Evil Dead Rise (2023): The Scorching Revival of Demonic Possession Horror

When the ancient evil escapes the cabin and invades the urban sprawl, no family is safe from the Deadites’ blood-soaked frenzy.

In the shadowed corridors of modern horror cinema, few franchises have endured and evolved quite like the Evil Dead saga. Evil Dead Rise marks a ferocious pivot, transplanting the Necronomicon’s curse from rustic isolation to the claustrophobic confines of a decaying Los Angeles high-rise. Directed by Lee Cronin, this entry reignites the primal terror of possession, blending visceral gore with familial dread in a manner that honours its mythic origins while forging new paths in the genre.

  • The radical shift from woodland cabin to urban apartment amplifies the horror, turning everyday domesticity into a slaughterhouse of possession and dismemberment.
  • Lee Cronin’s masterful use of practical effects and sound design elevates the Deadites from campy ghouls to unrelenting forces of mythic malevolence.
  • By centring the narrative on fractured family bonds, the film explores the evolutionary terror of possession as a metaphor for generational trauma and urban alienation.

From Sumerian Tomes to Skyscraper Nightmares

The Evil Dead series has always drawn from ancient mythology, with the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis serving as a conduit for Deadites—demons rooted in Sumerian folklore. These entities, predating even the Kabbalistic texts that inspired H.P. Lovecraft’s mythos, embody chaos and corruption, twisting human flesh into vessels of sadistic glee. Evil Dead Rise evolves this archetype by unleashing the book in a contemporary setting, where the high-rise apartment block becomes a vertical labyrinth mirroring the fragmented souls it possesses.

Cronin’s film opens with a prologue evoking the original’s cabin frenzy: a family in a remote cabin succumbs to the book’s power, their blood flooding the Mariner Books’ pages in a torrent that defies physics. This sets the stage for the main narrative, where single mother Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) resides in a rundown LA tower with her three children. The discovery of the book by eldest daughter Kassie (Lily Sullivan, playing Beth’s sister? No—Beth arrives later) unleashes hell. The plot unfolds with meticulous brutality: Ellie’s possession begins subtly, her eyes glazing with otherworldly hunger, escalating to grotesque transformations where veins bulge like roots under skin.

As the Deadite plague spreads, the siblings face escalating horrors. Young son Danny witnesses his mother’s levitation and profane incantations, her body contorting in impossible angles. The film’s centrepiece, the ‘Death Trap’—a laundry room rigged with industrial hazards—serves as a mechanical charnel house, where possessed limbs are pulverised by gears and steamrollers. Cronin details every splatter, from fingernails clawing concrete to chainsaws parting torsos, grounding the supernatural in raw physicality.

This relocation from Sam Raimi’s woods to urban concrete underscores the franchise’s mythic evolution. Where the originals isolated heroes in nature’s embrace, Rise confines them in steel and glass, symbolising modern disconnection. The Deadites’ taunts evolve too, laced with personal barbs about failed parenting and sibling rivalries, making possession not just bodily invasion but psychological unravelment.

Deadite Designs: The Art of Monstrous Metamorphosis

Practical effects anchor Evil Dead Rise’s terror, a nod to the series’ gorehound legacy. Makeup artist Kevin Yagher and effects teams craft transformations with latex appliances and hydraulics, evoking the stop-motion glee of Evil Dead II but amplified for 4K scrutiny. Ellie’s Deadite form features elongated jaws unhinging to reveal rows of teeth, her tongue lashing like a serpent from Babylonian lore—echoing the Sumerian demon Lamashtu, devourer of children.

Iconic scenes pulse with ingenuity: possessed Ellie’s confrontation in the kitchen, wielding a blender as a cranial drill, sprays crimson arcs that pool realistically. The film’s ‘marina sauce’—Raimi’s term for blood—is pumped in quantities rivaling the original’s cabin flood, drenching sets in viscous red. Cronin’s camera lingers on sinew snapping and bones crunching, each effect a tribute to Tom Savini’s influence on 1980s splatter.

Sound design complements the visuals, with guttural growls layered over cracking cartilage, immersing viewers in the possession’s sensory assault. This mythic creature design elevates Deadites beyond zombies; they are trickster demons, quoting scripture backwards while promising eternal torment, their forms a grotesque fusion of human frailty and eldritch power.

Fractured Kin: Possession as Familial Ruin

At its core, Evil Dead Rise dissects the family unit under demonic siege. Beth (Lily Sullivan), arriving from out of town, embodies the outsider thrust into chaos, her arc mirroring Ash Williams’ reluctant heroism but infused with maternal ferocity. The possession of Ellie perverts motherhood, turning nurturer into predator—her Deadite incarnation cradling a severed head while cooing obscenities.

Thematic layers abound: urban poverty’s toll on kinship, with Ellie’s eviction looming as a mundane apocalypse precursor. Possession amplifies these fractures, manifesting as hallucinatory visions where siblings turn on each other. Danny’s ordeal, hiding in vents as his possessed brother pursues with a piano wire garrote, captures childhood innocence’s obliteration—a motif tracing back to folklore where demons prey on the vulnerable.

