Talks for a fourth Evil Dead film began in 2004, with original film actor Bruce Campbell about the possibility for a next film in the franchise. The project was officially announced in July 2011, with Ghost House Pictures producing it, Diablo Cody in the process of revising the script, and Fede Álvarez chosen as the director. Much of the cast joined from January to February 2012. Principal photography took place in March 2012 and wrapped in May in New Zealand outside of Auckland, lasting about a month.[3]
Evil Dead had its premiere at South by Southwest on March 8, 2013, and was released in the United States on April 5, by Sony Pictures Releasing. The film received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $97 million worldwide against a production budget of $17 million. A fifth installment, titled Evil Dead Rise, was released by Warner Bros. Pictures on April 21, 2023.
Plot
A girl is tied up in the cellar of a remote cabin, where an old woman is reciting incantations from a strange book in the Welsh language.[4] The girl reveals her demonic possession and her father Harold sets her ablaze and shoots her dead.
Some time later, David Allen and his girlfriend Natalie arrive at the cabin with their dog Grandpa, where they meet his estranged younger sister Mia and their friends Eric and Olivia. The group plans to stay in the cabin while Mia overcomes her heroin addiction. Mia begins having withdrawal symptoms. David discovers that the cabin's cellar is littered with rotting animal corpses, a worn double-barrel shotgun, and a book called the Naturom Demonto.
Eric reads an incantation from the book, awakening a malevolent force. Mia begins seeing a demonic doppelgänger of herself in the woods. She steals Eric's car to leave but crashes into a pond. The force chases her into the woods, where vines trap her. Mia's doppelgänger possesses her via the vines.
David finds Grandpa beaten to death with a hammer and discovers Mia scalding herself. That night, a possessed Mia wounds David with the shotgun and vomits red bile onto Olivia's face before Eric locks her in the basement. A possessed Olivia mutilates her face and stabs Eric with a hypodermic needle before he bludgeons her to death. Mia lures Natalie into the cellar and bites her hand before slicing her own tongue. David helps Natalie escape.
Eric explains that per the book, the "Taker of Souls" must claim five souls to unleash the "Abomination". Natalie's arm becomes possessed and she amputates it. Mia must be "purified" by live burial, dismemberment, or burning. The now-possessed Natalie attacks the pair with a nail gun, but David shoots her other arm off; Natalie bleeds to death from her injury.
David begins dousing the cabin in gasoline, but decides to bury Mia instead. He digs a grave but Mia attempts to drown him, and Eric is fatally stabbed saving him. David sedates and buries Mia but after hearing her heartbeat stop, digs her back up and attempts to resuscitate her. He finds Mia alive and enters the cabin to retrieve his car keys, but Eric's possessed corpse stabs him. David shoots a gasoline can, killing himself and Eric.
With David's death being the fifth claimed soul, blood begins to rain from the sky and the Abomination attacks Mia as her demonic doppelgänger. Mia severs the Abomination's legs with a chainsaw, but it overturns David's Jeep on her left arm, crushing it in the process. After Mia’s hand gets torn off from her freeing herself, she bisects the Abomination's head with a chainsaw before it sinks back into the ground and the rain stops. An exhausted Mia leaves, unaware the Naturom Demonto is still intact.
In a post-credits scene, an older Ash Williams (the protagonist of the original three Evil Dead films) is seen in shadowed profile. He says his signature catchphrase, "Groovy."
