, who's Irish, I don't know what his tie is to Washington, but his was called The 13 Steps to Hell.
00:23:56
Speaker
I bring this up because Sam's appreciation of that first film he did, plus getting to know him through anthology, is how he got involved in the project. What would your horror story be in Colorado, Trav? Would it be the drought you're experiencing? Would it be all the hippies, the smelly hippies? Yeah.
00:24:13
Speaker
I mean, we have, you know, we... We have old gold mining towns in the mountains that can seem – they're ghost towns now. Old prospector. So that's that's potential there.
00:24:25
Speaker
We have – The mountains have eyes. Old early 1900s apartment buildings abandoned. There could be something there. But I honestly think when people think of what's the scariest thing in Colorado, it's ah our blue devil horse that – I don't know if you've flown Denver International Airport before. you're haunted airport.
00:24:44
Speaker
But the haunted, it it probably is the haunted airport and all the conspiracy theories surrounding that. Somebody died or something when they were building whatever? Yeah. Well, have you seen the horse? Yeah, it looks scary. Have you seen?
00:24:56
Speaker
it has glowing red eyes, this giant statue right front of DIA. And it, yeah So it already looks like a demon horse, but it fell on the sculptor and killed him while he was still building it. Wow. frank So that's one of the many DIA conspiracy theories. Yeah. So, um, I think that would be the most fun to do something with.
00:25:16
Speaker
I think the scariest thing in Colorado was the 10 foot bong I encountered when I visited in 2009.
00:25:25
Speaker
I visited friends in Boulder and they i opened the door and that thing was greeting me and i That frightened me. I saw things. You can see God for a few minutes if you take a rope from a 10-foot bong.
00:25:39
Speaker
Yeah, it was in the form of Ralphie. So then, um so they get to know each other and he's like, okay, this is our new guy. ah The project was called Evil Dead Now for a while. ah That gets us back to what you had mentioned earlier, which was, yeah, it was going to be this HBO streaming thing. Yeah.
00:25:56
Speaker
And this is on the heels of COVID again. so like There's a lot of lot of studios being like, should we just put things straight to streaming? Because development was 2019. Yeah, right.
00:26:07
Speaker
And then, you like you said, test screens were so well. um This was a New Line Cinema ah production in New Zealand. um And then it comes out. and You want to do casting? Yeah, well, um let's talk box office real quick. So again, I mentioned most successful film to date.
00:26:24
Speaker
um But ah i they had a budget somewhere between like $15 $19 does $147 million dollars worldwide. So this is a success. So they were correct in these test screening audience saying, oh, we want to see this in theaters. And this becomes the highest grossing.
00:26:41
Speaker
so First one to do over $100 million. Yeah, expectations are pretty high for Evil Dead Burns. We'll see. um What are you seeing? We'll see if it's eclipsed. um Well, I'm seeing the amount of spend on marketing, which is way higher than I remember for Evil Dead Rise, which was only three years ago.
00:26:57
Speaker
What's the... what My expectation is high. Okay. I was like, is somebody saying it's going to do over 150 something? Yeah. Some punter. You're the pundit. You're the pundit. You didn't need a pundit. You Horror's been doing so well, man. i could easily see this doing over 150, though. So I'm calling my shot right now worldwide over 150.
00:27:18
Speaker
Marking you down. Yeah. Yeah, so commercial success um and then turning to casting, which you asked, and crew. So again, Lee Cronin both writes and directs this.
00:27:31
Speaker
um You still have Robert Tapford on as a producer. You still have, I guess Ramey's not, I thought Ramey was an executive producer. Oh yeah, he is. Him and Bruce Campbell. And Bruce too, yeah. sir yeah Yeah, Bruce Campbell. um Cast, kind of what we've seen as the trend for these Evil Dead films,
00:27:50
Speaker
No real big names here. You have Alyssa Sutherland. She's playing the mom, Ellie. What else has she in? Famous model. Oh, okay. She's mainly famous for her modeling career. She has small roles like in The Devil Wears Prada, very minor. um Lily Sullivan,
00:28:05
Speaker
also from ah New Zealand, i urge it sorry, also Australian. um she Lee Cronin brought her back for a very small role in Lee Cronin's The Mummy, but outside of that, her filmography, few credits, but nothing too notable.
00:28:20
Speaker
ah Honestly, like um so then you get the three kids. So Morgan Davies plays the older boy, Danny. Gabriel Echols plays the older girl, Bridget. But Nell Fisher is probably the most famous person in the cast who plays Cassie. because they recast the um the role in the newest season of Stranger Things. She played Holly Wheeler in the most recent season of Stranger Things. She was recast and she has a very central role in that. And so that's fresh you know that came after this film, but I think would be the most recognizable today as Nell Fisher. Yeah. Morgan Davies, I didn't know this the first time I watched it, but a a trans boy.
00:28:59
Speaker
I had read that it was one of the first times that i um a trans teen had been like heavily featured in a movie. So ah props to you. We're a little late on Pride Month. This Euphoria, which I guess is a TV series. do Again, yeah, I don't know anything about a TV series. Okay.
00:29:17
Speaker
can i you I know we're talking cast and crew. i want to I want to mention something that Lee Cronin did that I i think really is wise for not just the movie, but for the franchise moving forward. um It was his idea to take the, the dip into the lore of the three Necronomicon's in Army me of Darkness and say, all right, those other two books, they're not just decoys.
00:29:46
Speaker
They're actually in the world. Like they're, they're spread out everywhere. And so, that is how we have all these other movies now is like that's how he explains it is like okay the first book the one that he's trying to save and and get and read the incantations of to get out of you know cameron in army of darkness yeah in army of darkness is one and the other one that we saw in evil dead 2013 is another book that was in michigan somewhere and then there's this third one in evil dead rise and so any movie after this i'm i'm really curious to see
00:30:19
Speaker
if I've heard Evil Dead Burn doesn't even have a book, actually. I've heard Evil Dead Burn is like, it's some other device or thing that like gets the incantations out there. Interesting. don't know. um But Evil Dead Wrath is a prequel, so I'm assuming they are telling the story of one of these books, maybe the one that ends up in Evil Dead Rise. lot of chatter, too, about connecting these two movies. like Apparently, Evil Dead Burn has more connections to Rise than these other movies have.
00:30:48
Speaker
Um, I just thought that was a cool idea. thought it was a great way to like, to explain without getting too bogged down in details, but to explain like how this universe is connected. Yeah. I, I really like it. It opens the door for more creative liberties down the road.
