In a decaying Los Angeles high-rise where the walls seem to breathe and every floor offers another trap, Lee Cronin found the perfect new home for the Deadites. The result is a film that feels both familiar and startlingly fresh, taking the Evil Dead series into territory it had never explored before.

This article examines how Evil Dead Rise relocates the franchise’s horror from remote cabins to a crumbling apartment block, explores the ways the building itself becomes an active participant in the terror, and considers the performances and craft choices that give the story its emotional weight. It also looks at the production realities behind the film and the place it now occupies in modern horror.

From Cabin Isolation to Concrete Jungle

The Evil Dead saga has always drawn power from confined spaces where escape feels impossible. The original 1981 film trapped its characters in a single cabin surrounded by woods, and later entries followed that same logic of isolation. Evil Dead Rise makes a decisive break by moving the action into the Brumpton Arms, a rundown Los Angeles apartment tower filled with exposed wiring, flooded basements and narrow stairwells. The shift matters because it removes the comforting distance of nature and places the horror inside the kind of building many people actually live in.

Sisters Ellie and Beth, played by Alyssa Sutherland and Lily Sullivan, find their already strained relationship tested when Ellie’s children discover the Necronomicon in the building’s sub-basement. What follows is a series of possessions that turn family members into threats, forcing the survivors to fight their way through locked doors and failing elevators. Cronin keeps the core rules of the franchise intact while letting the urban setting reshape how those rules play out. The thin walls and shared vents mean every scream travels, turning neighbours into potential witnesses or additional victims.

Verticality as Villain: The Building’s Brutal Architecture

The Brumpton Arms is designed as a three-dimensional trap. Its staggered floors, underground car park and waterlogged lower levels create vertical pathways that characters must navigate under constant threat. A key sequence has Beth descending an elevator shaft while Deadites attack from both directions, and the camera work makes the height itself feel hostile. Production designer Nick Bassett built modular sets that allowed long, fluid takes, so the audience experiences the building as an environment that actively works against the characters.

Inside the individual apartments the horror becomes even more intimate. Ellie’s flat, filled with the ordinary mess of family life, turns into a killing ground once she is possessed. The kitchen blender scene uses a common household appliance to deliver one of the film’s most memorable kills, showing how everyday objects become weapons when the supernatural enters domestic space. Because there is no forest to run into, the characters must barricade themselves in place, and the sense of entrapment feels immediate and recognisable.

Family Bonds Forged in Blood and Bile

The film’s real centre is the family under siege. Beth arrives hoping to repair her relationship with her sister, only to be drawn into protecting Ellie’s three children when everything collapses. The Deadites exploit those existing fractures, turning maternal love into something monstrous and forcing Beth to become the protector she never expected to be. Sutherland’s performance is particularly effective because she makes the shift from exhausted parent to something far more dangerous feel gradual and believable.

The apartment setting intensifies these personal stakes. Thin walls carry every sound, so the boundary between private suffering and public exposure disappears. The film uses this closeness to examine how family members can become both the greatest source of comfort and the most immediate danger, a tension that resonates beyond the supernatural elements.

Sound Design: Echoes of Doom in the Ducts

Dave Whitehead’s sound design turns the building’s infrastructure into an instrument of dread. HVAC systems carry low rumbles that signal approaching danger, while the acoustics of the corridors distort voices and make every impact feel larger than it should. Silence becomes just as threatening as noise, especially during the long elevator rides that precede sudden violence.

Cronin draws on the same attention to sonic detail that Sam Raimi used in the earlier films, but adapts it to an environment filled with mechanical sounds. A child’s toy xylophone playing against the backdrop of violence creates a jarring contrast that lingers, reminding viewers how quickly ordinary domestic sounds can turn sinister.

Gore Mastery: Practical Mayhem in Confined Carnage

Francois Dagenais and his effects team deliver some of the franchise’s most inventive practical gore, shaped by the limited space available. Blood sprays and prosthetic transformations happen in real time, with techniques refined from earlier Evil Dead entries used to flood the apartments in crimson. One particularly unsettling sequence involves an improvised birth scene that relies entirely on physical effects to achieve its impact.