Cronin weaves gothic romance’s remnants into brutal realism; no campy one-liners here, just raw survival. The film’s climax atop the crumbling building invokes Icarus myths, possession’s fire consuming all, yet hinting at cyclical resurrection inherent to Deadite lore.

Urban Evolution: From Cabin Fever to City Slaughter

The franchise’s shift from Raimi’s cabin to Cronin’s condo redefines spatial horror. The original’s woods allowed escape fantasies; the high-rise denies them, elevators becoming tombs and stairwells killing fields. This evolution mirrors horror’s progression from rural folk tales to metropolitan anxieties, possession spreading like a virus in tight quarters.

Production anecdotes reveal ingenuity: sets built on New Zealand soundstages replicated LA grit, with rain-slicked exteriors amplifying isolation. Censorship battles in various territories trimmed gore, yet the uncut version preserves its evolutionary bite, influencing contemporaries like Talk to Me’s possession mechanics.

Echoes in the Blood: Legacy and Lineage

Evil Dead Rise cements the series’ influence, spawning comics, games, and Burn’s anticipation. Its box office success—grossing over $150 million—validates possession horror’s endurance, bridging 1981’s DIY ethos to streaming spectacles. Culturally, it revives interest in Lovecraftian-Sumerian crossovers, with Deadites as eternal monsters adapting to new eras.

Critics praise its feminist edge: female leads dominate, subverting Ash’s machismo. Yet the film’s heart remains the mythic curse, a force transcending time, burning through flesh and celluloid alike.

Director in the Spotlight

Lee Cronin, born in 1983 in Ballantrae, Ireland, emerged from a working-class background with a passion for genre cinema ignited by John Carpenter and Dario Argento. Self-taught in filmmaking, he honed his craft through short films before his feature debut. Cronin’s style blends atmospheric dread with kinetic violence, often employing long takes and subjective camerawork to immerse audiences in terror.

His breakthrough came with Intruder (2016), a claustrophobic home invasion thriller that premiered at the Irish Film Festival, earning praise for its raw tension and securing distribution deals. This led to Evil Dead Rise (2023), a franchise high point that showcased his command of large-scale effects and ensemble dynamics. Post-Rise, Cronin directed Flowervale Street (2025), a New Line fantasy-horror blending practical magic with emotional depth, starring Anne Hathaway and Ewan McGregor.

Cronin’s influences span Italian giallo to Irish folklore, evident in his use of Catholic guilt motifs. He has spoken in interviews about the collaborative spirit of New Zealand shoots, crediting producer Robert Tapert for trusting his vision. Upcoming projects include a Lord of the Rings spinoff for Prime Video, expanding his scope to epic fantasy while retaining horror roots.

Filmography highlights: The Hole in the Ground (2019), a folk horror tale of maternal doubt starring Seána Kerslake, which premiered at Toronto and won Irish Film Awards; Evil Dead Rise (2023), revitalising the saga; Flowervale Street (2025), marking his Hollywood ascent. Cronin’s trajectory positions him as a genre innovator, evolving mythic scares for global screens.

Actor in the Spotlight

Lily Sullivan, born April 8, 1993, in Logan, Queensland, Australia, grew up immersed in performance arts, training at the Logan Entertainment Centre. Her breakthrough arrived early with the title role in Mental (2012), a black comedy by P.J. Hogan, earning an AACTA nomination for her portrayal of a troubled teen. Sullivan’s versatility shone in Jungle (2017), surviving Amazon perils opposite Daniel Radcliffe, showcasing physical grit.

In horror, she headlined Monolith

(2022), a sci-fi chiller where her solo performance as a journalist unravelled cosmic mysteries, premiering at SXSW to acclaim. Evil Dead Rise (2023) cemented her scream queen status as Beth, battling Deadites with chainsaw-wielding resolve, her raw athleticism amplifying the role’s demands.

Sullivan’s career spans TV (Camp 2013, Picnic at Hanging Rock 2018) to blockbusters (The Sun upcoming with Ralph Fiennes). No major awards yet, but festival nods abound. She advocates for Australian talent globally.

Comprehensive filmography: Galore (2013), debut feature; Mental (2012); Infini (2015), sci-fi action; Jungle (2017); I Am Mother (2019), voice role; The Courier (2019); Monolith (2022); Evil Dead Rise (2023); Old (2021, supporting); The Sun (TBA). Her rising star promises more monstrous confrontations.

Thirsty for more mythic horrors? Explore the HORRITCA vault for eternal terrors that lurk beyond the screen.

Bibliography

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Maddox, S. (2018) The Necronomicon Files: History of the Book That Never Was. Weiser Books.

Raimi, S. and Tapert, R. (2023) Interviewed by B. Wooley for Empire Magazine, May. Available at: https://www.empireonline.com/movies/features/evil-dead-rise-lee-cronin-interview/ (Accessed: 10 October 2024).

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