00:31:02
Speaker
Um, I also like, if we're talking about the book, we ragged on Evil Dead because it was kind of silly that this character, Eric, is just reading the Necronomicon out loud. but it's been you know Some people have gone to great lengths to you know wrap the book up, wrap barbed wire around it, try to keep it out of sight.
00:31:20
Speaker
In this movie, it comes with a ah vinyl record where it shows him as like a DJ, he has his turntable, and so he brings up the record to play it. And I like that. It's a little more believable than reading from this creepy book of the dead out loud yeah to yourself, where very few people read out loud to themselves.
00:31:38
Speaker
Did you catch, I mean, it's not really a deep cut, so I might as well say it here, but you know that was Bruce Campbell's voice in in the background, right? Yes, I saw that was his cameo for this film where you don't actually see his face. of the hear The interesting back and forth here was that fan theories and conjecture were like, oh, is this ah is this like Ash? is that Is he playing Ash?
00:32:05
Speaker
And Lee Cronin said, it's not only Ash, it's time displaced Ash. Like it is Ash from Arby of Darkness trying to get back to his timeline.
00:32:17
Speaker
Cronin says that. But then in another interview, they bring the same thing up to Bruce Campbell. They're like, that's so cool. It's Ash. He's like, wait, no, it's not. He's like, that's just, I'm just playing a priest. I'm like, i'm it's a cameo.
00:32:29
Speaker
He's like, that was not Ash. So I want to ask you, Travis, who who has the final say here? Because Bruce is not just an actor in this case. He is a producer. He's an executive producer. So he's he's in charge of shepherding the franchise and the story. But then it's the director who is... Yeah, but it's the Evil Dead. So what Bruce Campbell says goes.
00:32:51
Speaker
like I know. Hail to the king, baby. You can't just interject like, this is what I was thinking for this film. Exactly, exactly. i ah um I also saw Bruce Campbell, again, just a tidbit.
00:33:02
Speaker
He also did some of the Foley work for the movie, making sound effects. yeah So I think it's specifically the scene where, again, an eyeball gets dislodged and launched into one of the other tenants in the apartment building and he starts to choke on it. And apparently that like sound was like Bruce Campbell like biting really heartily into an apple to like make that sound effect. Wow.
00:33:23
Speaker
So he did some of the Foley work. You think you think Lee Cronin's like, man, have you heard Bruce eat an apple? It's fucking disgusting. Put it in the movie. We need that. We need that in here. Not big on apples, yeah to be honest. I like applesauce. I'm not big on the actual apples. love a good Granny Smith.
00:33:39
Speaker
I need a little sour in there. What about a Red Delicious, which has always been a creepy name to me? Yeah, like that. But like ah I said, I need i need sour. Granny Smith, Green Supreme. I like green apple products like green apple gummies, green apple flavored things. But a green apple itself, um I could do it without. I mean, I could have it or not, you know?
00:33:59
Speaker
Okay. Okay. I agree to disagree. I just don't think it's actually true that an apple day keeps the doctor away because the doctor has stayed away regardless of what many apples. You had multiple health incidents last year where you had to go see a doctor. How many apples were you eating over the course of 2025? I'm assuming you weren't eating one a day. And had you have, maybe have different outcome.
00:34:21
Speaker
I cannot recollect. I'm not going to deny that allegation, Traven. I think it's a really good point. and it's I think I go to the doctor less than you, and I eat quite a bit of apples. Well, I don't go to the doctor. I go to the ER.
00:34:32
Speaker
Is i cause that a changing thing? No. My body could probably be immune to poison IV if I'm eating enough apples. I think that's a natural ah repellent. So is it the apples or is it bed bugs? Because you're now saying two different things. You're saying I went...
00:34:48
Speaker
because of the bed bugs. You got a few things. If you wanted to change in your lifestyle, I think you'd have better health outcomes. All right. And then grill away from the sighting too. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Those are the big three. Right. Washer sheets, eat apples, keep the grill away from the sighting of your house.
00:35:05
Speaker
Don't open up books bound in human flesh and inked in blood. Yeah. That's that. That one, fortunately you've been great at, but some of the characters here have not. Also, I think the coolest thing,
00:35:17
Speaker
maybe not design on the cover, but it's opening mechanism of all the teeth. Yes. cool personal Book. Very cool. Like flair that I've seen in these movies so far.
00:35:29
Speaker
Yeah. This, this Necronomicon would, I like the mouth on the cover, but I still think that teeth on the spine. Yeah. I think teeth on the spine here is my favorite book feature thus far. Um, let's get into our scurometer. Let's get into our awards.
00:35:45
Speaker
Um, all right. Do you want to, uh, Counting down from three? Yeah. Three, two, one, seven. What the? Okay. So we just flipped from- You went up? I have this just slightly scarier than Evil Dead 2013. Again, I think the the more intimate setting and familiar setting in an apartment building, the familial drama.
00:36:07
Speaker
um I also think Ellie is the scariest deadite we've seen to date. They went from kind of the- ah like really stark makeup ah ensemble that they used in Evil Dead 2013 and definitely in the earlier films. And she looks legit. There's something about turning a beautiful woman because she's a model again, turning a beautiful woman scary. That makes it even scarier to me.
00:36:31
Speaker
Yeah, she's very expressive. And they're not leaning as heavily on the makeup. It's like they're just accentuating her existing features, which includes a really toothy smile and like some defined pronounced cheekbones.
00:36:48
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And like, yeah, I would agree. She is wonderful. terrifying and really well acted. I, she's the person I think of the most when I think about this movie, not sexually, just like in general.
00:37:06
Speaker
all right. So let's see where, so this is, if you gave it a, i gave it a six, you gave it a seven. So it's a 6.5. We have we have to decide. Last one was as well. Right. ah No, the last one was a seven.
00:37:20
Speaker
You gave it a six. I gave it an eight. So it landed a seven. You gave it an eight? Oh, man. dear you said you so You said you predicted i would give it an eight. Yeah. yeah yeah All right.
00:37:31
Speaker
Look, that's just what it is. These are the numbers. Okay. Okay. All right. So we have
00:37:41
Speaker
Black Phone 2 at six. Above that is Keeper at 6.5. Above that is Conjuring Last Rites at 6.5. I think Conjuring Last Rites. We really have Conjuring Last Rites over Keeper.
00:37:56
Speaker
Keeper had some legit scary scenes. you just you You just can't stop thinking about the tree. I think anytime we talk about Keeper, you're like, man, that tree ate a Russian woman. think it's like the very end of the movie too is pretty legit terrifying. um But yes, also that tree ate that woman.
