SPOILER DISCUSSION

1. There are two thematic through lines operating in the film: class disparity/wealthy inequality in the manner established through early supernatural horror films like The Amityville Horror wherein the haunting is tied to the financial terrors ^[1] King, S. (2010). Danse macabre. Gallery. and a focus on the nature of family and the related traumas boiling underneath those structures waiting to blow up.
   
   This former idea, that of class, is made explicit from the very opening with the use of the expensive drone shot which is meant to emulate the spectral P.O.V. shot we’re used to, directly conflating the presence of the supernatural with that of capital.
   
   At an environmental level, the setting the story takes place in is a dilapidated, condemned apartment which spells incoming doom for the families living inside who now have to relocate. It’s also no coincidence that the structure this building sits on is a bank where instead of money, Danny finds the evil materials.
   
   Smaller details from the characters further emphasize the point. Bridget is an activist who protests and Cronin takes time to show her “Eat the Rich” T-shirt. Kassie reveals that she’s built “Staffanie” to fight the ghost of a thieving teller who will steal one’s money. Danny’s explicit reasoning for taking the Book of the Dead and related materials has to do with selling them for money to help out the family.
   
   At a metaphorical level, the deadites themselves are a force of capital accumulation; they invade, transform, and infinitely accumulate in a zero-sum fashion where only they are allowed to win at the cost of everything else. From a crude, rudimentary Marxist reading, they are an alienating force that strips characters from their labor, their choices and force them to become part of a system of exploitation. The victims of possession have their “life-activity” literally usurped from them and directed by the will of another, the deadites. ^[2]Horowitz, A. (n.d.-b). Marx’s Theory of Alienation. Asher Horowitz | Department of Political Science | Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies | York University. … Continue reading
   
   Meanwhile, the latter theme is where the crux of the story’s emotional beats stem from. The primary tension stems from the familial conflict gone supernatural as the deadites force Ellie to violate her children and her sister. There are constant verbal refrains mentioning the importance of family and the way familial connections motivate desire.
   
   From this vantage point, Beth is the point at which the thematic lines intersect and become more intriguing as she views her pregnancy, the possibility of forming her own new, distinctive family unit, as a possible impediment to her career, her perfection of her labor qua craft.
   
   While this set-up should have allowed for a nuanced exploration of the way these themes intersect^[3]For example, given the focus on the gaze and the way violence has to be ground within a perspective, it would have been interesting to explore the Deadites as a way of materializing capital-based … Continue reading , especially given the way Beth’s relation to her own children vis-a-vis her work could serve as counter-point to Ellie’s thought process, the film largely squanders the former themes and chooses not to engage with them after the haunting starts. The way the ending happens makes this omission even more pronounced (Point 10) and feels disappointing because it reduces the films thematic exploration to the same tired, conservative subtext made commonplace by The Exorcist ^[4] For more information on this idea , look at the 5th point on the spoiler-section from The Exorcist review , wherein order is restored when the family structure is respected; in the case of the film, this happens when Beth accepts her role as a maternal figure tasked with taking care of Kassie and her soon-to-be born child. This message itself is effectively conveyed and the film formally doesn’t miss a beat in regards to the same, but it feels a bit disappointing that the ambition given to other areas of the film don’t extend to its subtext, especially when it feels like the pieces were initially being set up.

2. The consistent use of split diopeter shots is worth complimenting both for its aesthetic value and the way it drives and ties the film together formally. Cronin effectively utilizes them to amplify tension, accentuate the disturbing mood, and help draw our eyes to the next plot beat. None of these uses feel showy for their own sake or out of place within the larger aesthetic of the film proper.

If there is an issue, it’s that many of these shots are on the screen for a short time – a disappointment given their striking beauty and wonderful function. I wish there were more of them and that Cronin luxuriated in them for longer periods of the time to let them sink in more effectively.

3.The intercutting between Danny’s decision to play the evil vinyl records (Top row of the gallery) and Ellie’s decision to do the laundry (Bottom row of the gallery) helps make the exposition feel exhilarating and makes what would be an otherwise mundane and obvious section of the film unforgiving by promising immediate consequences. We know that Ellie is doomed and her family, by extension, will soon follow.

