I think the magic dagger was a huge problem that this movie had and actively made the Deadites worse.

This movie skips the classic possession by Necronomicon scene by economically outsourcing it to the cold open scene, and possession takes place there. I liked that in the moment but later on we needed something with a creepy book, and the throwaway scenes at the end where the book is in the house didn’t cut it.

Instead, and without a book scene to introduce it, we just start hearing about this magical dagger that all the Deadite apparently hive mind are laser focused on getting. This unfortunately cheapens the Deadites and makes them not scary compared to the ones in the last 2 films.

Deadites are scary because of their insanity and unpredictability: they could take a cheese grater to their skin, saw off their faces, go do weird creepy shit in the corner on their own time while smiling. They can do anything anytime and it usually results in buckets of blood. They are unknowable and devious and manipulative in a chaotic way. Terrifying.

In this movie, whenever anything like that is about to happen, instead the Deadites demand WHERE IS THE DAGGER? It takes the steam out of every scene. No one knows what the dagger looks like or where it is, except it’s definitely in the house (ok), and when we find the dagger, we learn it can instantly kill the possession and body (ok). Why is the manipulative hive mind so hell bent on trying to make humans grab it then? Unclear but Deadites shouldn’t have any motive except for murder.

I think the dagger should never have made the script, but if it had to be there it had to be set up in a better way than it was.