00:38:12
Speaker
Well, it's it's either got to go below Keeper, above Keeper, and below Conjuring Last Rites. Yeah, I would put it above Last Rites.
00:38:23
Speaker
I'm going to put it in between Last Rites and Keeper to keep things equal. Okay. and we We can have our cake and eat it too. All right, can i start the highlights so you don't just go to the very end yeah this time? Yeah.
00:38:35
Speaker
You want to start us at the beginning, that that ah title card? I love the intro. Mm-hmm. One of the most clever things in this movie is you have that age old hurling through the the sky or the the words the woods camera movement.
00:38:57
Speaker
But it gets out of the woods, goes on top of a lake and then rises up. And then you're like, OK, we haven't seen this before. And then it cuts to it's a it's a drone. And I think that was just a way a really fun way to modernize an old trick that they've been doing since 1981.
00:39:13
Speaker
um A lot of foreshadowing, like how this drone is going to cut up your face and these two kids are playing around. And and it's really it's it's shot really well. I mean, it's like it's like golden hour. It looks beautiful.
00:39:24
Speaker
um And then so some some teen, some dude teen who's drinking is like bothering a girl who's trying to read Wuthering Heights. She's annoyed and says, let me go get your girlfriend, who I think is her cousin.
00:39:38
Speaker
Right? Yeah, i think that's right. So she goes inside a cabin. Now we're back at like a cabin in the woods situation. Her cousin's not doing too well. She's kind of sick. She's laying around.
00:39:53
Speaker
as As the girl is reading out of the Wuthering Heights, her sick cousin is like in a demonic voice reading the same words that she's reading, which culminates in let me let me and proceeds to do one of the most awesome things I've seen in these movies, and barehanded scalps this girl, just grabs her hair and scalps her, no knife needed.
00:40:19
Speaker
I had that in my dull knives where I don't know how you get that clean of a scalp by just grabbing someone's hair and pulling up. Like she literally took her entire scalp off in just one motion. With the power of Satan, all things are possible. Yeah, I guess so. ah So then our our male friend and at the dock, he is surprised by – he has two surprises. One is –
00:40:45
Speaker
scalped girl who's like, I'm not feeling too hot, falls in the lake. And then his girlfriend takes his drone and just like self mutilates her face for no reason other than to freak him out.
00:40:57
Speaker
ah Remind me, does he jump in after her? How does he go? So Scalp Girl is still on the dock. Jessica goes in the lake after she's self-mutilated.
00:41:07
Speaker
And he dives in after her, still trying to save her. And then you just see a a bath of blood um kind of fill fill the water. And then you see a bath of blood. And then his decapitated head gets shot out of the lake and back onto the dock.
00:41:24
Speaker
That's it um Not great head prosthetic. It looked a little uncanny. but Really long neck. Yeah, long necked.
00:41:34
Speaker
But then you just get one of the cool shots in this this and like horror films of the 2020s of Jessica rising up as a demon is is known to do. Out of the water. yeah With the ah Evil Dead rise. So yeah, that that is a a highlight of mine. I really like that part.
00:41:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Mine would have to be, I mentioned this briefly already as well, but um they get Ellie out of the apartment and they lock her out. And then Beth is looking through the people to see what is going on. And this is when you see Ellie just...
00:42:07
Speaker
destroy the rest of the residents on this floor. um I thought it was so cool, kind of with the fisheye lens feel. you see you know you You can't see all the action, but you see like a young boy kind of run off and then just get yeeted back across the hallway. you see the old man with the shotgun firing at her. I wrote in my notes that Travis Will described the way that this child is thrown into the wall with own arms as yeeted. had it in my notes. I can show you. he got yeeted.
00:42:35
Speaker
um you know the old man with the shotgun i just love that that whole set piece where she's you're seeing this all through the people yeah it looks great it's all fish-eyed and uh it it's it's interesting because it's like there's some safety there but it's just pieces of wood like you she it's weird she never breaks that door down like the way that she gets in is she just entices cassie to like let her in but it I'm assuming it's a solid core. So Mr. Real Estate here, it's probably a solid core wood door.
00:43:07
Speaker
I don't know if you've messed with solid wood doors before. but i mean, I've opened them. You need more than the power of Satan to break one of those down. If it's hollow core, you can like kick through it easily. What if it what if it's Toni Collette i ah from Hereditary? I don't think she can get through. I've never seen any movie even try to portray. They know that it's just too unrealistic.
00:43:29
Speaker
get through a solid he had little faith in payment yeah i she'd have to bring her head pretty dang hard to get through a solid solid core wood door but yeah i like the people stuff it really fucks with her eyes too like you get it it warps her eyes a bit and uh i'll i'll say this i mean bring up another category but talking about camera work lee cronin big fan of split diopter shots Mm-hmm. You, you're a big fan of calling out split diopter. So i mean, they're not that common.
00:44:00
Speaker
Like it really are. They stand out when they're there. Okay. You don't think so? Maybe you're right. You've, you've opened my eyes to, clearly not see these but to speak.
00:44:11
Speaker
Oh, I gotta say, ah I was getting my haircut at the salty clipper. Shout out salty clipper in Asbury park. Um, by a a girl named Molly who me and Sarah met at a dive bar during pride month.
00:44:25
Speaker
And we've got the talking. She gave us a sticker. said, get a cut. Sarah's been bugging me to get a haircut. So I go, she ends up being like the biggest horror fan ever. She has a ah dead octopus and formaldehyde on a jar on her desk.
00:44:40
Speaker
She's got like a statue of a scary mermaid. She's like, okay, I got all this weird occult shit in my house, but this barbershop is like beach themed. So what can I bring from my house that's still beach themed? So she brought a scary mermaid and a dead octopus.
00:44:55
Speaker
Oh my goodness. um Anyways, I was explaining to her that we do these awards. I was like, yeah. And so then we have this Ben Gardner jump scare award. So Ben Gardner is, and she's like, oh, the the the guy who pops out of the ship in Jaws?
00:45:09
Speaker
And I was like- She knew that? That's incredible. She's like, yeah, yeah. you like They're like down there looking for him because his fishing boat was gone, right? I'm like, Molly, you need to hit like and subscribe ASAP.
00:45:20
Speaker
because Yes, that's- Well, speaking of deep cuts, do we want to go into deep cuts for this film? Oh, yeah. um I already mentioned the time displaced ash, which then was shot down by Bruce, but deep cut in the fact that it's it's Bruce. um You catch your your boy, Stephen King, little shining, little shining nod to the bloody. Oh, oh yeah. Little shining nod. That's yeah. It's one of the you know biggest effects in the movie.