As the relevant incantations are finished, we get a counterpoint to the film’s opening: a spectral P.O.V shot (this time it’s really the deadites and not a drone), the shot’s confrontation with an intended victim, and the possession proper, which is shown on-screen for Ellie as opposed to the off-screen approach used for Jessica. Even the infamous “tree rape” ritual used in previous films in the franchise is updated and made less gratuitous while remaining just as cosmically terrifying, as the otherworldly tendrils which serve as the points of intrusion for the spirits take the form of electrical wires from the elevator.

4. The first confrontation between Ellie and the rest of her family at around the 44-minute mark is wonderfully done and has a few moments of brilliance that need to be highlighted.

A- In relation to the themes related to class and labor, it is quite telling that Ellie’s tool of choice to inflict violence on her activist child is the tattooing machine which she uses for her job. Labor has turned against the family and is being used to carve it up instead of supporting it. Cronin chooses to highlight Ellie staring at the camera with her tool, demonstrating the way this force tries to usurp the camera and emphasizes this attempt at controlling the gaze by cutting to a close-up of Bridget’s eye, which reflects the violent scene within its domain. Ellie is ultimately unable to broach this particular area and settles for the flesh transforming Bridget’s into a new type of “activist.”

B- In relation to themes relating to family, Cronin neatly uses a change in focus to reveal that Ellie’s knife is actually just a piece of reflective glass, transforming the tool into a symbol standing in for the instrumentalization of violence against the family structure. If mirrors and their relevant reflections represent a suturing point for identification, a cementing of one’s identity, then the shattered glass which is revealed to both be a weapon and be a literal reflection of part of Ellie’s family, Bridget and Kassie, hiding away, makes explicit that the violence of the deadite’s is aimed at the destruction of the family. If one extends the capital metaphor (Point 1), then this would entail that the forces of capital destroy the unity of the family, but this idea isn’t developed enough to resolutely justify this part of the reading.

Regardless, the choice to then have Ellie stab Beth makes the metaphorical powers of the chosen instrument of violence explicit, as family has now officially turned one another. There is no going back any longer.

C- At the start of the confrontation, there’s a wonderful tracking shot across the rooms that delineates the split family. Ellie is framed by herself, alienated from her kin, on one side, and Beth and Danny are framed on the other side, united. This dead space between the two is then traversed by the newfound agent of the deadites who invades this structure in an attempt to break it apart from the inside.

D- All of the above movements culminate in my personal favorite scene wherein Ellie plays a twisted version of “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe” with her now genuinely horrified former family unit. This exchange cuts between two types of P.O.V’s: Ellie’s as she points out at each member of the family and then the respective family members as they stare back at Ellie, and by extension the camera (audience), in abject fear. The use of the wide shot, Ellie’s P.O.V, as a surrogate master shot tells the whole story and nicely demonstrates the way that this evil presence has broken apart the previously cohesive family unit. It also helps, and this is a general aside, that Alyssa Sutherland is playing the hell out of her role, imbuing it with the perfect amount of snark and dread one would want from their lead deadite. Kudos.

5.The eyeball gag at the 47-minute mark is a mixed bag. It’s a darkly, comedic punchline of sorts for the film’s focus on the gaze and the way the deadites use their control of this perspective to inflict violence. The joke here is literally: “this gaze kills”. But it’s stylization, which is an homage to Evil Dead 2, feels out of place with the severity of what came before. We go from serious, even if melodramatic, to campy and corny and the tension which was at a fever-pitch just kind of dissipates, an effect which is amplified based on how funny one finds the moment to be. While the film stumbles tonally in a few places, this definitely feels like one of the more overt fumbles even if it simultaneously has some of the above interesting effects.

