In Genevieve Rises, Jeff (writer/director Nicholas Michael Jacobs) has blown things with his girlfriend Jess, so there’s nothing left to do but sit home alone and drink.  Sadly for him, he finds a copy of what looks like “My First Lil’ Necronomicon,” but called “Book of Souls,” inscribed in dark red ink by a bored metal fan in study hall.  Jeff clearly has never seen a horror film, because he reads the first words he comes across out loud.

He is then attacked by Genevieve (voiced by Alan Maxson), a sort of American Girl Cenobite doll he has summoned accidentally. The film is goofy fun in an over-earnest, low budget, DIY way. Jacobs isn’t the strongest performer, but we can follow and enjoy the story, such as it is, for the 13 or so minutes it runs. The film never really explains what Genevieve is, why it does what it does, and why Jess had a copy of the “Book of Souls” in her stuff in storage at Jeff’s house.

I prefer to keep my dangerous and evil books stored more securely so stuff like this doesn’t happen, and I certainly tell my significant other, “Hey, don’t read out loud from that book bound in human skin that’s in with my Harry Potters.”  It’s just that kind of common sense that was lacking in Genevieve Rises.