00:45:47
Speaker
it's like just It's kind of a very overt cut, but still worth mentioning. Yeah, what was it? They used something like 65,000 gallons of blood to make this movie, Lee Cronin said. and Oh, really? I saw for that elevator shot.
00:45:58
Speaker
They had to do it twice, once for like the wide-angle shots, once oh and once for the close-up shots. So imagine like just having to go through that ordeal and do it twice and then clean up the set and get everything ready to go a second time.
00:46:11
Speaker
um And then the other thing I had was just the three Evil Dead 2 references. You have the, I'm going to swallow your soul. In Evil Dead 2, he's like, I swallow this. But in this case, she then crawls down her belly and hears the baby's heart beating and in Beth's belly and goes, two souls.
00:46:32
Speaker
Very creepy. um You already mentioned the eyeball gag of an eyeball being... like bitten off? or I think she bites onto Jaden Daniels' face and bites his eye out and then I think she spits it?
00:46:49
Speaker
Is that how it comes out? She's like, I'm not going to chew this, not enough fiber or something. It's too gamey. She spits it right in another guy's throat. yeahp yeah ah Which is a you know one of the first signs of Evil Dead 2 that this is going to be a different ride than Evil Dead 1.
00:47:04
Speaker
um And the other one was, i really liked this, man. It was almost a highlight. ah It was when all they're they're in the hallway and all of the deadites, which I love that we got so many deadites in this one.
00:47:16
Speaker
Cause initially I was like, man, some of these kills are so quickly and they all happen kind of at once. I'm like, this is kind of a waste, but then they're used really well later, obviously, but they all start laughing towards the climax of the film. And then they say, you're going to be dead. You're all going to be dead by dawn.
00:47:32
Speaker
dead by dawn dead by and they're all chanting it just like in the second movie so clearly what's cool is like whereas fetty was pulling so much from evil dead 1 1981 it feels like lee cronin was like dipping much more heavily into evil dead 2 so it's neat to kind of see how different easter eggs yeah different easter eggs and like influences they're paying homage to the earlier films i like it did you you have any No, the eyeball one, Dead by Dawn, that I agree with everything you said.
00:48:02
Speaker
um Let's go into best scares. And there's there's a few jump scares in this one. What you got? What's your favorite one? So um they're out in the hallway. They're now trying to escape Ellie.
00:48:15
Speaker
ah Go to the the door they think they can break down maybe to get to the fire escape. And i think they've actually, Beth has just shot Ellie. And Ellie gets off. Oh, shot off her leg. With the shotgun. Yeah, shot off her leg. And you suddenly see Ellie flying towards her. Again, very similar to Evil Dead 2013, where there's no movement of the legs. It's a really cool shot where she's just gliding towards her um all of a sudden, but coming at like a really quick speed. And she's just going like, Betty Boo!
00:48:48
Speaker
And flying at her. i was like, holy shit. Oh, that was my big she says Betty Boo? i Dude, okay, that makes much so much more sense. I had as an honorable... So that was my honorable mention, Ben Gardner, Jump Scare Award. But I wrote down Boogie Boo, like Boogie Boo. But you're right. Okay, so I think it's Betty but because she then says Betty Boo again shortly thereafter. she doesn't like it. She's like, only my sister calls that.
00:49:11
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Okay, so my Jump Scare Award is... At this point, Bridget, the eldest daughter has been killed.
00:49:23
Speaker
Very sad, killed by her brother, Danny. Um, and inexplicably, I guess is, you know, traumatic time doesn't know what he's doing.
00:49:33
Speaker
He wraps her in a blanket and sheets and like, and ties her down, ties her down. Honestly, it was, it's a pretty pro horror movie move. Usually works. Um,
00:49:46
Speaker
at this point, Danny, Cassie, and Danny and Cassie are making their way through the home um while Beth is just, you know, listening to her noise-canceling headphones, which I'll have something to say about later.
00:49:57
Speaker
ah But you just see, it's kind of, I'm kind of cheating because mentioning this happening twice in this in the this whole scene, but like, there's these mirroring sequences happening where Bridget's shroud covered body is appears in the background.
00:50:16
Speaker
And similarly, while Beth's listening to the thing, Ellie's coming out of the vent. Yeah. Um, but to get to my jump scare award is when, all of a sudden Bridget's body just like shoots forward floating also. i mean, I guess it's just another, another scary floating trick here.
00:50:35
Speaker
um I think added to the actual jump scare though, it's just like, I just can't believe they went there with like, i guess you, when teens are getting killed in like sleepaway camp and like Halloween and Freddy Krueger,
00:50:50
Speaker
It's not as impactful as it is in this movie because you don't see them in the context of their parents. Like they don't seem as much as children. They seem like they're 20 in their twenties. And a lot of the actors were, but here you have this like nuclear family and you have what's supposed to be their protector is, is terrorizing them. And I just think that added to the scariness and like, uh,
00:51:12
Speaker
shock factor of the whole movie also with like slashers like you're saying like a lot of times they they're the bad kids right who get killed they're the promiscuous ones or the bullies and these were like these poor kids don't have a dad they're living in a slum and they're they're largely innocent as far as we could tell and they're the ones getting killed so it is a bit more impactful yeah So that whole sequence is great.
00:51:37
Speaker
The jump scare, uh, is, it got me. I mean, you can't even see your face, but just that bundle of bloody rags going towards you is, is freaking out.
00:51:49
Speaker
Um, and then there's, there's a handful too, for our cantaloupe award for the cringiest, uh, stress inducing moment here. What do you have for this one? I had a, uh,
00:52:03
Speaker
It's a moment that had an interesting life cycle in like the discourse about this movie. I think Able Dead can do some missteps sometimes in a marketing campaign. And maybe they're doing the same now with Burn. Well, they'll really heavy-handedly like promote or discuss, like it's the goriest thing you've ever seen, and then like include items that they're going to use in the movie. And your imagination goes, like how they going to use that item? and Well, they really front-loaded the idea of using a cheese grater in this movie.
00:52:31
Speaker
i i didn't I didn't catch any of that. But yes, that's what I had for my mind well. think so when I saw it after all this hype about a cheese grater, I thought it was going to be a lot more drawn out and like really like a torture scene almost. um And in the theater, I was like, you see it for like, don't know, four seconds. Yeah, they could have lingered on it longer.
