Film / Evil Dead Rise

Evil comes home.

"I had the most... beautiful dream. It was a perfect day... and all I could think about was how much I wanted to cut you all open, and then climb inside your bodies... so that we could stay one happy family."

— Ellie

Evil Dead Rise is a 2023 supernatural horror film and the fifth film in the Evil Dead franchise. It is written and directed by Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground), produced by Robert Tapert, executive produced by Evil Dead stalwarts Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, and stars Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols, and newcomer Nell Fisher.

Moving the action from a cabin in the woods to a high-rise apartment in the city, the film follows a pair of estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by the discovery of a Book of the Dead and the possession of one sister by a bloodthirsty Deadite. Now the surviving sibling must protect her sister’s children from the demon in their mother’s skin.

Originally set for an HBO Max release in 2022, the film instead got a theatrical release on April 21, 2023.

Previews: First Trailer (Red band), First Trailer (Green band)

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Evil Dead Rise includes the following examples:

• Air-Vent Passageway: How Deadite Ellie gets back into the apartment.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The earthquake which occurs at the start of the movie not only allowed Danny to locate the Book of the Dead and the vinyls, but also knocked out the power, the phone signal and the stairs, trapping the victims in the building. It's never clarified whether this was sheer coincidence, or whether the Book was establishing a hunting ground before even technically being released.
  • Why Ash is present in the 1923 recording is unexplained.
• Apartment Complex of Horrors: Ellie, the Struggling Single Mother, lives in a pretty dark and dingy apartment building with her kids, which it turns out has actually been condemned and is scheduled for demolition in a month. It gets even worse when Danny discovers the Book of the Dead and unleashes it upon the apartment residents by mistake. Seemingly all of the remaining inhabitants of the apartment building are gruesomely possessed and/or killed, especially as they're already trapped inside by the earthquake that destroyed the staircase and rendered the elevator inoperable.
• Apocalyptic Log: The record Danny finds contains a recording of an increasingly desperate priest describing his experiences with the Deadites and his futile attempts to stop them, ending right before he dies.
• Arc Words: "Let me in." The possessed Jessica says it when reciting a passage from Wuthering Heights, Kassie says it to her older siblings when trying to play with them, Gabriel says it when begging Beth to let him in to safety in the apartment, and Deadite Ellie says it repeatedly.
• Audience Surrogate: When a priest makes a sermon about reading from "the Book of the Dead" to his congregation they all object, with one priest imploring him to "Destroy it! It's called "The Book of the Dead" for a reason!" Seeing as that "priest" is actually Ash, he would know that firsthand... just like anybody in the audience who's followed his adventures before this.
• The Bad Guy Wins: While Beth does manage to defeat Deadite Ellie-Bridget-Danny, she does not vanquish the other unleashed Deadites that possess Jessica, which leads to the opening scene.
• Bait-and-Switch: The movie starts with the famous Shaky P.O.V. Cam shot that looks like a Deadite flying towards a cabin... that turns out to be Caleb playing with his new drone.
• Berserk Button:
  • Beth hates being called a "groupie" as opposed to a tech. It's implied that getting pregnant by what's implied to be a band member makes it an extra sore spot.
  • Only Ellie gets to call Beth "Bethie Boo".
• Bittersweet Ending: Beth is forced to kill her possessed sister, niece, and nephew, but she and Kassie make it out alive and Beth is more sure of herself as a prospective mother. However, the evil released from the Naturom Demonto is still out there, free to sow chaos in the mortal world, as it does with Jessica at the end.
• Body Horror: As is typical for a Evil Dead film. Special note goes to the Thing-esque Ellie-Bridget-Danny fusion that serves as the film's Final Boss.
• Books That Bite: This version of the Naturom Demonto has fangs on the cover that open when blood is drawn.
• Breaking Old Trends: The Cold Open transpires near a cabin in the woods like most Evil Dead movies. This turns out to be a Bait-and-Switch, and the rest of the movie takes place in a high-rise apartment, an urban area rather than a rural setting.