Additionally, Bruce Campbell appears uncredited in the post-credits scene as Ash Williams. Briefly reprising their roles from the original film through archival recordings, Bob Dorian voices Professor Raymond Knowby and Ellen Sandweiss voices Cheryl Williams, who warns the main characters that they will die. Jack Walley also had a small role in the film as Billy Bob, a truck driver who rescues Mia after she escapes the cabin, though his scene wound up being deleted. It was restored in the extended cut.[5]
Production
Writing
Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues co-wrote the script, which was then doctored by Diablo Cody in an effort to Americanize the dialogue since English was not the writers' first language.[6] The film was produced by Raimi, Campbell and Robert G. Tapert, who are the producers of the original trilogy.[7]
Raimi and Campbell had planned a remake for many years, but, in 2009, Campbell stated the proposed remake was "going nowhere" and had "fizzled" due to extremely negative fan reaction.[8] However, in April 2011, Bruce Campbell stated in an AskMeAnything interview on Reddit: "We are remaking Evil Dead. The script is awesome ... The remake's gonna kick some ass — you have my word."[9] The film was officially announced that July.[6]
In November 2018, Álvarez confirmed the film's relationship to the original:
It continues the first one. The coincidences on events between the first film and mine are not coincidences, but more like dark fate created by the evil book. (Ash [sic] car is still there rusting away.)[16]
Filming
Álvarez, who also has a background in CGI, also confirmed in an interview that the film does not employ CGI (except for touch-ups): "We didn't do any CGI in the movie ... Everything that you will see is real, which was really demanding. This was a very long shoot, 70 days of shooting at night. There's a reason people use CGI; it's cheaper and faster, I hate that. We researched a lot of magic tricks and illusion tricks."[17]
Release
Theatrical
TriStar Pictures released the film theatrically on April 5, 2013, in the United States,[18] with Sony Pictures handling other markets. Fede Álvarez tweeted on January 28, 2013, that the film first received an NC-17 rating, which prompted cuts in order to obtain the contractually obligated R-rating.[19] The film has been rated uncut as an 18 by the BBFC for containing strong "bloody violence, gory horror and very strong language".[20]StudioCanal handled the release of Evil Dead in the United Kingdom.[20]
Evil Dead premiered at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, TX on March 8, 2013.[21] The music for Evil Dead, composed by Roque Baños, was released by La-La Land Records in a 40-minute digital form and a 70-minute physical release, on April 9, 2013.[22]
Home media
Evil Dead was released on DVD and Blu-ray, on July 16, 2013.[23] The Blu-ray exclusives include commentary from three of the cast, and screenwriters Fede Álvarez and Rodo Sayagues and five featurettes, while the regular DVD includes only three of the featurettes. Shout! Factory released a 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray containing both cuts of the film and an exclusive poster on September 27, 2022 under their Scream Factory sub label.[24]
Extended cut
An "extended version" featuring an alternative ending (a deleted mid-credits scene) and various other deleted clips and dialogue, some of which were featured in the original trailer but subsequently removed from the theatrical version, was aired in the UK on Channel 4 on January 25, 2015.[25]
On October 10, 2018, Sony Pictures announced the release of the Unrated Cut on Blu-ray Disc in a two-disc manufacture on demand combo pack with the theatrical version. It was released on October 23, 2018. The extended cut is 96 minutes compared to the 91-minute theatrical cut.[26]
Reception
Box office
The film grossed $25.8 million in its opening weekend, finishing first at the box office.[27] It went on to gross $54.2 million domestically and $43.3 million internationally, for a worldwide take of $97.5 million against its $17 million budget, making it a box office success.[2]
Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 63% based on 205 reviews and an average rating of 6.2/10. The critics consensus states: "It may lack the absurd humor that underlined the original, but the new-look Evil Dead compensates with brutal terror, gory scares, and gleefully bloody violence."[28] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100 based on 38 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".[29] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "C+" on an A+ to F scale.[30]
Evan Dickson from Bloody Disgusting reviewed the film at SXSW and went on to say, "Evil Dead is amazingly gory and fun" and gave the film 4/5 stars.[31] Chris Tilly of IGN gave Evil Dead 9/10 and called the movie a "terrifying, exhilarating and relentlessly entertaining new chapter in the Evil Dead story".[32] John DeFore of The Hollywood Reporter also gave the film a positive review, calling it a "remake that will win the hearts of many of the original's fans."[33] Independent horror review site HorrorTalk gave the film four stars out of five, saying it is "the most unrelenting and bloody horror film to come out of a major studio in a very long time".[34] Emma Simmonds of The List commented: "Evil Dead has ample cheap shocks and few bloodcurdling frights but it builds to something gorily bravura and, if that's your bag, you'll come away satisfied. It's a while before anyone picks up a chainsaw, but boy is it worth it when they do."[35] Matt Singer called the film "an assault on the senses" and "a success, one that out-Evil Deads the original movie with even more gore, puke, blood, and dismembered limbs. It may not be wildly inventive, but it is effective, and plenty faithful to the spirit — and tagline — of the first 'Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror.'"[36]
Richard Roeper rated the film one star out of four, criticizing the film's unoriginality, the characters' lack of intelligence, and the film's reliance on gore for what he felt were cheap scares. He concluded his review by saying: "I love horror films that truly shock, scare and provoke. But after 30 years of this stuff, I'm bored to death and sick to death of movies that seem to have one goal: How can we gross out the audience by torturing nearly every major character in the movie?"[37]
^Evil Dead Official Website, Sony Pictures (January 20, 2013). "'Evil Dead' Rating". MPAA. Archived from the original on June 28, 2013. Retrieved January 25, 2013.
^Chris Tilly 9 Mar 2013 (March 9, 2013). "Evil Dead Review - IGN". Ca.ign.com. Archived from the original on April 11, 2013. Retrieved March 17, 2013.((cite web)): CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^"Evil Dead: SXSW Review". The Hollywood Reporter. March 9, 2013. Archived from the original on November 12, 2019. Retrieved March 17, 2013.