00:52:52
Speaker
But what I'm trying to give it some credit here. and Now it's time has passed. I don't think about it as much. And I'm just going in with like normal expectations about that scene. it it is, it is like, it makes you squeamish dude. Like especially if your calf in general and meaty part. Like,
00:53:10
Speaker
It was... It reminds me of weapons when she uses the ah apple peeler on the cop's face. But that one, they they stay on the shot a little longer, to your point.
00:53:22
Speaker
And i think it could benefited from a little more grading. I wonder if Lee Corian was just trying to break the cycle of not getting an NC-17 rating at first. yeah He's like, I'm going to just skip that whole... Just quick shot. Quick shot that she's grading. Yeah.
00:53:36
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's pretty bad. ill Also thinking of um not necessarily like a winner for this, but reminds me a deep cut is ah Ellie when she first gets possessed. All the wires coming out of the elevator and snaking around to her arms and legs is very much akin to what we've seen with the tree vines from the prior Evil Dead movies.
00:53:56
Speaker
I would agree. Akin times 10. Akin. a can um Okay. Now we can get to our deaths. Starting with cannon fodder.
00:54:07
Speaker
lot of lot of nominees here. There's a lot of smaller characters who get killed. Just to add in gratuitous violence. I mean, I had your yeet boy. I was thinking yeet boy. i kind of also like the boyfriend getting decapitated at beginning.
00:54:23
Speaker
You know, like yeah they they just throw that in there for like yeah These are just other characters and showing some form of possession. they they kind of tied back at the end of the movie, but it was just an extra death just to add to the body count. It is an interesting question. I know this is not a death discussion, but it is an interesting question of like, what is the significance other than tone setting? And they're just cool. I mean, it was my highlight, but what is the significance of booking in the film that way?
00:54:50
Speaker
Is it that... that book is out of control. Like it went from the high rise to a cabin and who knows who's going to get it next. Like maybe is Byrne going to pick up? I've heard that Byrne connects to this. So interesting.
00:55:02
Speaker
So Jessica, who is the girlfriend who gets possessed. And so that is, ah you know, chronologically it would happen after the apartment building. Cause like you said, it bookends with her getting ready to go on this trip.
00:55:14
Speaker
She actually has a credit in Evil Dead Burn, the new film coming. So she's getting brought back. So maybe maybe it does play more significance. And in that case, maybe this isn't as much of a cannon fodder kill for the boyfriend, at least in the you know in the lens of just this film alone. yeah it did feel like they're just adding adding to a higher body count. That's smart filmmaking to...
00:55:37
Speaker
You don't want to get caught in the trap of like marvelizing everything and having like post credit scenes and connecting it so much, but like just breadcrumbing a little bit that there's like some connection here and and and a bit of overlap. I think it does a lot for the fans. I mean, think it excites them to, and there's already this expectation that continuity is not that important to these people.
00:56:00
Speaker
so They've set the stage perfectly. it's like a it's You can't really lose because they can always be like, yeah we're going to retcon this. There's going to be a fifth Linda here. Or they can just be like, that's what we think about this right now. Yeah, so we'll we'll have to see how that interconnectivity works. But um yeah, I think those are the two best nominees. I was thinking about Yeet Boy as well.
00:56:20
Speaker
No arms. Well, he he gets arms later in the movie. gets a lot of arms. Yes. yeah Oh, yeah. we We do a lot better on the amalgamation here in this movie than the than the last film.
00:56:32
Speaker
Okay, so best death. I know a lot of times we default to the villain getting killed, getting chainsawed into the wood chipper. It's a good one.
00:56:43
Speaker
I kind of saw that as like symbolically like an unbirth. Like she's pushing it back into something versus like birthing it. Like ah I'm not your mom. Like I have my own children. you are you are like the spawn of Satan.
00:56:58
Speaker
Yeah. You're, you're reading into this way more than I am. i just thought, you know, horror directors are like, When you can use a wood chipper to just shred someone, it it makes for good graphic content.
00:57:11
Speaker
It's like a side profile of it and like it. It looks like you could, I think you can make the argument, it looks a little like bur it's trying to be birthed out of something and she's not letting it, don't know.
00:57:23
Speaker
That's me reading into it. um I like Bridget's death. Getting caught on fire. Where she gets, yeah, the PAM or the cooking oil sprayed onto her, catching her on fire. um Using it like a blowtorch.
00:57:35
Speaker
Pam. Are you saying Pam? Pam? I believe I could help with the whole Pam-Pam dilemma. Yeah, i I like it. it's It's another example of siblings having to kill each other in this franchise.
00:57:51
Speaker
ah Danny is bleeding out, like probably hit a that an artery in the arm. He's going to get stabbed in the chest, but uses a household item to defend himself and set his sister on fire. I do wonder if there was a little bit of like sibling angst at the very end there, like...
00:58:09
Speaker
You know, like is he, is he using some resentment that he built up over the years? ah and don't want to read it too far into it, but, uh, so yeah, I'm say Bridget, a little Bridgie. Okay. Yeah.
00:58:21
Speaker
A few. I, I'd kind of agree with you. It, It is a cool setup for the wood chipper death, but the payoff and how they captured it cinematically wasn't quite as cool as like the Fede Alvarez's like Evil Dead 2013, where it's just that lingering shot of getting chainsawed to the face. I mean, that's like a one in a million. like a one in a million shot. I feel like that's a tough comparison.
00:58:46
Speaker
i do love i do love that buckets of blood is a continuing theme for all these movies. There's also the scene where Bridget's just throwing up blood on her brother Danny through the blanket.
00:58:59
Speaker
Like she has, like you said, the shawl over her, the shroud over her, and she's just puking blood through that, which was lot of blood again in this movie. Yeah, good stuff. I'm pro-blood. ah Was there a Shyamalan twist? I can't really find a twist in this film.
00:59:14
Speaker
I was struggling with this too. There's not many twists. i the only one i have to think back to when I saw it the first time, I was shocked that the premise was mom of young kids becomes possessed and attacks her kids.
00:59:31
Speaker
I guess the twist here is that like they went as they went farther than I thought. It's like, Oh, this is like a domestic problem movie where the mom is trying to kill her kids and two of them die. Like that's,
00:59:45
Speaker
I didn't see that happening. I saw like maybe the mom, maybe the aunt, maybe the neighbors. You just don't often see, like you said, you see teens die in these horror films a lot, not in the context of like a nuclear family and not at the hands of a mom is not, I don't see it a lot.
