And so the Evil Dead franchise trots along with this new installment in the cult horror franchise, and second reboot attempt, Evil Dead Rise, about a family stuck at home with the Book of the Dead. 

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The premise is simple enough to entice and the trailers seemed to suggest the director at least attempted to capture the right energy but, without the ever-reliable Sam Raimi/Bruce Campbell dream team, this film was always going the be a hard sell. A good lesser-known cast, hamming it up and goring it up, though, could have been the way to go but this movie doesn't quite get there. After a fun opening sequence, the paper-thin plot takes its sweet time to develop and, when the madness starts to happen it doesn't so much explode as it does stumble around looking for a good scene.

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Evil Dead Rise seems to have everything it needs to be a good Evil Dead film, on the surface, but an hour into the film, it should become clear that this is not going anywhere particularly interesting. Yes the cast members do their best, Alyssa Sutherland tries very hard to create some kind of campy vibe, and yes the gore effects look good but where's the charm? Why is this film criminally unfunny? Why does it have no valid scares at all? Why am I watching this? This is boring.

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Look, there are far more terrible horror movies out there, buckets of them, this is just one of those forgettable ones that certainly tries to pay homage to the start of a franchise but which ends up melting into the mix. The characters are just not very likable or memorable, the writing is rather weak, the cinematography is good but not much beyond a pale Raimi impression, and there's nothing mind-blowing or particularly new to gasp at visually so it all falls flat hard and fast, leaving you to flashback to the much better original trilogy, wishing you were seeing those on the big screen instead.

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Some horror fans will get ok gore from this one and, if that's all you're looking for, then you might enjoy parts of Evil Dead Rise but, for the rest of us who know how wild and how cool the Evil Dead movies can be, we'll stick with the dream team - thank you very much.

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Uninspired reboot.