More than 40 years ago, director Sami Raimi made one of the most creative and absurd films that changed the world irrevocably horror genre with its B-movie prodigy, The Evil death. Since that first movie came out in 1981, Evil death has become the gold standard for campy horror and an influential horror franchise that ranks highly among critically acclaimed films in the genre.
These films skillfully combine horror with comedy. It has some serious gore between bouts of physical, almost slapstick comedy, thanks to the great Bruce Campbell, that makes this series stand out. Some films lean more towards comedy than horror and vice versa, but each entry understands its purpose and delivers.
The evil death introduced us to the Deadites, evil spirits summoned by the Book of the Dead who are determined to destroy anyone who reads from the book in the most violent ways. Since then, the franchise has spawned two direct sequels, a reboot, a TV show, and most recently, Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise, which is currently in theaters. Raimi and Campbell produced the first movie with a crew of just 13 people in ’81, so it’s incredible to see how far this story has come since then.
Each entry in this franchise offers something different from the last, while still managing to maintain that signature campy style that Raimi created all those years ago. So, where does each episode of this bizarre horror series land in a ranking? Well, that’s hard to decide as they are all excellent in their own way. Yet here’s every one Evil death movie and show, ranked.
6 Evil Death 2013)
Fede Alvarez Evil death is one of the rare instances where a remake actually lives up to the original. Released more than 20 years after the end of the original trilogy, this movie isn’t so much a remake as a sequel and a reboot. Using the cabin in the woods again, it revolves around a group of young friends who unwittingly summon the Deadites, just like in the first film, but it was also set in the present and had a cast of completely different characters. The film also gives the characters more detailed backstories than the original film did and gives the protagonist a complicated history.
This is definitely one of the darker entries in the franchise, as it takes the evil presence of the Book of the Dead more seriously than any previous film and lacks the campiness of the original trilogy, but it definitely nails the horror elements. It’s pretty disturbing at times, and Jane Levy is one of the best last girls in modern horror.
5 Ash vs Evil Dead (2015-2018)
Chainsaw-wielding monster hunter Ash Williams returns more than 30 years after his last battle with the Deadites in the Raimi and Campbell produced television series, Ash vs Evil Dead. Our favorite fighter of evil has successfully avoided both responsibility and the deadly demons that gave him his chainsaw hand until an act of carelessness unleashes them once again. The show amps up the gore, energy, and fun in the movie trilogy and adds new characters for Ash to fight. All three seasons have been praised by critics and fans alike for their excessive violence and hilarious absurdity. It’s actually the highest-rated entry in the franchise, with a 99% critics’ rating and a 95% audience’s rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It was a welcome addition to the franchise and remains a proud entry that fans love to this day.
4 The Wicked Dead (1981)
It might be a bit controversial to put the one who started it all in fourth place, but this franchise doesn’t have a bad entry. Each entry is unique and without this extremely ridiculous series we wouldn’t have this extremely ridiculous series. The evil death is gloriously strange and delivers both the fright and the laugh. The Deadites are absolutely disgusting, and you wouldn’t want to touch them with a 40-foot pole. Since the budget was low and only 13 people worked on the film, Raimi had to get inventive with the camera work. He didn’t have a Steadicam, so he used a “shaky camera” by mounting the camera on a wooden plank and running through the woods or mounting the camera on a bicycle, giving the film its signature look. Raimi even had Joel Cohen of the Cohen Brothers helps with the editing from the movie. The evil death launched the frenzy of the franchise we know and love today, and spawned some debilitating scares along the way.
3 Army of Darkness (1992)
Listen up, primitive idiots! Army of Darkness is hands down the funniest, most chaotic, wildly entertaining episode in the Evil death franchise. Nothing about the story of this movie makes sense and that’s why it works so well. By now we all know that time is a construct in the world Evil death universe, and we just follow the madness that Sam Raimi comes up with.
The movie picks up right where the second begins, transporting Ash back in time to the Middle Ages. What awaits him there? More Deadites, of course. Taking our reluctant hero out of the cabin in the woods allows him to have some fun and become a leader. Despite a complete lack of tension and chills, Army of Darkness turns out to be too much fun for most Evil death fans to care. There were certainly moments in this film that could have been used for gory horror, but Ash’s bizarre medieval misadventures make up for it.
2 Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Taking the story out of the cabin in the woods and into a Los Angeles high-rise apartment complex might be considered a risky move, but it undoubtedly paid off. Lee Cronins Evil Dead Rise has already been certified fresh on Rotten Tomatoes with a critic score of 84% and an audience score of 79%. It surpasses predicted box office numbers and fans say it might be the franchise’s most terrifying film. This time we follow a family of five who soon discover that the apartment building is as haunted as a cabin and that the Necronomicon has unleashed yet another horrifying nightmare.
It may be the bloodiest yet, which is saying a lot an estimated 1,700 liters of blood used for the movie. Leaning entirely on the horror elements, this film further proves that we are in the middle of a horror renaissance after the incredible year the genre had last year. It stands alone while still capturing the spirit of the original films, and with Raimi and Campbell on board as executive producers, this is a thoroughly Evil death movie.
1 Evil Dead II (1987)
Trying to decide if Evil Dead II is a remake or a sequel useless since we’ve already established that time is just a construct in these movies. It’s Raimi’s world, and we just live in it, baby. Evil Dead II takes the same plot as its predecessor, but swaps old characters for new ones. The mix of horror and comedy is in full swing and it’s the first time in the franchise that we’re gifted with truly memorable one-liners. The Deadites bring an even more twisted sense of humor, somehow bringing out the violence from the first film. It is in this film that Ash first dons his iconic chainsaw hand and uses it to battle the bloodthirsty demons and inanimate objects that constantly challenge him. It has some of the most memorable horror scenes and some of the most memorable comedy scenes ever filmed, and the pace makes 90 minutes fly by. It’s clear that Raimi is more confident behind the camera at this point and Campbell lets loose in the best way possible.
One of the best parts of the movie is that you don’t waste time recovering from what happened in the first movie. The cabin, Ash and his girlfriend, and the Book of the Dead are all introduced in the first few minutes of the movie. This allows the movie to kick-start the action and head-first into the absurdity we’ve come to know and love. Making a requel of a movie released just six years earlier is a bit of a risky move, but it works perfectly here. The Evil death franchise isn’t the type of franchise that has to rely on a completely fine-tuned narrative structure to make the movie work, so Raimi dug into all the gory comedic gold that makes this franchise one of the best in the horror genre.