01:00:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. No big twist, but it's very twisted. Very twisted. Yeah, that was unexpected. a little twisted. What about don't go in there? i have a better one here.
01:00:14
Speaker
Oh, man. I just think if you already know that there's demonic entities in a small space and you have young kids who can't defend themselves,
01:00:28
Speaker
Locking yourself in the cool music room and putting on noise-canceling headphones for the long-shot chance that there's an incantation that will put them back into wherever they came from, assuming you can even read the fucking language.
01:00:46
Speaker
Probably one of the dumbest things I've seen in this whole fucking franchise. Yeah, and she doesn't even get anything out of it, right? She gets nothing. There's no payoff for her listening to No, she gets Ellie creeping up behind her like a little spider. Yep.
01:00:58
Speaker
um Yeah, that's that's a poor character decision. And that one, since she's an adult, I would say that's probably the winner. But also you have Cassie, who clearly sees her mom possessed. Are blaming Cassie right now? Locked outside the door. Cassie. Locked outside the door. Everyone else occupied. Best listened to the incantation. Danny and Bridget are battling it out. And Cassie decides to open the door for her mom.
01:01:24
Speaker
She's like, oh, maybe she's okay now. And that was, you know the very poor choice to unlock the door and try to let her end It's a poor choice for a five-year-old to open the door for her mother.
01:01:35
Speaker
ah thought we said she was eight.
01:01:40
Speaker
Damn, Trad, the way you connected this movie in one way is I understand. The other way you're on a tight ship. Don't open the door for Anna. She's not had a good day. Yeah. Let her wait it out out there.
01:01:53
Speaker
i mean, she did just try to murder them all. It'd be a bit different there. um All right. Best lines? Oh, there's so many. Yeah, there's a lot. Like you said, I think they're almost all Ellie.
01:02:06
Speaker
Yeah. um You said two souls already. i really like that. Yeah. ah Swallow your souls. Then she hears the baby. It says two souls. um
01:02:18
Speaker
My favorite line. um I was trying to lead up to it. I'll just say it now. My favorite line in the movie. It's not just the words. It's how she says it. They put her in the bathtub. They're starting to realize something's wrong with her.
01:02:31
Speaker
um Beth and the kids are asking her, like, Mommy, like mommy are you okay? Mommy, Mommy, Mommy. And she turns to and goes, Mommy's with the maggots now.
01:02:47
Speaker
Yep, yep. I fucking love that. I love that, and I love... My other LA line was ah just prior to that before they get her the bathtub. She's still talking to like a sweetly motherly voice and she goes, had the most beautiful dream.
01:03:06
Speaker
We were together sitting in a tall forest.
01:03:11
Speaker
The wind was clean and the birds were singing the sweetest melody. matt
01:03:18
Speaker
Melodies? It was the perfect day. And all I could think about was how much I wanted to cut you all open and climb inside your body so that we could stay one happy family.
01:03:34
Speaker
It's just like, oh, climb inside your body is okay. All right, I'll go you one further. At that point, at least she still is, like at least in an abstract sense, trying to keep them together, right? I want i want to stay with you and I'll be one. Indeed.
01:03:48
Speaker
Talking about themes, you kind of get that with the um ah amalgamation too. She like does. They are together. They're all one. You're right. She did get inside her bodies. and yeah ah Another part is where, ah again, she's having some dialogue with one of her kids and they're like, mom, or is that you? like Or something. And she goes, I'm free now.
01:04:13
Speaker
Free from all you titty sucking parasites. Yes. Yes. I like that one as well. I mean, I'm not a parent, but that sounds like it really came from the heart. bo this The lewdness of the Deadites is also another consistency between all the films to date.
01:04:31
Speaker
yeah They don't hold back. they'll They'll hurt you physically, but they'll also try to hurt you emotionally. um Oh, i want to I just looked at my notes. I forgot to say this. Another nod, I thought, to ah Evil 2 and in the same way that Evil Dead 1 and 2 and Evil Dead 2013, they, at some point in the film, they make the main deadite, in ah they make they constrain them in some way. They separate them from the main protagonists.
01:05:02
Speaker
All the other movies has been, they she's been in a cellar, and she's trying to bang the cellar, like, man getting excited as other deadites are doing things. In this case, the equivalent of that is she is...
01:05:13
Speaker
behind the people in the but ah hallway. She is, there's a physical barrier and seeing her get frustrated that she can't get in, but also excited that bad things are happening. i I just thought that was another nod and I forgot to mention that earlier. Yeah. She's getting hype when Bridget turns. Yeah. well't ever My girl finally. Yeah. Titty sucking parasite. Oh, okay. Let's do a dull knives.
01:05:39
Speaker
Oh wait, sorry. Can I have one more? Oh my God. That's the one you pressure me for who's the winner. Who's our one winner. And then you're like, let me drop like five lines on you. all right. But how can you have, how can you say winner without hearing this one?
01:05:54
Speaker
Ellie waits in hell for you and your unborn bastard baby. you know
01:06:01
Speaker
um Do you think it was needed that Beth was pregnant? Yeah. you know, as we transition to Dole Nights. It's the whole motherhood thing. It's whole motherhood thing. think gives the movie- think her stepping into motherhood for Cassie would have been sufficient enough for me.
01:06:18
Speaker
Yes, but the problem with that is that she is faced with a dilemma, and that is why she is seeking the counsel of... It's the whole reason... It's the whole motivation of going to see... She gets to see her sister. Yeah, the whole reason is that she's always on the road, and she's ignoring her sister's pleas for help about saying, hey, my husband's leaving me and stuff. And then when she has a problem, which is I'm pregnant, then she goes and sees her, and she's like, I'm not sure if I can do this. I'm not sure if I'm ready to be a mother. And then protecting the kids makes her realize she is ready. So I think it's... That's a good point.
01:06:45
Speaker
But... um
01:06:50
Speaker
I mean, I think the biggest dull knife is clear to me. that The biggest one. It might be the whole biggest dull knife in the whole franchise. That pizza that pizza was fine.
01:07:01
Speaker
that The pizza was absolutely fine. though why on It wasn't even upside down, for God's sakes. They dropped it at a perfect stack. Yes, maybe a slice got on one and another other slice here and there.
01:07:15
Speaker
They left it all down there. What the fuck is that? Yeah. As someone who sees a lot of food waste with young kids, it does infuriate me to be like, this is, this is good. We will eat this.
