Beth arrives in Los Angeles for a visit with her older sister Ellie, who is raising her three children in a rundown apartment building scheduled for demolition. Their reunion doesn’t stay ordinary for long.
After an earthquake opens a hidden chamber beneath the building, Ellie’s son Danny discovers a collection of old records and a strange book. Curiosity wins, the records are played, and another version of the Book of the Dead proves that some things really should be left exactly where they were found.
An ancient demonic force is unleashed, and Ellie becomes its first victim.
Trapped inside the apartment building, Beth must protect her nieces and nephew as their mother transforms into something vicious and increasingly difficult to kill. The familiar comforts of home become weapons, hiding places, and traps as the Deadites begin tearing the family apart.
Directed by Lee Cronin, Evil Dead Rise moves the franchise away from its familiar isolated cabin while preserving the supernatural horror, gruesome practical effects, and relentless physical violence associated with Evil Dead. Alyssa Sutherland stars as Ellie alongside Lily Sullivan as Beth, with Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols, and Nell Fisher playing Ellie’s children.
The change in setting gives the story its own identity. Instead of being stranded deep in the woods, the characters are surrounded by a city yet remain frighteningly isolated inside their own home.
Why Evil Dead Rise Belongs on Love of Gothic
Evil Dead Rise carries the occult mythology of the franchise into a new setting without losing what makes it so effective. Ancient recordings, a grotesque forbidden book, demonic possession, resurrection, and bodies behaving in ways bodies absolutely should not are all central to the story.
There is also something particularly unsettling about turning a family home into the source of the horror. A mother becomes the monster threatening her own children, familiar rooms become dangerous, and family bonds are twisted into tools for manipulation and violence.
Combined with the film’s Deadites, ritual imagery, extreme practical gore, and Book of the Dead mythology, Evil Dead Rise has a very comfortable home among the supernatural and occult horror found on Love of Gothic.