6.The peephole is nicely established when we’re first introduced to some of the neighbors in the apartment, so it feels appropriate when Cronin chooses to go back to it not once but twice. The first such instance happens at the 49-minute mark. We see Beth slowly approach the peephole and emphasis is placed on her eye – the gaze becomes paramount here is now represented not through the cinematographic choice (the P.O.V/tracking shots) but is instead emphasized through the framing of the shot and the nature of what that entails for the phenomena being showcased. The lens here distorts and exemplifies the violence which travels from the peripheries out-of-frame to the frame itself. Ellie confronts Beth, and subsequently the viewer, when she gazes back and reveals the two-way street of perspective. Beth stumbles back in horror and we see the terror clear in her eyes.

The peephole is used again when Kassie, the youngest of the group, goes out and is unable to reconcile the dissonance between the figure of her mother and the violence she was made privy to. At the most simplistic level, Kassie’s ability to look at the “same” scene as Beth and come to a different conclusion represents the way perspective dominates the field of interpellation.

At a deeper level, the possessed Ellie assures her former daughter that the estranged father figure exists just outside the periphery of the frame, the promise of a complete future exists if the door is opened. When Kassie acquiesces and follows through the rug is pulled out from under her; the underside of idyllic familial love sublimates is an overwhelming violence that threatens to exterminate. This is only abated by the presence of the “real” familial bonds of Beth and Danny who help wrestle Kassie away from the grasps of her “false” mother and her related promises.

7.Much in the same way that the initial playing of the vinyl records (Point 3) was playfully edited to keep the pacing consistent, the way that Cronin bounces around between the different parties at the 64-minute mark is commendable. Once again, the exposition is rendered less boring because we’re able to see the confirmations of the same while listening to the warnings. We’re engaged with seeing the inner workings, especially while the possessed figures slowly crawl into the backgrounds without the need for jump-scares to lazily announce their presence. The fear is organic and the verbal pronouncements we hear are more so used to set the mood than to explain relevant information to the audiences that would radically affect the way they interpret what they’re seeing.

8.The final confrontation is a wonderful visualization of the destruction of the family apparatus and starts with the creation of the Marauder deadite, a combination of the three slain family members now conjoined into one horrifying entity. The site of this confrontation begins in the elevator which is fitting given that it was at this same location that the infestation started and the family unit was broken apart. As the creature reaches through the elevator to grab the two non-turned members, the scene can be read as a perverse, grotesque take on a family hug which was Cronin’s intention. ^[5]West, A. (2023, April 26). Evil dead rise director and stars explain how they filmed that Gonzo, bloodsoaked ending. gamesradar. … Continue reading. This time the possessed hands of the family serve as the tendrils meant to corrupt in lieu of the elevator’s wires.

However, the weight of the combined bodies and the resulting blood cause the entire structure to collapse, a tongue-in-cheek visualization of the age-old adage: “blood is thicker than water”. Obviously, the image of an elevator with blood gushing from it recalls The Shining – a fitting homage given that film’s focus on the disintegration of a family unit due to supernatural forces which possess and incite violence.

9.Once the Marauder is defeated, the film nicely wraps up the familial arc with a wonderful shot which starts on Beth and Kassie finally leaving the forsaken grounds. The camera goes from them to a blood-soaked windshield to remind us that their journey has been one of gore and terror and moves from this vantage point to an image on the keys within the vehicle showing the family unit in earlier times, in an idyllic space where the terrifying horrors of the night had yet to have their mark. That family is no more and only remnants remain.

10.The final moments of the film which explain Jessica’s involvement with the story and reveal that the opening of the film was chronologically the final part of the overarching narrative are done well for the most part. The revelation that she is going with her boyfriend and dragging along her cousin cement the familial themes the film settles on. The final series of shots showcasing Jessica being bombarded from all sides by the respective specters’ P.O.V’s is also a nice cherry on top.

Yet, this very simple revelation does feel like it betrays a chance at nuance. If the drone shot at the beginning was supposed to equate class with the vantage point of the deadites in some way, it feels odd to have a character from a condemned building for the less fortunate be the catalyst for said involvement. A slight reworking to explain Jessica’s relationship to this schema could have helped extend the thematic overlay explained earlier and make it more cogent, but instead the film settles and goes with a much easier family connection to help thread the storylines together, which even if cogent, ultimately feels incredibly safe.