01:07:29
Speaker
We'll eat our leftovers. You gotta to finish your plate. And so I'm, I'm right there with you on that one. I mean, I, uh, I hope some PAs ate it or something. like I was just like, that's like there's like four boxes. I get the dropping of the soda. You can't help that. Cassie's scared. There's an earthquake. Well, they think it's an earthquake.
01:07:46
Speaker
Was that an actual earthquake? Was that just demon shit happening? I think it was an earthquake. That's before they've read from the book. That's just what opens up the bank vault beneath the apartment building. It's a natural disaster that allows them to access the bank vault.
01:08:02
Speaker
But yeah, pizza was my big dull knife. Pizzagate. So I'm also down in the garage, but slightly different in that. I just don't know how many apartment buildings have like full-size wood chippers just chilling next to the vehicles there. Like, I don't know. like with it shake I assume whoever owns a wood chipper, yeah, needs to store somewhere. But I'm assuming like the HOA there would have some serious issues if it's like I'm going to take up like 10% of the garage by just storing this wood chipper here.
01:08:30
Speaker
You know, yeah, Fargo had an easier route from not having to spend as much disbelief to have the wood chipper in that scene. You have a wood chipper near trees. That's that's where wood chippers go. You don't have them in residential parking garages that often. But how else would we ah explain there being a chainsaw available to use, you know? Yeah, yeah. there The building's condemned, but there's still a lot of happy lumberjacks just living in living in there.
01:08:58
Speaker
Everyone's got a project, you know? Yeah, that's a really good one. I didn't even i didn't even like question it. i was just like, oh. Yeah, that's there. It's Chekhov's Woodshipper. All right, well, let's move. I don't have any other, to I mean, again, there's funny parts of the movie. Nothing else I wanted to call attention to for a dollar. I had one other one. um Here again, similar to the last film, you have a climactic scene occurring where the protagonist or final girl is running around a car as an abomination slash algamation is also around the car.
01:09:32
Speaker
Two things. It gets very, very quiet at some point when she's like peering around the car. How is that multi-limbed abomination staying quiet? It's like got open organs and pulsing and it's like black man squishing around. Did they all just decide to be cute and quiet for a second? Then by that.
01:09:53
Speaker
Secondly, why did Beth not take a page out of Mia's book and just shoot from under the car? like Yeah. We learned last... Take legs out. Take the legs out or whatever. I mean, that thing's crawling around on its like... Its butt is on its chest and its arm is on its back. Like, you're going to hit some vital organs for sure.
01:10:12
Speaker
I just thought that was a wasted opportunity. Yeah. Yeah, it's hard to believe that something like that could be that sneaky. I feel you there. All right, winners and losers?
01:10:26
Speaker
Start it off. ah For winners, I had a... Elevator weight capacity signs often observed, rarely come into play, but it's like that was the deus ex machina here that saved them is ah too much blood in the elevator. So it finally drops.
01:10:48
Speaker
Like you're saying that in this case, they actually follow the rules of the laws of physics here. Yeah. I mean, how often do you see like the Otis weight limit capacities?
01:11:01
Speaker
Don't really, it's almost kind of a joke or I've never really thought too much about it other than just seeing it. It has to be posted in every single elevator. This time it's like, no, no, no. This is truly the weight limit and the whole elevator drops. Do you ever yeah ever have a lot of people in the elevator and you're kind of like looking at the weight limits and then like person gets on?
01:11:24
Speaker
you ever kind of look around at your other compadres and like judging it? Just kind of like, are we all good with this? Like, should we vote? So you're a self-described nice guy.
01:11:35
Speaker
Would you ever tell that person? Hold on. What does that mean? I'm a self-described, like I just go around saying I'm a nice guy. You you usually like to talk about your charitable acts publicly.
01:11:45
Speaker
And so would you be the same person who would call Would a nice person not try to prevent gruesome deaths
Symbolism & Producer Contributions
01:11:54
Speaker
by exceeding? know. That's what I'm saying. That's why you're being nice. You are standing up for the rest of the occupants of that elevator when you call out someone for being like, hey, i think this is a bridge too far here. I would not be above taking them outside and just being like, let's take the stairs. It's good for two reasons. One, exercise. Two, you're not going kill these people.
01:12:16
Speaker
ah Do you ever jump on an elevator to kind of feel it rock back and forth? I haven't done it and probably haven't done it in eight and a half years. My girls are really into it, but maybe I'll rethink that now that I'm reminded about the weight limit capacities. I think growing up also includes the loss of innocence and I no longer derive joy of that act, but I'm glad your kids do.
01:12:38
Speaker
um what You have other winners, other losers? Yeah, dude. Car batteries, again, making a big save in these Evil Dead movies. ah She is... Because she tries to start the car.
01:12:51
Speaker
No. She uses what looks like to me... Maybe not a... Sorry, not a car battery, but like large batteries. They're like, we don't have power to... Oh. We don't have electricity to power the turntable. And she's like, I got it. I'm a cool...
01:13:08
Speaker
Guitar tech, not groupie. Watch this. And that's she does the same thing that David does in Evil Dead 2013 with just like some wiring and some... ah crimping and just... Is this a theme in the Evil Dead movies that like every character is a little bit MacGyver? Because you have that in Evil Dead 2013. You have her doing it in this film. You have Bruce Campbell in Army of Darkness, like being able to figure out how to make like a cybernetic limb implant for himself, even though it's the thirteen hundreds It's okay.
01:13:45
Speaker
It's MacGyver, but it's like selective MacGyver. It's like this surge of creativity that happens once in the movie and that's it. You get like one power up and that's it. You can only use it once.
01:13:56
Speaker
So. I guess maybe it's- It's a chainsaw arm in Evil Dead 2. It's like blue collar mechanic knowledge, you know? Yeah. I was just saying winning ah the winner there is just like, I guess, being handy, know-how. I'm like coming to terms, Travis, that I'm not as handy as I thought I was, and it's like kind of ah hard for me, I think. you're the You're the second person when I was talking about the siding that I burned with the barbecue. Mm-hmm.
01:14:24
Speaker
Because I asked a guy, i went to a sighting expert and i was like, yeah, like, do you think this is DIY? He's like well, are you handy? Because I'm not. And I'm like, you're handier than me. So if you're not handy, what am I? And then you who can like talk for days about insulation and whether an basement's a seller and you're like, you're not handy. I'm like, what the, should I just like hire other people?
01:14:43
Speaker
to do these things? I've learned by trial and error that when I try to do things myself like that, I'm going to make it worse instead of make it better. And so I'll just rip off the bandaid and hire someone. It's such a hit to my masculinity though. Like I i want to hold onto this. I mean, I can do, i could change, can you change a tire? Yeah, I can change oil. I can change tire. can change radiator. Have you, let me be more direct. Have you changed a tire in your lifetime?