• Bring It: Beth makes this kind of taunt to the fused Deadite, but she's presumably expecting it to charge her rather than fling a running chainsaw at her head, and is caught entirely off guard, loses balance, and accidentally discharges her gun when she falls.
• Call-Back:
  • The reference to "the Freddy movies" is part of a long string of references to the work of Wes Craven in the Evil Dead series, beginning with a torn The Hills Have Eyes (1977) poster in the first movie.
  • The Evil Dead (1981):
    • Jessica reciting the passages from Wuthering Heights that Teresa is reading, a la Cheryl and the playing cards.
    • Once again, light-based electronics are seen filling up with blood near the climax - only this time, instead of a light bulb, it's the light-up buttons on an elevator control panel.
    • Bridget much like Cheryl recognizes that the book is awful and advises Danny not to open it or play the records.
  • Evil Dead 2:
    • Jake choking on an eyeball.
    • The resurrected neighbors shouting “Dead by dawn!” in unison.
    • The name of the pizza place the kids buy from is called Henrietta's, the same name as the "I'll swallow your soul" Deadite.
    • Beth's last name is Bixler, named after Denise Bixler who played Linda in this film.
    • Like Ash, Beth's two main weapons are a double-barreled shotgun and a chainsaw.
  • Army of Darkness:
    • Bridget and Mr. Fonda are named after Bridget Fonda, who was a fan of the original two Evil Dead films and played Linda in the opening recap of Army of Darkness and who later married Danny Elfman, from whom Danny gets his name.
    • Beth says "Come get some", the same Pre-Asskicking One-Liner that Ash used in the theatrical ending.
    • In a meta angle, the fact that Ash is heard in a recording from 1923 means that he's somehow been displaced in time again.
  • Evil Dead (2013):
    • In the recordings, the priest mentions he attempted burying the Deadites on consecrated ground as a method of stopping them; in Evil Dead, live burial was identified as a way to free a person from possession and was successfully used to save Mia. Unfortunately for the priest, it didn't work out that way here.
    • The climax also features a rain of blood drenching everything, this time caused by the Ellie-Danny-Bridget Deadite being shoved into a woodchipper. It even features the traditional Chainsaw Good being stabbed through the Final Boss's head in the process.
  • Ash vs. Evil Dead: The book responds to blood touching it. Though this time, it does not speak when drenched in blood.
• The Cameo:
  • Bruce Campbell has an uncredited one as the priest on the recording telling the main priest it's a bad idea to read the book. According to Word of God, this priest is none other than a time-displaced Ash Williams.
    • In a sound effect sense, Word of God also confirms Bruce provided the foley sound of Dead Ellie biting Gabriel's eye out by biting into a apple.
  • The Oldsmobile Delta-88, true to form, appears in the underground parking garage.
• Chainsaw Good: As per franchise tradition, Beth gets to wield a large chainsaw during the climax.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • We see a wood-chipper has been parked in the parking lot at the start of the movie. It gets used at the end of the movie.
  • We're introduced to Kassie with her building a doll/staff thingy (Staffanie) to ward off nightmares, and it getting broken in a tussle with her big sister, leaving it a sharpened spear. She impales a Deadite with it later in the film.
  • The scissors that Kassie took to make the spear as well; when Ellie asks Kassie if she took them, Kassie claims she didn't and hides them under the couch, allowing them to be grabbed and stabbed into Deadite Ellie's head later in the film.
  • When Ellie sends the kids to go get pizza, we're shown that the apartment garage door is unreliable and doesn't open the first time you click the remote. This delays Beth and Kassie's escape long enough for the Ellie-Danny-Bridge Deadite to catch up with them.
• Chekhov's Skill: Beth is shown to be good with tech. This comes in handy later on when the power is out and they need to find another way to power up the record player.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Deadite Ellie is shown frequently with an unnervingly wide smile.
• Closed Circle: Most of the movie takes place on the top floor of the apartment building after an earthquake knocked out the stairs and caused a power outage, leaving the people on the floor trapped and unable to call for help.
• Covers Always Lie: While the shot from the film's main promotional poster is in the final film, it's not with a Deadite-possessed Ellie. In fact, there's never any situation where her children are unaware of her strange state after the possession begins.
