Every Evil Dead Movie Ranked Worst To Best
Which movie did Deadites, The Necronomicon and ungodly violence best?!
If you want a franchise that will make you laugh your guts out, choke on your food in horror, and then vomit that food back up after seeing some grotesque gore, you've got a winner in The Evil Dead.
Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series is a cult classic that forever changed the horror industry. If you like cabin in the woods movies, you can thank Evil Dead for perfecting the trope. If you like gore on gore on gore, you can thank Evil Dead for its over-indulgence in violence. And, if you like low-budget horror flicks becoming major successes, you can thank Evil Dead for showing it can be done.
To date, there have been five movies in the franchise. The first three were a makeshift trilogy, with the second film being a resequel of the first. Fans then got a full reboot years later. Then, there was a kind of remake, sort of sequel, maybe spin-off, released this year.
It's a good time to be an Evil Dead fan, so let's assess each movie based on its influence, quality, enjoyment factor, and more.
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Note: This list will only focus on the films, so Ash vs Evil Dead will not appear.
5. Evil Dead (2013)
Words like remake, reboot, and reimagining can scare film fans more than running into Michael Myers down a dark alleyway. Seeing one of your favourite franchises turned into a dull, money-driven, hollow shell of a movie is a painful experience. So, how did Evil Dead fair in the process? Well, despite being at the bottom of the list, it did an excellent job.
Fede Alvarez's 2013 Evil Dead takes the same narrative as the first movie, following a collection of friends as they spend the weekend at a remote cabin, only to summon parasitic demons. It re-explored the franchise in a nostalgic yet fresh way, and only fell to this position because of one or two setbacks.
The movie certainly gets the atmosphere and violence right; the ungodly gory sequences in the flick feel like true Evil Dead horror. However, there are a few downsides, with one being the pacing. It takes a little too much time to get going, causing the first act to drag. The premise also feels too familiar, with the setting and concept feeling like a full rehash of the original with few new ideas bar incorporating addiction into the tale.
Overall, it's a stellar reimagining, but still just a reimagining.