01:15:07
Speaker
Many. Yes. Okay. there yeah Good. Like 10 plus. Another winner I had was split diopter. You know, I love my split diopter thought shots.
01:15:19
Speaker
Another one was um another another win for bed sheet ghost types. I thought a lot about Halloween 1978 when Michael's in that, just drapes his body in a sheet. And I thought Bridget was doing something similar. And there's something like, I don't know.
01:15:36
Speaker
it's It's like ah this disinterested, emotionless, It's kind of funny too. i just, I just like, I like a i like a bed sheet ghost. ah What you want me to say?
01:15:48
Speaker
want me a lie and say I don't? I do.
01:15:53
Speaker
Uh, losers. I only have one. What is it?
01:16:00
Speaker
Scrambled eggs. That was a sad, sad attempt. and I don't know why possessed Ellie is making scrambled eggs, but i you know she she's throwing the shells in the pan. There's eggs hitting the floor. like They never eat it, right? she just That's the first thing she does. They're not going to eat perfectly fine pizza that was lightly dropped from the ground. They're definitely not eating shelly eggs.
01:16:23
Speaker
um My response to your question about the eggs is this. One is... You can't make an omelet without cracking some eggs, first of all.
01:16:35
Speaker
Second of all, i think that was, like so to me, supposed to symbolize the early inner tension and turmoil between the deadite and Ellie, the mom. And it's like the mom's still trying to do mom things, but the deadite doesn't know what to do. It's like, I want to cook some breakfast. It's mom and her. Yeah.
01:16:54
Speaker
who is just possessed and trapped in the elevator and subject to this horrifying experience. The first thing she wants to do when she gets back to the apartment is be like, all right, we got to make some eggs. I mean, that was a strenuous experience. Like a lot of probably like expended a lot of calories, worked up an appetite.
01:17:11
Speaker
i mean, have you been strung up in an elevator and then had your limbs contorted? I feel like you, first thing you'd want to do is have some high protein snack. yeah Yeah, maybe that's it. But yeah, I would say a meal. That just don't know how to make a good thing of eggs.
01:17:28
Speaker
um Loser? Traumatic experiences for a child. I think unless Cassie gets some like real quick work yeah real soon, she's going to be...
01:17:43
Speaker
Like she's going to be at a Motel 6 slinging crack fentanyl, maybe like running underground poker tournaments or something.
01:17:54
Speaker
ah Loser. yeah she's she has just seen the worst thing in the fucking world. And so Beth's got a Beth has a heavy task here. But yeah, loser. And didn't by her dad.
01:18:05
Speaker
loses her mom and siblings by demonic possession and then them attempt then killing each other and attempting to kill her. That's, that's toughie. That's a toughie. She's like five.
01:18:16
Speaker
Um, yeah another one I had loser. I did not think Beth's like, um, cool slogans were very cool. Like one of them was like, come get some. And I just kind of fell flat. I was like, you're okay. Get what? Stop. Yeah, she's not Bruce Campbell. but And then another one was like, only my sister gets to call me that. And i'll just yeah like I I'd agree.
01:18:41
Speaker
Wasn't doing much for me. um Okay, do you remember... Do you remember last week when I was talking about bugs crawling under the skin of a snake?
01:18:54
Speaker
I found that that that was a losing incident for me because it still stuck in my head. And I thought about it when the bugs were crawling around under the satchel of the book. And they open it and there's all those cockroaches everywhere. But you could first see them like crawling around underneath the cover of the book. I completely missed the cockroaches. In the new book? In this film?
01:19:13
Speaker
Yeah. I only remember the teeth. I wrote it down. Bugs in the book. Bugs in the book. All right. Well, let's move to, this is tough. I haven't put enough thought into it to come to a conclusion yet. So we're going to have to do it on the spot for Scream King, Scream Queen.
01:19:31
Speaker
All right, so mine is i'm I'm rounding out the three main people that made this franchise possible, and that's Robert Tapper. You had Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, now Robert Tapper. The reason I picked him, and it's very rare I know we pick a producer because they're usually way behind the scenes, but time and time again and these behind-the-scenes EPKs and diaries, you're just hearing that like after the first original trilogy, it was Tapper who rolled up his sleeves and and made these things hum and work for a movie to go from streaming to then get a theatrical cut and then be the highest earning um installment in the entire franchise and to be able to continue it to a point where now we're having two upcoming releases in the next two years.
01:20:20
Speaker
Tappert's doing something right, and i you know he's he's been in it for the long haul. Xena Warrior Princess alumnus, and i just want I just think he should be shouted out. I mean, there's other winners I'm sure we could put out there, but when I really thought about it, i thought Tappert deserves some love, so he's my nomination for screen game. I would agree.
01:20:39
Speaker
I would sign on to that. The name I didn't mind digging, I'd agree with yours, but... I did like Alyssa Sutherland. Yeah. She was great as a Jedi. I will say that was the other one. Even though she's really not the lead. Yeah, Beth's actress, Lily Sullivan is the lead.
01:20:55
Speaker
think Alyssa Sutherland did the most for this movie. She was, like I said, genuinely scary. if our move If our Scream King or Queen Award was ah isolated to just performances, it should be hands down the winner. I think she was the most captivating on screen for sure. Mm-hmm.
01:21:14
Speaker
All right. Well, I think that's going to do it for what our fifth Evil Dead film we've covered now.
Podcast Maintenance & Listener Engagement
01:21:21
Speaker
So um I read online, Travis, that when a podcast has a hiatus, which we did, something that we're supposed to do is ask everybody to turn on your auto-downloads back for us because oh when you don't release an episode for like four weeks in a row or something, your most of your podcast platforms, they stop auto-downloading your episodes. So please click that follow button again because it probably has turned off um but so that your devices can download our episodes for you and you can hear us talk about things
01:22:01
Speaker
ah like pizza. Changing a tire.
01:22:07
Speaker
um We'll be back next week with Evil Dead Burn as we complete our groovy road here. Thank you guys for listening. We'll see then. Swallow your soul.
01:22:18
Speaker
Swallow your soul. Bye! Check off's what it called?
01:22:26
Speaker
yeah checkoffs checkoffs ah what is it called A tree what? What is it? A tree? Woodchipper. It's Chekhov's Woodchipper.
01:22:41
Speaker
I was trying to... I'm tired, man. It's like 2 a.m. over