"Evil Dead Rise," the 2023 installment directed by Lee Cronin, reinvigorates the franchise with a chilling blend of urban horror and relentless demonic terror. The film opens with a brutal scene at a lakeside cabin where cousins Teresa and Jessica, along with Jessica's new boyfriend Caleb, are vacationing. An ill Jessica descends into a violent frenzy, scalping Teresa and decapitating Caleb before levitating ominously above the lake.
The story rewinds to the previous day in Los Angeles, where Beth (Lily Sullivan), a guitar technician grappling with an unexpected pregnancy, visits her sister Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), a single mother and tattoo artist. Ellie lives with her three children, teenagers Danny (Morgan Davies) and Bridget (Gabrielle Echols), and young Kassie (Nell Fisher), in a dilapidated apartment complex known as Monde Apartments. Their reunion is interrupted by a sudden earthquake, uncovering a hidden chamber beneath the building's basement parking lot.
Intrigued, Danny explores the chamber and discovers a trove of religious artifacts, three phonograph records from 1923, and a mysterious, sinister book—the Naturom Demonto, one of three volumes known to summon demonic entities. Ignoring the dire warnings, Danny plays the records, which recount a priest’s ill-fated attempt to study the book. The priest’s incantations inadvertently awaken the malevolent Deadites, and chaos ensues as the building's power fails and Ellie is possessed by an unseen force.
Ellie returns to the apartment, her demeanor transformed into a malevolent trance. She menaces her family before collapsing and seemingly dying after a final plea to Beth to protect her children. However, the peace is short-lived. Ellie reanimates with a vengeance, attacking her family and massacring their neighbors. Amid the carnage, Bridget is wounded and eventually succumbs to possession, escalating the terror.
Desperate to protect the children, Beth discovers the horrific truth on the third phonograph record: the priest failed to exorcise the Deadites, and only complete destruction of the host can end the possession. Meanwhile, Ellie tricks young Kassie into unlocking the door, launching another wave of terror. Bridget’s possession intensifies, leading to a deadly confrontation where she is impaled by Kassie with a broken broom handle and later set on fire by Danny before he succumbs to his wounds.
The relentless onslaught continues as Ellie infiltrates the apartment through the vents. In a harrowing struggle, she tries to rip the fetus out of Beth, but Beth and Kassie manage to incapacitate her with scissors. Kassie, realizing the horrifying transformation of her mother, rejects Ellie's manipulative attempts.
The climax unfolds as Danny and the neighbors’ corpses are possessed, and Ellie, Bridget, and Danny merge into a grotesque, multi-limbed entity called the Marauder. The Marauder traps Beth and Kassie in a blood-filled elevator, which plummets to the ground floor under their combined weight. Escaping to the parking lot, Beth and Kassie face a final showdown.
As the Marauder captures Kassie and tries to decapitate her with a chainsaw, Beth intervenes. They ultimately destroy the Marauder by forcing it into a wood chipper, ending the nightmare. Beth, in a final act of defiance, kicks Ellie's taunting head into the chipper.
The film closes on a chilling note as the next morning, Jessica, unaware of the previous night’s horrors, is attacked by an unseen force in the parking lot, suggesting the malevolent entity's reign of terror is far from over.
"Evil Dead Rise" masterfully weaves intense familial bonds with unrelenting horror, delivering a terrifying experience that redefines urban horror and secures its place in the annals of the franchise.