Mid May Movie Reviews (Scream VI, AKA, Evil Dead Rise)

It’s been over a month since I’ve done one of these roundups where I review a trio of films, but I promise that it’s not my fault! You see, there just haven’t been many worthwhile releases of late and I’ve been busy spending my time watching Season 2 of The Last Kingdom (which I recommend). Plus, there’s Survivor and Succession, and I’m trying to get through another playthrough of Fire Emblem: Three Houses. (Okay, so maybe it is a little bit my fault I haven’t been watching too many movies.) Anyways, let’s take a look at three feature films that I did watch over the past couple of weeks, and determine if any of these 2023 releases are worthy of your time.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Uhtred, Logan Roy, Byleth, Jeff Probst

Scream VI (2023)

Paramount Pictures, 123 minutes

The Scream franchise has become the plain vanilla or plain chocolate ice cream for me when it comes to horror movies. Sometimes you just want ice cream really badly and it’s fine if it’s only basic vanilla or chocolate with no toppings. It’s acceptable and tasty because ice cream is inherently good. But there’s not much to this basic plain ice cream (it’s not even chocolate and vanilla swirl). This ice cream is the bare minimum and sort of a disappointment because if you’re going to have ice cream, why not go all out and add whipped cream, and hot fudge, and little bits of Oreos, maybe some M&Ms, then broken up pieces of a Kit-Kat bar, and gummy worms, and sprinkles? That would be a great sundae.

I could eat all three of these. If I were to make myself a sundae it would be like these three mini-sundaes combined plus more toppings and no cherries. (A fruit has no place on my ice cream.)

Now that I’ve got myself craving some ice cream, what I’m really trying to say is that Scream VI is fine. It is an acceptable horror movie if you’re a big fan of the genre. It’s a far cry though from the original Wes Craven-directed 1996 hit that reinvented scary movies.

The story here is predictable, but also watchable. Acting-wise, the main cast is fine, yet unremarkable. There is nothing special about Scream VI, but nothing downright awful either. The more recent entries into the Scream franchise have become the embodiment of the generic slasher horror movie. At times, it feels like the movie’s writers are trying to comment on sequels or requels or franchises (or whatever), but they don’t have anything interesting to say. It’s like they want moviegoers to go, “Hey, look, they’re talking about movie-type things and they’re actually in a movie. That’s because this is a Scream movie and that’s what they do.” It’s just not profound or interesting anymore.

Meh. This movie is fine.

Scream VI is also set in New York City (that’s where I live!), but that’s not really important to the overall story and ends up being a big missed opportunity. I don’t necessarily advise totally skipping this one for horror film fans – just don’t expect a delicious vanilla-chocolate swirl sundae.

Grade: 5.5/10 

AKA (2023)

Netflix, 123 minutes 

We go now to a completely different type of movie from Scream VI, that is also (somehow) in many ways the same. AKA is a French crime thriller (different from Scream VI), yet it’s also an unremarkable, but not totally awful film that will appease most (not too harsh) fans of the particular genre it falls into (like Scream VI). It’s also exactly 123 minutes.

AKA is one of those movies where a badass undercover agent has to infiltrate a criminal organization to take down some bad guys. (How original.) There are all the thriller-clichés you’d expect to find in a cliché direct-to-Netflix film, and most of it is for the worse. There’s a bit of the story where it seems like the protagonist might befriend the young son of the crime boss, and that this might be at least a little bit of a unique take on this type of film, but none of that is ever explored at all deeply. It’s almost like it was part of their hook originally, but then they decided to just make as generic of a thriller movie as they could.

Look! It’s “generic-looking action guy.”

AKA is definitely forgettable, but not every movie needs to be a great, memorable experience – just an enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours. Unfortunately, I don’t think AKA is necessarily an “enjoyable way to spend a couple of hours,” largely because of my main complaint about the film: It’s somewhat slow and boring at times. Being boring is probably the worst thing you want to be if you’re a crime thriller.

It's not totally awful, and I guess if you already subscribe to Netflix it won’t cost you anything to watch it, but when I really think about it ,I’d (probably) barely recommend skipping this one.

Grade: 4.5/10

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Warner Bros. Pictures, 97 minutes

The original Evil Dead movies are pretty campy if you watch them today, and I’m honestly not a huge fan of them. However, Evil Dead Rise (as well as the 2013 film, Evil Dead) couldn’t be further from campy-type horror. This is a well-crafted, gruesome horror flick that’ll keep viewers on the edge of their seats for most of its shortish runtime.

I really enjoyed a lot of aspects of this movie, from setting the story in an apartment building (as opposed to the tried-and-true traditional cabin in the woods setting), to focusing on a mother, her three children, and her sister as our primary cast of characters (as opposed to the typical horror cast for this type of film that consists of hot twenty-somethings). Like the 2013 film, which this isn’t really connected to besides also taking place in the Evil Dead universe, Evil Dead Rise takes itself extremely seriously and has some genuinely frightening moments.

If you happen to find a book like this, I’m going to recommend not reading it.

Once the movie gets going, it really doesn’t let up, and I think that this is both a strength and a weakness. Sometimes, when constructing a horror movie, it’s not a bad thing to have moments of levity or a break from all the scariness in your story. These breaks almost allow viewers time to recover from prior frights and let the story build up so that people will become more scared when then next terrifying moment occurs.

Really though, this isn’t a major complaint, and doesn’t detract too largely from the fact that this is one of the more heart-pounding horror movies of the past year or so. I’m definitely looking forward to see what other Evil Dead films we get in the coming years, since I like this type of horror film that takes a more realistic look (or as realistic a look as one could take) at how a demonic situation would play out.

Grade: 7.5/10