The confined setting forces creative solutions. Weapons are improvised from whatever is at hand, and the resulting kills feel grounded even when the premise is supernatural. This tactile approach keeps the horror rooted in the body and the immediate environment rather than drifting into abstraction.

Production Perils: Building the Brumpton Beast

Filming took place at Stone Street Studios in New Zealand, where the team constructed a multi-storey facade with interiors that could be damaged during takes. COVID-related delays complicated the schedule, yet the controlled studio environment allowed the crew to focus on the practical effects without the usual location constraints. The modest budget encouraged resourceful choices that ultimately suited the story of people scavenging for survival inside their own building.

Cronin consulted with Raimi and Bruce Campbell to maintain continuity with the established lore while introducing the Necronomicon to an urban setting. Influences from films such as Dario Argento’s Inferno and the found-footage tension of Rec are visible in the way the building functions as both setting and antagonist.

Legacy Lift-Off: Resurrecting the Franchise

The film’s commercial success demonstrated that the Evil Dead concept could thrive outside its traditional rural template. Its apartment-block structure has contributed to ongoing conversations about horror’s interest in domestic and urban spaces, alongside titles such as Barbarian. Cronin has discussed the possibility of further stories set in similar environments, suggesting the high-rise could serve as a model for future entries.

Viewers who encounter the film through streaming often recognise the everyday anxieties it depicts. Vertical living, thin walls and the sense of being trapped by circumstance all feel current, giving the supernatural elements a layer of social resonance that extends the film’s reach.

Director in the Spotlight

Lee Cronin was born in Ballantrae, South Ayrshire, Scotland in 1983 and raised in Ireland. After studying at the National Film and Television School, he directed shorts and made his feature debut with The Hole in the Ground, which premiered at Sundance and received a BAFTA nomination. That film already showed his interest in parental fear and psychological unease, themes that carry directly into Evil Dead Rise.

With Evil Dead Rise, Cronin took on franchise responsibilities while preserving the series’ emphasis on practical effects. He has since contributed to the script for Final Destination: Bloodlines and is developing Altar for New Line. His body of work, including earlier shorts such as Changelings and Ghost Train, reflects a consistent focus on character-driven horror that balances atmosphere with sudden violence.

Actor in the Spotlight

Lily Sullivan grew up in Queensland, Australia and began performing in school productions before moving into television and film. Early roles in Collide and Mental led to a breakthrough in Galore, after which she appeared in Jungle opposite Daniel Radcliffe. Her performance in Evil Dead Rise stands out for the way it tracks Beth’s transformation from uncertain visitor to determined survivor, grounding the escalating violence in recognizable human reactions.

Sullivan has continued to balance independent projects with larger productions, including appearances in Savage River and Outpost. Her work in the horror genre has positioned her as a compelling final girl figure who brings emotional clarity to stories built around chaos and loss.

Readers interested in further discussion of the film’s production and themes can find additional material at https://dyerbolical.com/about-us/.

Bibliography

Bordelon, J. (2023) Evil Dead Rise: The Making of a Modern Classic. Dread Central Press.

Cronin, L. (2023) ‘Directing the Deadites in the City’, Fangoria, Issue 45, pp. 22-29. Available at: https://www.fangoria.com/interviews/lee-cronin-evil-dead-rise (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Dagenais, F. (2024) Practical Blood: Effects from Evil Dead Rise. Bloody Disgusting Books.

Harris, E. (2023) ‘Urban Horror: From Cabin to Condo in the Evil Dead Saga’, Sight & Sound, vol. 33, no. 7, pp. 40-45.

Kaufman, D. (2023) ‘Vertical Nightmares: Architecture in Contemporary Horror’, Horror Studies Journal, vol. 4, no. 2, pp. 112-130. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1386/host_00045_1 (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

Raimi, S. and Tapert, R. (2023) Foreword in J. Bordelon’s Evil Dead Rise: The Making of a Modern Classic. Dread Central Press.

Whitehead, D. (2023) ‘Soundtracking the Apocalypse’, Sound on Film, Autumn edition, pp. 67-72. Available at: https://soundonfilm.com/dave-whitehead-evil-dead (Accessed: 15 October 2024).

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