• Cover Drop: The shot from the poster seen in above is created in the movie about twenty minutes in after the earthquake rocks the building. The only difference is the Ellie is human instead of a Deadite, though there's still a brief shot of her looking at the camera all the same.
• Curiosity Killed the Cast: The whole insanity only happens because Danny was unable to suppress his curiosity regarding the third Book of the Dead and the discs related to it, despite the numerous obvious red flags around the book and its contents. Deadite Bridget taunts him about this before mortally wounding him.
• Darker and Edgier: Keeping in theme with the 2013 remake, this movie is just as bloody and gory, though it does have some moments of Black Comedy.
• Demonic Possession: It's not an Evil Dead movie if it doesn't have one! It ultimately happens to the entire cast save Beth, Kassie, and Teresa.
• Denser and Wackier: Downplayed, the movie is still Darker and Edgier and a lot more serious than the original trilogy and TV show, but compared to its direct predecessor, this film adds more touches of Black Comedy and camp.
• Door Handle Scare: Deadite Ellie convincing Kassie to unlock the door and grabbing her arm.
• Double-Meaning Title: Aside from alluding to characters rising from the dead (as Deadites), the title also alludes to the film's setting — a high-rise building.
• Earthquakes Cause Fissures: The plot happens thanks to a small fissure opening a way into the vault where the third Book of the Dead and the discs related to it were sealed. As a bonus, the earthquake that made it knocked out the power and destroyed the stairs leading to the lower levels of the buildings, stranding the family and their neighbors and preventing them from calling for help.
• Exactly Exty Years Ago: The previous incident that led to the Book and the records being locked in the vault tool place in 1923, exactly 100 years before the events of the film.
• Eye Color Change: Characters' eyes change color when they are possessed.
• Eye Scream:
  • An extreme close-up of Deadite Ellie attacking Bridget with a tattoo gun, attempting to pierce their eye.
  • Deadite Ellie bites Gabriel's eye out of his skull and spits it to Jake, who chokes on it to death in a callback to Evil Dead 2, but Played for Horror.
• Fauxshadow: There are repeated mentions of a fire escape existing on the other side of a locked and abandoned apartment, with Mr. Fonda suggesting they Shoot Out the Lock with his shotgun. Ultimately, no one ever breaks through the door. Beth tries to shoot out the lock, but get interrupted by Deadites before she can and she and Kassie ultimately escape via the elevator.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: In the prologue, when Caleb buzzes Teresa with his drone, she complains that it could have taken off her head. He quibbles that it wouldn't be "a clean decapitation". Within a few minutes, he is proven technically correct.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Deadite Ellie's description of her lovely sounding dream as seen at the top of the page comes to pass at the end of the movie, minus Kassie, and with the roles reversed.
  • Kassie playfully hits Bridget with her doll-head mop-stick spear thing causing it to break with a dangerously sharp point. It's used against Bridget again after she succumbs to the Deadite possession.
  • Kassie is introduced popping the head off a doll to make Staffanie. Later, Deadite Ellie tries to cut her head off to add her to the family Deadite fusion.
• Forging Scene: Beth quickly assembles a mini makeshift generator to power up the record player so she could listen to the third phonograph record.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The main poster features Deadite!Ellie embracing her children while staring directly at the audience as if she intends to take us with her.
• Friendly Tickle Torture: Danny and Bridget gang up on their baby sister and playfully tickle her on the bed.
• Genre Blindness: Danny sees and enters a hidden locked vault containing a mysterious flesh-bound book, with sharp teeth, surrounded by Christian paraphernalia and phonograph recordings where the first record has warnings from priests not to translate the book, and his curiosity still gets the better of him. It's rather justified in his case, as Danny is still just a kid and has no way of knowing how dangerous the book is; before exploring the vault, he mentions wanting to find something valuable and sell it to use the money to help Ellie, giving him a sympathetic reason for taking the book. He also doesn't read from the book but unfortunately incidentally plays a recording of it, and when he properly tries to stop it, it doesn't let him.
