EVIL DEAD RISE (2023) Another Evil Dead reboot to emerge after the 2013 remake failed to reignite the franchise, this appropriately gnarly reimagining of the original 1981 horror classic moves the action to Los Angeles, where the teens of a single-parent family discover the dreaded Book of the Dead in a hidden vault under their apartment complex. It isn’t long until Deadites are possessing the inhabits of the building and turning the place into a blood-covered hellhole. The first movie in the series to abandon the cabin-in-the-woods scenario since Army of Darkness, Evil Dead Rise works surprisingly well, especially in the third act when things go completely batshit crazy—but it wouldn’t be an Evil Dead movie any other way. You won’t feel a thing for the lifeless characters—who spend most of the film looking as if their Deadite Mommy just returned home with a bad haircut—but this is a fun and cheerfully gruesome return to form for the long-running series. Burning question: Why is there an industrial-size woodchipper in the basement of an L.A. apartment building? B
FIRST MAN INTO SPACE (1959) Reckless test pilot, Lt. Prescott (Bill Edwards), working for a military-backed space exploration project, becomes the first person to leave the planet’s atmosphere, only to vanish without a trace after his rocket is found abandoned at a crash site back on Earth. Unbeknownst to Dan’s brother (Marshall Thompson) and girlfriend (Marla Landi), Prescott roams the area as a blood-craving, deformed creature, transformed by microscopic space dust. Slight but mildly amusing low-budget sci-fi/horror that gets by because of a good cast and a couple of gory moments. Just don’t expect much and you might enjoy yourself. C+
UNCLE SAM (1997) “Don’t be afraid. It’s just friendly fire!” So says the charred body of Desert Storm soldier Sam Harper (David “Shark” Fralick), who puts a round of bullets in his fellow soldiers just before he dies in the wreckage of a helicopter downed by—yes—friendly fire. But that isn’t the end of Harper, a man who was filled with so much American patriotism he comes back from the grave like an EC Comics character to punish the wrongdoers of his hometown of Twin Rivers. Decked out in a gaudy Uncle Sam costume, Harper goes about dispatching those who are unpatriotic, rude, or just plain jerks—something the incredibly small town of Twin Rivers seem to be overflowing with—during the town’s Fourth of July festivities. A fun concept for a slasher, Uncle Sam is disappointingly flat, lacking the energy found in director William Lustig’s earlier movies (Maniac, Vigilante, Maniac Cop 1 and 2). The characters are dull and don’t add any sparks to the lazy screenplay, which spends too much time on a subplot involving Harper’s snot-nosed nephew (Christopher Ogden). The silly freeze-frame ending is a groaner. C–