Evil Dead Rise: Sequel or Reboot? Should we have seen the previous films in this horror saga?

We do not pronounce the words and formulas given here to avoid the risk of supernatural occurrences. But the notorious Evil Dead Book of the Dead hasn’t really closed with Bruce Campbell canceling the series at the end of its third season, as a new feature film hits our cinemas this Wednesday, April 19.

Titled Evil Dead Rise, the film is signed by Lee Cronin, who is the second feature film after The Only Child. And, after an introduction that contains certain staples of the franchise (cabin by the lake, blood, etc.)

If we postpone the series Ash vs. Evil Dead aired from 2015 to 2018, so it’s been ten years since the horror saga came to the big screen with blood. From the release of Fede Alvarez’s feature film. A reboot at first glance, until the post-credits scene with Bruce Campbell nuanced it and made it a sequel. Or a story in the same world.

Evil Dead Rise plays on the same board. Ash is never, if ever, mentioned (although Bruce Campbell is hidden in the film, according to the director). None other than Mia, played by Jane Levy in 2013. But they exist (or existed) in this world, and Lee Cronin tries less to deny it than to expand the world created by Sam Raimi in the early 80s.

By talking to us, for example, about the three books of the dead. This means that Ash was confronted with the first, Mia with the second, and the heroes of this film with the third, so that the events did not contradict what happened in the feature films and the previous series. And that it is not vital to see them (again) to understand this opus from beginning to end.

But it can be useful. To catch clues scattered throughout the story. Or how the director, as well as the screenwriter, plays with some of the staples of the franchise, such as those POV shots that represent a demonic entity. If Evil Dead Rise marks your discovery of the saga, you might want to watch the previous ones without getting in the way of appreciating them. So everyone is a winner. Except for the victims on the screen.