• Gorn: Is it really Evil Dead without excessive gore?
  • In the opening scene, Deadite Jessica scalps Teresa by ruthlessly pulling her ponytail.
  • Deadite Bridget chewing on broken glass and we see it go down her throat.
  • Beth shoving Deadite Ellie-Bridget-Danny into the wood-chipper results in everything being saturated with blood and gore.
• Hero of Another Story:
  • Akin to Professor Knowby, the Priest on the records seemed to have genuinely good intentions behind wanting to use the book, hoping to communicate with the dead.
  • Word of God is that Ash Williams is the one on the first record urging the Priest not to read from the book. What he's doing in 1923 after we last saw him in a post-apocalyptic future is not explained.
    • Or perhaps, on his way from 1300 AD, he stopped for a bit in 1923, before moving on to 1992.
• How We Got Here: The opening shows a possessed Jessica scalping her friend Teresa and beheading her boyfriend Caleb before it flashes back to the day before. This makes the survival of the entity a Foregone Conclusion.
• Losing Your Head: Ellie's severed head somehow still retains ability of speech, taunting Beth before the latter kicks it into a wood chipper.
• Made of Plasticine: To rip off a piece of Teresa's scalp (which is called a total scalp avulsion) requires a lot of force to do it by yanking the hair. As in, the kind of force found in high-speed rotary industrial machinery, and the Deadites don't give any indication of Super-Strength.
• Malevolent Mutilation: As with the 2013 film, the Deadites in this chapter are big fans of this trope. The possessed Jessica pulls a drone into her face, Ellie uses her tattoo gun on herself, and Bridget munches on shards of glass to kill the creepy-crawlies in her tummy.
• Moody Trailer Cover Song: The trailer features Connie Francis' upbeat "Que Sera Sera" as a slower acapella version resembling an innocent, and given the setting, ironic nursery tune.
• Not Himself: Beth and the children try to get through to Ellie, who is possessed by the Deadites and teases and taunts them every chance she/it gets.
• Outliving One's Offspring: Jake mentions that his mother is "on nights", or in other words, working the night shift and is out of the apartment for the night. Given that he and his brother Scott are both killed in the demonic rampage, their mother has unknowingly lost her kids.
• Offing the Offspring: The possessed Ellie is trying to either murder her children or open them up to their own Deadite possession.
• Ominous Obsidian Ooze: Bridget begins oozing black liquid from every orifice on her face as she succumbs to the possession.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Most of the cast are from Australia and New Zealand, and it definitely shows from time to time.
• Possession Levitation: In the beginning of the movie, a woman gets possessed by a demon and starts floating above a lake.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: An old classic.
  Beth: Come get some.
• Pregnant Badass: Beth was impregnated at some point while on the road and she still fights to protect her nieces and nephew. Downplayed, because she's not showing yet.
• Rape Discretion Shot: It is heavily implied that the evil did to Ellie with the elevator what it did to Cheryl and Mia with the trees, though thankfully this time it doesn't happen onscreen.
• Rasputinian Death: Deadite Bridget qualifies as this. She is not only whacked with pans, impaled through the mouth, and set on fire, but also, after fusing with Ellie and Danny, she is finally killed by being thrust into a wood-chipper.
• Removed Achilles' Heel: In the previous film, one can counter the Deadites' Demonic Possession by burying them alive, dismembering them completely, or purifying them with fire. The priest that originally discovered the third Book of the Dead tries to cleanse the new Deadites with the above methods, all of which failed to stop them.
• Rivers of Blood: Kassie and Beth in the elevator filling with blood as it crashes into and floods the lobby, The Shining-style.
• Scenery Dissonance: The entire opening lakeside cabin scene with Caleb, Jessica, and Teresa takes place on a bright sunny day.
• Shaky P.O.V. Cam:
  • In true Evil Dead tradition, the film opens with one… that turns out to be just a drone.
  • The more traditional variation appears just before Ellie is possessed. And again at the end when Jessica is possessed.
• Short Teens, Tall Adults: Not applicable to Kassie as she's not yet a teenager. However, Bridget and Danny are both teens and noticeably shorter than their mother and to a lesser degree their aunt.
