Evil Dead Rise arrived with a heavy legacy on its shoulders. Sam Raimi’s original trilogy and Fede Álvarez’s 2013 reboot each carved out their own identities: slapstick-meets-splatter in the former, relentless sadistic intensity in the latter. Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise doesn’t try to imitate either version wholesale. Instead, it relocates the franchise’s core elements—cabin-in-the-woods isolation, the Necronomicon’s malevolent pull, and gleeful practical gore—into an urban high-rise and asks whether the Evil Dead brand can thrive in a fresh setting. It turns out it can, and with surprising confidence.
The film wastes little time establishing tone. After a brief cold open that ties into the larger narrative, the story focuses on a crumbling Los Angeles apartment building and two estranged sisters: Beth, a rootless guitar tech facing a personal crisis, and Ellie, a tattoo artist barely managing life as a single mother of three. What follows is a familiar spiral into possession, madness, and bloodletting—but the shift from remote forest to decaying city residence proves more than cosmetic. Urban claustrophobia, broken elevators, flooded stairwells, and cramped corridors create a new kind of trap. The film cleverly replicates the traditional “isolated cabin” feeling by turning a soon-to-be-condemned building into a vertical prison.
Cronin shows a deft understanding of what makes Evil Dead tick: tactile violence, unsettling sound design, and a wry streak of nastiness. The Necronomicon (here in a different visual incarnation) is once again the catalyst, its pages practically throbbing with hunger. An ominous vinyl recording replaces the classic tape recorder of Raimi’s original, but the effect is similar—human curiosity meets supernatural inevitability. The moment the words are spoken, fate is sealed, and the film never really lets up afterward.
Alyssa Sutherland delivers the standout performance as Ellie. Once possessed, her transformation is both physical and psychological—gaunt, feral, and mocking, she’s a demon that understands the cruelty of motherhood turned inside out. Sutherland plays it with relish, mixing contorted body horror with a bitter sense of humor. The smile alone is nightmare fuel. Lily Sullivan, as Beth, gives the film its emotional anchor, turning from drifting sister to reluctant protector. The tension between them—love twisted into predation—supplies the movie with more than just viscera; it gives the horror teeth.
The children are not mere props either. They’re active participants, each reacting in age-appropriate and sometimes devastating ways. The film’s willingness to put young characters in real peril will be divisive, but it underscores a key element of the franchise: evil doesn’t respect boundaries. The Deadites are not content to simply kill; they taunt, mimic, and pervert intimacy. Some of the most disturbing moments come not from gore, but from the way the possessed weaponize family memories and maternal affection.
Speaking of gore, Evil Dead Rise embraces its heritage with enthusiasm. Kitchen implements, household tools, elevators, and even culinary appliances become instruments of mayhem. Cronin stages violence with clarity rather than shaky chaos, inviting the audience to wince, laugh, and recoil in equal measure. Fans of practical effects will find plenty to appreciate; viscera has weight and texture, and blood flows with cartoonish abundance without slipping into parody. One particularly messy set piece involving a communal hallway evokes a grindhouse comic-book sensibility that feels perfectly aligned with the series’ DNA.
Where the movie excels is in its pacing. Once possession takes hold, the film runs like a freight train, punctuating its momentum with brief—and often darkly humorous—breathers. The humor is never as broad or slapstick as Raimi’s goofier moments; instead, it’s acidic and mean, often emerging from Deadite mockery or from the absurdity of the situations themselves. That tonal choice helps Evil Dead Rise walk the line between the 1980s originals and the brutally straight-faced 2013 reboot. It’s not a comedy, but it understands that horror can be playful without winking too hard at the camera.
Visually, the movie is confident and stylish. Cronin leans into shadowy hallways, jaundiced lighting, and rainy neon-soaked exteriors that mirror the physical decay of the building. There are a few lovingly crafted homages—an homage involving the point-of-view rushing camera is especially satisfying—but these flourishes never feel like empty references. They are folded into the film’s language, respecting the past while justifying its own identity. The apartment building’s layout becomes a character unto itself, its failing infrastructure transforming from annoyance to instrument of terror.
