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James Mottram

Like the demonic spirits at its dark heart, the Evil Dead franchise is back from the dead.
Sam Raimi’s 1981 original is a landmark cabin-in-the-woods horror, birthing one of the great cult movie franchises.
Before going on to carve out a huge Hollywood career, Raimi directed two further instalments, Evil Dead II (1987) and the medieval-set Army of Darkness (1992).
Fede Álvarez helmed the 2013 reboot, while star Bruce Campbell returned for three seasons of television’s Ash Vs. Evil Dead.
Now it is Irish director Lee Cronin’s turn. Evil Dead Rise reinvigorates the series, relocating the story, for the first time, to an urban setting.


So chainsaws at the ready – here are 10 reasons why this is the best Evil Dead film in the series.
1. It is a continuation, not a remake
Writer-director Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground) knew he needed to steer the series away from nubile youngsters being possessed in the countryside.
Evil Dead Rise sees Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), her three kids Danny (Morgan Davies), Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) and Kassie (Nell Fisher), and her younger sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) trapped in a condemned Los Angeles flat as the so-called Deadites are unleashed. Campbell’s Ash is also nowhere to be seen.

“What I was able to do is to tell a story about a new set of people in their own world, with their own context, but then to load upon them the kind of great things that make an Evil Dead movie what it is,” Cronin says.
2. The mythology is intact
In Army of Darkness, Raimi set up the idea that there are three Books of the Dead, aka Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. The ancient Sumerian text, first seen in 1981’s The Evil Dead, is capable of summoning up Deadites, who stop at nothing to find a human host to possess.

In Evil Dead Rise, Ellie’s kids find the book in an ancient bank vault – buried beneath their block of flats’ basement – which is revealed after an earthquake strikes. After the ones glimpsed in Raimi’s trilogy and Álvarez’s remake, this marks the third of this trio of demonic, deadly tomes.
3. The intensity is off the scale
Raimi’s Evil Dead movies were always over-the-top by their very nature, but Evil Dead Rise is relentless, as Beth tries to protect the kids from their own mother after Ellie becomes possessed.

Cronin believes the apartment setting contributes to this.
“By setting the story in a place that has familiarity, that has the TV, the furniture, the corridor, the front door … so many people live in apartments, and I think it was a great way of being able to actually give you a goody bag – a horrific goody bag – to take home. And I think that’s what it does.”
4. This one is family-(un)friendly
Evil Dead Rise’s real selling point is putting children in peril. This is both daring and downright scary, as well as steers the franchise in a new direction.

“I also knew it would add a real layer of tension we maybe hadn’t seen before,” says Cronin, who truly creates the stuff of nightmares as Sutherland’s Ellie turns from beloved mum to demon-harvesting freak.
While it might be contentious to show youngsters showered in gore, Cronin is unrepentant.
“I didn’t want to feel like a family was untouchable by the power of the Necronomicon, or the power of the evil force.”
5. The mix of comedy and gore is spot on
The Evil Dead series has always prided itself on its black humour, and Evil Dead Rise gets that just right.

“I wanted this movie to have what I would call, I suppose, levity,” Cronin says.
“I wasn’t trying to necessarily tell jokes, or to be as goofy as something like Evil Dead II, but I did want there to be more reasons to laugh than say, the 2013 reboot, which is quite midnight black, and it’s a movie that I love, but it is quite dark in its approach.
“This movie is dark, too. But there is a certain bawdiness to it through some of the dialogue.”
6. Sam, Bruce and Rob all approve
Raimi, Campbell and Evil Dead producer Rob Tapert are wholly behind Evil Dead Rise. All three are credited as executive producers, and were on hand to offer advice to Cronin as he wrote the script. Raimi simply told him to make the Deadites terrifying and ensure the Book of the Dead was included.