• Shotguns Are Just Better: Thanks to Mr. Fonda and his shotgun, although he doesn't live long enough to use it more than once, Beth is able to defend herself for a good chunk of the movie.
• Shout-Out:
  • An elevator full of blood out of The Shining shows up, except this time we get to see inside it!
  • Deadite Ellie sneaks back into the apartment by crawling in through an air duct in the ceiling, a la the xenomorphs in Aliens. There's even a tabby that gives it the idea.
    • In fact, Kassie may be regarded as an Expy to Newt, especially since she's captured in the climax, and the heroine has to go back and rescue her.
  • Jake early in the film asks Bridget if she wants to come to his place to watch all the Freddy movies. This one doubles as a Mythology Gag, since the first two Evil Dead movies also had references to the films of Wes Craven. In the first A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), the Final Girl watches the original Evil Dead in one scene.
  • The use of a wood chipper in the climax might be a reference to Fargo, which itself featured a rather sidewise reference to the Evil Dead films. Fargo co-director Joel Coen worked as an editor on the first Evil Dead.
• Swapped Roles: Prior Evil Dead films have situated the cast near a Deadite that is trapped and must not be let out. This film involves the cast being trapped and the Deadite trying to get in.
• There Is Another: The movie reveals that there are three volumes of the Book of the Dead, with the implication being that the other ones besides the one in this film are the books discovered by Ash Williams and Mia Allen.
• Tome of Eldritch Lore: The "Naturom Demonto", one of three volumes as clarified by the phonograph recordings.
• Too Dumb to Live: While he didn't go to the same lengths as Eric in the 2013 film and his actions can be somewhat forgiven due to his youth, Danny should probably have thought twice about reading the fleshbound book sealed in a secret vault and closed with a set of actual fangs, especially on the same night that his residence was just struck by an earthquake, thus ensuring that phones would be out of service and the police would be pre-occupied. And he did try to stop the record player as soon as the priest started to actually read aloud from the Book, it just refused to let him.
• Took a Level in Badass: From a franchise perspective, these Deadites are stronger and more resilient than the ones seen in previous movies, games, and TV series. Fire and dismemberment won't stop them fully because they will come back strong or figure out a way to attack without a limb. The try-and-true method of full-body dismemberment doesn't even fully work. After Beth uses a wood chipper to kill a fusion of her sister, niece, and nephew, that doesn't stop the evil.
• Transformation Horror: Deadite Bridget and Danny fusing with Ellie to create a multi-limbed abomination.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Downplayed; Kassie is introduced cutting the head off of a doll and placing it on top of a spear, as way to ward off nightmares. Which, sure enough, it does! However, little girls destroy their dolls in “creative” ways all the time, and Kassie is otherwise shown to be a perfectly normal, if kinda morbid, little girl.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Poor, poor Danny. Him digging up the Naturom Demonto and playing recordings of its readings ends with several crazed Deadites running about and him, his sister, and his mother taking a ride through the wood-chipper.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot:
  • Ellie moments after being possessed and begging Beth to protect her kids.
  • Bridget after she succumbs to her possession and vomits live bugs.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: As Beth and Kassie escape down the elevator, all of the other previously disposed of neighbors get resurrected as Deadites. Although Beth defeats the "main" Deadite in the Ellie-Bridget-Danny fusion, these Deadites are never seen again. Though they are likely the reason why Jessica is possessed in the first place, given she's a building resident. Word of God says that this is a potential plot thread being considered for one of the many sequel ideas.
  • It's ambiguous whether Mr. Fonda's cat survives the film. The possessed Ellie follows it up into the airvent as a way to get back into the apartment, and the cat is never seen again, alive or dead, after that point.
• Would Hurt a Child: Deadite Ellie has no qualms about killing (or possessing) Jake and his younger brother Scott quite brutally on-screen, as well as attempting to kill Kassie.

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