a review of 鬼玩人崛起

I think I've watched around a million horror films during my youngster years in the 1980s. It was the decade of gore horror, where directors tried to surpass each other in shock value and graphic violence. The boundaries of depravity were constantly shifting further and further. I guess at a certain point in time I have become immune to every possible scare tactic in the horror genre. As a Sam Raimi aficionado and long-time lover of the original Evil Dead, I expected this reboot to probably be over the top like the original, and it was. But the original Evil Dead has this special kind of contemporary, low-budget atmosphere and daring camera experiments by a young Raimi, which resulted in a unique balance between scary horror and over-the-top madness, while Evil Dead Rise is just too slick and overproduced to my liking. What also bothered me is the underwhelmed response of the actors to the terrible events that unfolded. Instead of screaming they just widened their eyes all the time, and instead of trying to run away from someone who has just become a freaky demon, they walked towards the abomination. To make fantastical events scary, the behavior of the victims should at least be realistic to make the audience relate to them. All in all, I thought Evil Dead Rise wasn't bad, but not a single moment did it make me feel genuine tension. Maybe I'm really getting old now. 😅