In 1981, The Evil Dead was released on the heels of several high-profile horror films like Halloween, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and Friday the 13th. These films placed a handful of teenagers or early 20-somethings in a situation that was frightening and suspenseful, keeping audiences guessing about who would survive to the end.
The Evil Dead was no exception. The low-budget B-horror movie followed a group of youngsters to a cabin in the woods where they accidentally release an evil entity that wants nothing more than to kill them all. The movie was successful enough to spawn two sequels (Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness), and was later followed by a reboot, a TV series, and more sequels.
These early films were campy and fun, filled with both frightening moments and funny quips -- Army of Darkness in particular, when Ash (Bruce Campbell), a surviving character from the previous two films, is sent back to the 1300s and ends up in a Three Stooges-inspired fight with skeletons.
The franchise then went silent for two decades as filmmaker Sam Raimi took on bigger projects. But in 2013, in a time when studios were starting to invest in reboots/requels, Evil Dead was ready for reanimation.
A New Twist on 'Evil Dead'
When writer/director Fede Álvarez rebooted The Evil Dead, he had to make choices about how to update a cult classic. Rather than recreating memorable moments from the original or trying to replace Bruce Campbell's iconic Ash, he kept the DNA of The Evil Dead intact but shifted the tone to make it darker, gorier, and scarier.
In the latest franchise iterations, the humor has been stripped away, and greater emphasis has been placed on terror and on characters with exploitable vulnerabilities.
How 'Evil Dead Burn' follows in the path of the previous films
The latest film in the franchise, produced by Sam Raimi and Lee Cronin (who directed Evil Dead Rise), changes everything once again. This time, it follows a family who goes to a rundown home after the death of their adult son. Taking place after the funeral, Alice (Souheila Yacoub), the widow, is stuck with her abusive, deceased husband's family, who blame her for his death.
Evil Dead has established several rules for its franchise. For instance, at the center of the film sits the Necronomicon -- the Book of the Dead that unleashes hell. At one point, just like in the other films, a character will open it, read from it, or even play back an old recording, and something terrible follows.
Knowing the rules is one of horror's simplest storytelling devices because audiences immediately understand the rules and why it works for Evil Dead Burn. This "rules" device has been used in many classic horror films:
- The Ring - watch a VHS tape, get a phone call from an ominous voice that says, "7 days." Then seven days later, you die.
- Beetlejuice - say his name three times, and he appears.
- Gremlins - make sure that cute Mogwai doesn't get wet or eat after midnight.
One of the biggest reasons people keep returning to this franchise is that there isn't a single character or timeline it follows; Evil Dead has always been built around an idea rather than a protagonist.
Another important aspect of Evil Dead is the evil unleashed by the book. They're not simply zombies or random demons, but an evilness that takes possession of humans with the ability to manipulate and psychologically torment their victims before attacking them physically. Because they wear the faces of loved ones, every confrontation becomes emotionally charged and harder to fight back.
Ingredients for the 'Evil Dead' Franchise
So, we have the Necronomicon and the possessing evil dead things. But another reason the franchise has endured is that the ingredients never really change. In fact, screenwriters should take note: these are often ingredients for low-budget, successful scary movies, and this is how Evil Dead Burn did it:
- Isolated location where escape is impossible -- a remote house.
- A limited number of ordinary people -- only about 7 people take up the main cast, and are often ordinary people thrust into an extraordinary situation.
- Evil is unleashed -- someone will have a hand in setting the "evil" free, usually without realizing they did it.
- Friends and family transform into enemies -- Who becomes possessed, and how do they interact with the others?
- Let the blood flow -- creating inventive ways to show death is a key in horror movies. For Evil Dead, they must die in spectacular, torturous ways.
Evil Dead Rise co-writer/director Sébastien Vaniček wanted to be as unrestrained and violent as possible. "I want to make the most violent and the most brutal Evil Dead," Vaniček said in a Dread Central interview.
"I don't want to be in the competition of how many liters of blood did I use for this or that. But I want the audience to feel drained physically when they leave the theater."
When Horror Franchises Thrive in Freedom
Scream and Halloween are successful movie franchises, but they are stuck with unbreakable rules. Scream must have its Ghostface, phone calls, and connection to other characters. Halloween has been rebooted multiple times, in some cases, ignoring previous films but keeping Michael Myers as the villain.
Evil Dead enjoys much more freedom. The Book of the Dead can appear anywhere, such as in Evil Dead Rise, where it plagues a high-rise apartment complex or in a remote cabin, where any group of unsuspecting characters can unleash it.
Also, as with most James Bond films, different filmmakers can take on the project. Since the 2013 reboot, no filmmaker has returned. This holds true for the next film in the franchise, Evil Dead Wrath. This allows a director to put their stamp on the movie franchise without breaking its identity.
Why Audiences Keep Coming Back to the 'Evil Dead'
Why have audiences stayed loyal to the Evil Dead for more than 45 years? It's because they're not watching the same movie over and over again, but coming in knowing the rules and excited to see what happens. They're coming back for an expected feeling.
It's similar to dinosaurs, Godzilla, or other familiar monsters: we know who the villain is, so now let's see how the characters experience it and survive, or don't.
The Evil Dead franchise can survive because, as long as someone opens the Necronomicon and reads the wrong words aloud, another story can begin.