Sound design also deserves praise. The creak of doors, the scraping of claws on metal, and the guttural layering of Deadite voices dig under the skin. The score heightens dread without overwhelming scenes, using sharp stingers sparingly to accentuate sudden brutality. It’s the kind of sonic environment that makes you lean forward even when nothing is on-screen yet, because the sound tells you something awful is about to happen.
If there’s a weakness, it lies in the relative straightforwardness of the narrative. Evil Dead Rise isn’t especially interested in subverting expectations or plumbing psychological depths beyond its familial tensions. Some characters fit recognizable archetypes, and genre-savvy viewers will foresee certain beats. For some, that familiarity will be part of the comfort—this is, after all, a franchise built on ritual as much as innovation. But those looking for a radical reinvention might find it more evolutionary than revolutionary.
Another potential sticking point is the film’s relentlessness. While admirably economical, the film allows little space for reflection or character exploration once the horror hits full stride. The trade-off is momentum and intensity; the cost is emotional nuance that could have elevated the climax from harrowing to haunting. Still, the movie does enough groundwork early on to make the central relationship matter, and when the final confrontation arrives, it lands with visceral and symbolic weight.
Crucially, Evil Dead Rise understands the central metaphor of this franchise: the violation of the body and home by an external, mocking force. By moving into an urban domestic space, the film taps into modern anxieties—economic precarity, fragile family structures, the instability of shelter—without becoming didactic. The horror of possessions and mutilation rests atop very human fears of abandonment, impermanence, and failure. That subtext gives the gore resonance; it’s not just splatter for splatter’s sake, even when it leans gleefully into excess.
As an entry in a long-running horror series, Evil Dead Rise succeeds on multiple fronts. It respects the mythology without feeling like a retread, delivers grisly practical set pieces that will delight fans, and offers vivid central performances—especially from Sutherland—that linger long after the lights come up. It feels like a film made by someone who loves Evil Dead but isn’t afraid to shift its geography and tone.
Is it the scariest in the franchise? That will depend on taste. It may not match the sheer nerve-shredding austerity of the 2013 remake, nor the anarchic slapstick heights of Evil Dead II. But it occupies a compelling middle ground: nasty, muscular, and sincere about its carnage. It proves that the Necronomicon can thrive beyond the woods, and that the franchise still has blood to spill—lots of it.
In the end, Evil Dead Rise is both a crowd-pleaser and a statement of longevity. It suggests that as long as someone is foolish enough to open that cursed book, the Deadites will find new homes to desecrate, new families to torment, and new rooms to repaint red. For horror fans, that’s not a threat. It’s a promise.
Arrow Video’s 4K Ultra HD limited edition of Evil Dead Rise is packed with supplements that feel designed for both casual fans and collectors who like to dig deep into the filmmaking process. Beyond the Dolby Vision presentation and the choice of DTS-HD MA 5.1 or Dolby Atmos mixes (plus descriptive audio and SDH subtitles), the set’s real appeal lies in its generous slate of interviews and archival material. The centerpiece is an engaging audio commentary with director Lee Cronin alongside Alyssa Sutherland and Lily Sullivan, which mixes production anecdotes, character insight, and an on-set perspective of the film’s punishing physical demands.
A substantial series of newly produced interviews explores almost every facet of the production. Cast-focused pieces—Come Get Some with Lily Sullivan, Mommy Deadite with Alyssa Sutherland, The Deadite’s Daughter with Gabrielle Echols, and The Levitating Dead with Anna-Maree Thomas—spotlight performance choices, stunt work, and the emotional side of making such an intense horror film. The crafts are equally well represented: makeup designer Luke Polti, editor Bryan Shaw, sound designer Peter Albrechtsen, and composer Stephen McKeon all get their own segments, offering granular looks at gore effects, cutting for momentum, immersive soundscapes, and the score’s demonic textures. A 2023 conversation between Cronin and Albrechtsen contextualizes the film’s sound design through the Dolby Institute.
The set rounds out with the Raising a New Evil Dead featurette, Cronin’s earlier short film Ghost Train, image galleries, storyboards, trailers, and TV spots. Physically, collectors get reversible sleeve art, a double-sided poster with newly commissioned artwork by Waldemar Witt, and a booklet featuring fresh writing by Michael Gingold—making this release both a reference-grade presentation and a thoughtfully curated archival package.
Evil Dead Rise will be available to own on 1/13/26. You can save 30% off the retail price if you order from MVD
Comments