SPOILER WARNING: The following contains many crucial plot detail from Evil Dead Rise, so, unless you have experienced the brutal latest chapter, you might want to treat this article like a volume of the Necronomicon and read through with caution.
Based on its impressive opening weekend box office returns, it appears that a lot fans of the genre crawled to their local movie theater to see the new horror movie, Evil Dead Rise. However, only true fans likely noticed the many ways that this fifth installment of the beloved, bloody franchise paid loving homage to the classics that preceded it.
One of the most fun things about writer and director Lee Cronin’s terrifying family drama about possessive, demonic spirits run amok in a L.A. apartment complex is pointing out all the callbacks to one of the best horror movies ever made — Sam Raimi’s 1981 breakout hit, The Evil Dead — and its sequels. If you had trouble keeping up with the homages, here is a breakdown of all the cleverly hidden or overt ways that one of the most iconic and acclaimed horror movie franchises lives on in Evil Dead Rise… that I could spot myself, at least.
Jessica Psychically Reads Wuthering Heights
Before shifting to its central urban setting, Evil Dead Rise opens in a more familiar way: at a woodland cabin where a small group of young friends are staying. It becomes clear that things are not quite right, however, when Teresa (Mirabai Peace), tries to read Wuthering Heights and starts to hear her ill friend, Jessica (Anna-Marie Thomas), reciting direct lines from the Emily Brontë novel without looking at it.
This is a clever reimagining of a scene from the original Evil Dead movie when Shelly (Theresa Tilly) challenges Linda (Betsy Baker) to guess what suit from a deck of cards she is holding and Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) correctly calls out a series of cards in rapid succession before revealing it was the malevolent spirit possessing her talking.
Henrietta's Pizza
To have a moment alone with her sister, Beth (Lily Sullivan), Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) sends her children — Danny (Morgan), Bridget (Gabrielle Nichols), and Kassie (Nell Fisher) — to pick up dinner and they come back with a carryout order from Henrietta’s Pizza. One of the most iconic, and grotesque, characters in the entire Evil Dead movies is Henrietta Knowby (played by Sam Raimi’s brother, Ted, under heavy prosthetics in Evil Dead II), who is the possessed wife of Raymond Knowby — an archaeologist responsible for the Necronomicon’s presence at the cabin.
Bruce Campbell's Vocal Cameo
Personally I was never dismayed by the idea of an Evil Dead movie without Bruce Campbell, but anyone who might have walked into this reimagining with a hint of sourness at that thought was probably delighted by his subtle cameo. When Danny is playing a vinyl recording from 1923 that he found with the Necronomicon, the ancient text’s reading is interrupted by a man claiming it is “called the Book of the Dead for a reason!” Not only is that the horror movie icon’s voice delivering the warning, but Lee Cronin’s interview with NME hints that it could very well be Campbell reprising an Ash Williams stuck in another time period.
The Elevator Assaults Ellie
The malevolent forces from these movies are not the kind of demons that slowly and insidiously take control of their prey, but begin by making their human hosts suffer — as evident by an infamous scene from the original film — a pivotal reason for its NC-17 rating — in which Cheryl is assaulted by vines and tree branches manipulated by the evil spirits. While the depiction of Ellie’s possession certainly (and thankfully) does not delve into such risqué territory, it does play out in a similar fashion in how the wires from her building’s elevator wrap around her limbs, suspending her in mid air and painfully pulling her every which way.
An Eye-Popping Scene
Raimi opted to lighten the tone quite a bit for the franchise’s second installment, Evil Dead II, which is filled with hilarious sequences of “splatterstick” that make it one of the greatest horror-comedy movies of all time — such as one in which Henrietta’s eye pops out of its socket and flies right into the mouth of Bobby Joe (Kassie Wesley). Evil Dead Rise reimagines that classic scene in a slightly darker fashion by seeing Ellie eat her neighbor, Gabriel’s (Jayden Daniels), eye right out of his head before coughing it back up and right into the mouth of fellow tenant, Jake (Billy Reynolds- McCarthy).
The Deadites Chant "Dead By Dawn"
Evil Dead II is also one of the more quotable installments of the franchise, especially known for introducing Ash’s iconic catchphrase, “Groovy.” While that immortal line does not make it into the new movie, it does reference a scene from the 1987 film, when the Deadites repeatedly promise that the cabin’s living inhabitants will be “dead by dawn!” Beth and Kassie are given the same warning by their apartment floor’s possessed tenants when trying to make it across the hall to the elevator.
Beth's Chainsaw Matches The Color Of Ash's Car
No Evil Dead movie is complete without two things: a chainsaw and at least a shot of Ash’s 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 Royale — which is also a staple of Sam Raimi’s filmography as a whole. As Cronin revealed to our own Eric Eisenberg, Evil Dead Rise incorporates both of these iconic elements in a unique and clever way by equipping Beth with a chainsaw that — instead of the traditional red — is painted the same cream-yellow color as Ash’s car.
Beth Tells The Marauder To "Come Get Some"
I actually think that 1992’s Army of Darkness — which sees Ash fighting some “medieval dead” after being transported to the Middle Ages — is the most quotable of these movies, with classics like “Good, bad, I’m the guy with the gun” or “Hail to the king, baby.” For the climactic scene when Beth rips apart the Marauder — the name Cronin has given the Cronenbergian combination of Ellie, Danny, and Bridget’s Deadite selves in interviews with Collider and others — Evil Dead Rise borrows, perhaps, the most appropriate AOD quote for the occasion: “Come get some.”
To relive the iconic scenes that inspired these thrilling Evil Dead Rise moments (and see how the franchise pays tribute to pop culture in its own ways), stream the Evil Dead movies online. Then, go back to see the fifth installment a second time and see how many more Easter Eggs you can spot.
