One of the greatest horror franchises ever is trying something new. With Evil Dead Rise the horror / comedy / action series, which has spawned a ridiculous amount of movies, games, and TV shows crossing every genre you can think of, is officially ditching its cocky protagonist Ash and reportedly turning into a straight horror anthology series. What does that look like? The first Evil Dead Rise trailer, which dropped today, gives us an idea. There is a red band Evil Dead Rise trailer, but YouTube will only allow us to embed the green band version in this article.
Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are both involved with Evil Dead Rise as executive producers but have said they’ve been more hands-on with it than you’d normally expect from an EP. The film is the first in the franchise to bring the action to the big city and the first to involve children in the terrifying plot. We see Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) and her family living in an LA high-rise (get it?) when her son somehow discovers the Necronomicon and, like every idiot in the franchise, plays the damn record that reads the text of it out loud. Cue Deadite possession and what looks like a pretty contained horror movie taking place in a tiny apartment featuring a host of Evil Dead tropes, including a blood-soaked person in a blue shirt, a chainsaw, some fantastic one-liners, and the kind of visceral gore that makes your skin crawl. That cheese-grater moment alone made me flinch.
Those balking at the removal of Bruce Campbell’s legendary Ash Williams character from the series clearly didn’t see the Evil Dead reboot that came out in 2013 and revamped the franchise fantastically back into its horror and gore roots while completely ignoring Ash, aside from a brief “Groovy” at the end of the credits. That film, which launched director Fede Alvarez’s career, was one of the best horror movies of the past decade, and it showed that Raimi’s creation could easily return to its horror and gore roots while still packing in that unique touch of action and humor that made Evil Dead so damn good. Raimi also showed he has a knack for picking out up-and-coming directors, which should give us some confidence in director Lee Cronin taking the helm for Evil Dead Rise. His previous film, The Hole in the Ground, wasn’t a horror masterpiece but definitely had a certain quality to it that shows promise.
As the trailer reminds us, Evil Dead Rise will release in theaters on April 21, 2023.
