'Evil Dead Rise' And The Renaissance Of B-Rate Horror

'Evil Dead Rise' is not only a horrifying film, but it's representative of the current renaissance of B-rate horror in American culture.

Evil Dead Rise is a terrifying film, as it was promised to be. It's also a clever continuation of the Evil Dead franchise's storyline, and delivers for the fans.

The acting in it is fantastic and terrifying. The soundtrack adds its own subtle degree of horror to the film's atmosphere. And the story is simple but pays due homage to its predecessors.

But the film is also representative of a larger trend in American culture.

For the past couple years, we've seen a re-introduction of the art of B-rate horror to young, hip American pop culture.

I call it, appropriately, the "renaissance of B-rate horror."

Interestingly enough, it started in 2017 with the revitalization of the Resident Evil video game series, with Capcom's release of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. Then, its commercial and critical success inspired several remakes of Capcom's older Resident Evil entries, like 2, 3: Nemesis, and just a few weeks ago, 4.

In between, Constantin Films released a complete reboot of the Resident Evil film series, which paid homage to all the B-rate horror films of old.

Then, in 2022, A24 Films gave us X, which was essentially a modernized and uniquely-written remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and made about 15 times its budget in the box office and was critically-acclaimed. It's success inspired a B-rate horror prequel, Pearl, and a third film and sequel, MaXXXine, is already scheduled for release.

Q4 2022 also gave us Smile, a low-budget psychological horror film that some will argue is one of the scariest films of all time.

So what's going on? Why is this all happening at once?

Arguably, we're in the middle of the modern renaissance of B-rate horror. B-rate horror experience a wave of popularity in the 1980s and into the 90s, and now it seems to be, once again, rearing its beautiful head.

And Evil Dead Rise marks the peak. We're in the middle of this renaissance, and I personally believe there's much more to come. The Evil Dead (1981) is probably the single-most popular (and important) B-rate horror film of all time, and resurrecting the franchise and exposing the younger generations to it will continue to ignite the popularity of the art of B-rate horror. And I'm here for it.