“One of my first outlines that I did … it kind of rampaged through the extent of this block of flats a lot more than the movie does now,” adds Cronin, who changed the script after Tapert advised to keep the story restricted to Ellie’s flat and the basement.
7. It is nearly all practical
Cronin says 90 per cent of the film’s special effects were achieved practically, in-camera, rather than using digital trickery. And that includes the blood, which gushes out of the lift at one point like a tidal wave.
“We used six-and-a-half thousand litres of blood,” Cronin says. “I think Fede’s movie used more. But there’s a lot of red water in that movie with food colouring. All of our blood was proper, sticky, icky movie blood that destroyed everybody’s skin, clothes, apartments and lives!”

Cronin even spent time with the special effects team discussing the viscosity of the blood and how it might move across the screen.
“It’s kind of like a character in the movie.”
8. Bruce Campbell has a hidden cameo
It would not truly be an Evil Dead movie without Bruce Campbell somewhere in the film.
When Cronin was working on the sound design in Ireland, the actor came over to visit. Naturally, Cronin asked if he would record a voice cameo, and he duly obliged.

Eagle-eared fans spotted it when the film premiered at the South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, with Campbell’s voice heard when Ellie’s teenagers play back the creepy recordings they find in the bank vault with the book.
“The fun part is, that’s not necessarily Bruce Campbell playing someone else – that could very well be Ash Williams buried in the vinyl,” Cronin teases.
9. It has got Easter Eggs galore
Cronin made sure he pays homage to the original trilogy by planting references to those earlier films throughout Evil Dead Rise.
“There’s lots of obvious ones for the audience, but there’s also really subtle ones,” the director says.

More “overt” ones include “Henrietta’s Pizza”, printed on the pizza box the kids buy. “Henrietta was the name of the hag in the cellar in Evil Dead II,” Cronin says.
The more obscure include the colour of the featured chainsaw, an exact match to the beige-hued Oldsmobile Delta that Ash drives throughout the series.
10. The franchise has been shaken up
A sequel to Fede Álvarez’s 2013 movie stalled, meaning the Evil Dead movie series languished for almost a decade.

But after Cronin’s film became the franchise’s highest grossing effort so far – it has already crossed the US$100 million mark globally – it seems the appetite is there for more tales of terrifying demonic possession.
“It just felt like we needed to step into some fresh territory, to reinvigorate what’s there and hopefully open up the universe wider for more Evil Dead stories,” Cronin says.
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10 reasons why Evil Dead Rise is the best film in the horror franchise

Lily Sullivan in a still from “Evil Dead Rise”. We take a look at 10 reasons why Evil Dead Rise is the best film in the horror franchise. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures via AP

Director Lee Cronin (centre) on the set of “Evil Dead Rise”. Photo: Kirsty Griffin

Alyssa Sutherland in a still from “Evil Dead Rise”. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

Sutherland in a still from “Evil Dead Rise”. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

Nell Fisher in a still from “Evil Dead Rise”. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures

Cronin on the set of “Evil Dead Rise”. Photo: Matt Klitscher

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Lily Sullivan in a still from “Evil Dead Rise”. Photo: Warner Bros. Pictures via AP

Bruce Campbell attends the “Evil Dead Rise” screening during the 2023 South By Southwest festival on March 15, 2023, in Texas. Photo: TNS

(From left) Sarah Berry as Annie Knowby, Dan Hicks as Jake, Bruce Campbell as Ash and Kassie Wesley DePaiva as Bobby Joe in a still from “Evil Dead II” (1987), directed by Sam Raimi. Photo: Rosebud Releasing Corp/Pyxurz

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Sam Raimi’s 1981 horror film Evil Dead birthed one of the great cult movie franchises. Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise, released in April, reinvigorates the series
We take a look at 10 reasons why Evil Dead Rise is the best movie in the franchise, from the spot-on mix of comedy and gore to a hidden cameo by Bruce Campbell


We take a look at 10 reasons why Evil Dead Rise is the best film in the horror franchise, from the spot-on mix of comedy and gore to a hidden cameo by Bruce Campbell.


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