Every Evil Dead Movie Ranked, Including Evil Dead Burn (It’s Better Than 1 of the Classics)

Since The Evil Dead first premiered in 1981, it not only announced the presence of one of our wildest and most inventive filmmakers, but the start of a franchise that truly has never run out of steam. Even as the years between the movies got longer, with gaps of more than two decades at one time, the Evil Dead movies have always known when to rear their ugly head and give the people a fair share of scares and laughs. Now, with the release of this week’s Evil Dead Burn, the series has arrived at its sixth feature film, which means that ranking them is getting even tougher than it was three years ago.

Let’s get one thing straight, though, there are no “Bad” Evil Dead movies. It’s a very rare franchise in that regard (How many Halloween movies can barely clear the “watchable” bar?) and sits alongside a proud few, like Child’s Play and Phantasm. To that end, figuring out the ranking of the six movies depends largely on what level of mixture of the franchise’s DNA is most appealing, or which one just can’t quite live up to the others. All of them have great special effects, wild moments that are terrifying/hilarious/both, but what’s the best of the best?

6) Evil Dead Rise

There is one major element of Evil Dead Rise that it does better than almost every other movie in the entire series, its primary deadite. Alyssa Sutherland as Ellie is the real secret weapon of the film, delivering the most iconic performance in the entire franchise that is by someone not named “Bruce Campbell.” Sutherland sells every moment, even before she becomes possessed, and then relishes in the delight and mayhem of being a Deadite more than anyone else who’s ever played one.

The reason that Evil Dead Rise falls to the bottom of the series, though, is twofold. It has an inherent structural problem, which is that its opening and closing sequences have no real bearing on the rest of the film and feel like true dead weight that do nothing but elongate the run time. Yes, the opening gives way to one of the best title cards in the series, but they don’t offer anything else.

The second is that simply transporting the action of an Evil Dead movie from the woods to a high-rise apartment building is an easy elevator pitch, but one that doesn’t offer much else to the film. There’s also an element of “Seen it before” throughout the movie, even in its big climactic fight.

5) Army of Darkness

I know I’ve lost some of you here. You’re already in the comments saying that you don’t care what the rest of the list says because there’s no way Army of Darkness should be this low. Take a breath out of your nose for once and hear me out.

Army of Darkness is good. Some of the set pieces in it are among the franchise’s best, and truly, Bruce Campbell has never looked better in the role of Ash than he does in this movie. In fact, most of the iconography around the character actually comes from this movie rather than the first two Evil Dead films. At the end of the day, though, the ratio of humor to horror leans far to heavily on the former and fails to find a good mixture of the two.

The result is a movie that plays like a live-action cartoon, which is clearly what Raimi really wants to do, and in that regard, he succeeded as a filmmaker. From the perspective of a fan who likes to laugh and be scared, sometimes both in the same scene, Army of Darkness doesn’t work on that level at all, even if some of its gags are really great (others, like the little Ashes, not so much).

4) Evil Dead (2013)

The pitchforks have only been raised higher, now, of course, but the irony is that Fede Álvarez’s remake of Evil Dead skews too far in the other direction compared to Army of Darkness. By stripping almost all of the humor out of the film entirely, this take on the mythology and material is one that shows treating the franchise lore with the utmost seriousness can work, but which causes it to lose some of its charm in the process.

Take the opening scene of Evil Dead (2013), a young woman is stalked and captured in the woods with a bag thrown over her head, later tied to a stake by a group of individuals in a dank, depressing basement with cat carcasses hanging from the ceiling, where they set her on fire. Not a joke to be found in this entire sequence, and though it’s quite effective filmmaking, it makes you realize that Evil Dead needs at least some levity.

To his credit, Álvarez finds a way to make some of the disgusting moments of Evil Dead have a twinge of humor to them, but the buckets of blood that abound in this one largely prevent laughter. It’s also worth stating that Evil Dead is relentlessly entertaining even without jokes. The gore on display is stomach-churning, and actress Jane Levy delivers a grand performance as Mia.

3) Evil Dead Burn

With Evil Dead Burn, French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček brought the franchise back into a balance that was desperately needed. By making a film that is both relentless in its scares and gore, ironically humorous when the audience is least expecting it, and has a formative story at its core, he made a film that fits best alongside the original two Evil Dead movies compared to any others in the series.

Evil Dead Burn ranks higher than any of the other modern movies in the series because its thematic elements also hit harder than the others. Rise may have had an undercurrent about motherhood to guide it along the way, and Evil Dead (2013) may be marginally about addiction and the stranglehold it can create, but none of those quite pack the thematic punch that Evil Dead Burn has.

How rotten can a family’s core be? How long is the reach of decades-long resentment? Can you recover from the grudges held against you by the family you married into? Will the reality of someone’s harsh personality ever be acknowledged? All of these things are baked into the story of Evil Dead Burn, which also features iconic camera movement that feels the most like Sam Raimi without feeling like a dull facsimile.

2) The Evil Dead

At its core, though, The Evil Dead represents the ultimate piece of outsider, independent horror filmmaking. Thousands of cheap horror movies have been made over the years, but precious few of them can fundamentally overcome their budgetary restraints with style and charisma that define the performances, story, and direction.

Not only does Sam Raimi manage to mask the simplicity of the plot with his camera movement and the effects work, but Bruce Campbell’s first performance as Ashley Williams proves he’s more than just the director’s friend cast in the lead role.

There’s also a grit to be found in every frame of The Evil Dead. Even though Deadites are not real, and it would be very easy for the make-up effects to look cheap, you believe everything that happens on screen thanks to the tactile nature of everything shown on screen. The image above has remained iconic for a reason.

1) Evil Dead II

The Evil Dead may have been lightning in a bottle, but Evil Dead II confirmed that lightning can, in fact, strike twice. Being armed with ten times the budget could easily become the death knell for an artist, but Raimi was able to put every dollar spent on Evil Dead II on the screen and deliver a sequel that elevates every element of the original film and evolves the concept into all-new territory.

Evolving the concept beyond just “bad things happen to friends in a cabin in the woods” to a film that created foundational lore that the rest of the series can build on wasn’t what the team set out to make, but the fact that they packed so many ideas into a movie that never once feels bloated is an accomplishment.

Evil Dead II represents the ultimate mixture of horror and comedy on screen, perfecting the formula that the original created while also navigating a space that is almost impossible to occupy by mixing those two genres. The scary parts are terrifying, the funny parts are hilarious, and the times that both of them mix cannot be matched by anything else that has followed. Accept no substitutes.

How Evil Dead Burn Connects to EVERY Other Movie in the Franchise (Including the Post-Credit Scenes)