Evil Dead Rise

Evil Dead Rise is a 2023 supernatural horror film written and directed by Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin. It is the fifth feature in the Evil Dead franchise and was produced by Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert G. Tapert, the principal creative team behind the earlier films. Instead of returning to the isolated woodland cabin associated with the original trilogy, the story moves the series into a deteriorating apartment building in Los Angeles.

The film begins with a brief lakeside sequence involving Jessica, Teresa, and Caleb before jumping back one day. The main narrative follows Beth, a pregnant guitar technician who visits her older sister Ellie. Ellie is a tattoo artist and single mother raising Danny, Bridget, and Kassie in an apartment building marked for demolition. Their reunion changes when an earthquake opens a concealed vault beneath the building’s parking area. Danny discovers several unusual records and a bound volume identified as one version of the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. When he plays the recordings, an imprisoned evil is released and possesses Ellie.

Alyssa Sutherland plays Ellie, while Lily Sullivan portrays Beth. Morgan Davies plays Danny, Gabrielle Echols plays Bridget, and Nell Fisher plays Kassie. The cast also includes Jayden Williams as Gabriel, Tai Wano as Scott, and Billy Reynolds-McCarthy as Jake. The possessed Ellie becomes the film’s central threat, using intimate knowledge of her children to make the supernatural attack especially personal. The family’s attempt to survive is complicated by the building’s isolation, damaged elevators, locked apartments, and numerous residents who can become victims.

Cronin’s screenplay connects the apartment story to the wider mythology through archival-style recordings made by a priest, who describes the destructive power of the book and its associated entities. The film includes recognizable franchise elements, including possession, practical gore, dark humor, and improvised weapons, while placing them in a dense urban environment. A memorable set piece involves a bathtub, and another uses a kitchen grater during the family’s struggle for survival.

Evil Dead Rise premiered at the South by Southwest Film Festival on March 15, 2023. Warner Bros. Pictures released it theatrically in the United States on April 21, 2023, after the project had originally been developed for HBO Max. The film earned more than $147 million worldwide and became the highest-grossing entry in the franchise at that time. Its combination of family drama, apartment-building claustrophobia, and franchise mythology distinguishes it from the earlier cabin-centered installments.