All 6 Evil Dead Movies, Ranked From Worst To Best

We're about to get a lot more Evil Dead, as this summer's "Evil Dead Burn" will be followed by next year's prequel to the original, "Evil Dead Wrath." This is great news considering the long waits between each of the previous movies; the three-year gap between 2023's "Evil Dead Rise" and "Burn" is the shortest pause between entries so far, with bolder and bloodier stories on the way.

Sam Raimi's original low-budget horror was a pioneering work of indie cinema, and remains an enduring cult classic. His two sequels further established Raimi as one of the great American horror directors, with his distinct blend of gore and slapstick eventually landing him the job on the Spider-Man and Doctor Strange movies. It's one of the best regarded horror trilogies within the genre, with its reputation unaffected by years of endless sequels and reboots; Raimi and star Bruce Campbell have remained involved even as younger filmmakers took over, ensuring a better batting average than your typical horror saga.

With the sixth film now arriving in theaters, it's time to look back over 40 years of "Evil Dead" and offer our ranking of every film in the series to date, from worst to best. There are no bad movies within the franchise (yet!), but some perfect the blend of slapstick mayhem and gruesome violence better than the others ...

Long before the recent wave of horror "requels" — legacy sequels to classic franchises with enough new characters to serve as an entry point –- Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's attempt to get a remake of "The Evil Dead" made turned into this soft reboot from Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez. Mostly following the beats of Raimi's original low-budget shocker, "Evil Dead" also exists within the same timeline, with characters from the first appearing in voiceover to warn this new group that they're about to die, and Campbell even reprising his role as Ash Williams in a post-credits scene. 

What's missing is the slapstick fun Raimi brought to the table. The movie one-ups him when it comes to gore but never comes close to the dark comedy heights of the prior films. It's an "Evil Dead" movie in name alone, taking itself far too seriously as a visceral torture-porn experience and ignoring the playfulness that made the franchise work.

This isn't completely ineffective –- it deserves some credit for pushing the boundaries of onscreen bloody carnage, with the film originally receiving an NC-17. It also paired Álvarez with star Jane Levy for the first time, with the duo's next collaboration, 2016's "Don't Breathe," better balancing gruesome violence and nihilistic jet-black humor. This is the only "Evil Dead" movie where there's no joy to be had, and as such, leaves you wishing you were watching the original instead.

The 2013 requel is the only "Evil Dead" movie that doesn't fully hit the mark, so don't be disappointed seeing "Burn" so low. French filmmaker Sébastien Vaniček — the man behind the acclaimed 2023 horror "Infested" — takes the reigns here, and although the movie is lighter on laughs and outright scares, he understands the playful nastiness that made the best movies in the series tick. Here, the action takes place following the funeral from hell, as the supernatural curse begins to spread among the awful in-laws of Alice (Souheila Yacoub), whose abusive partner was killed by a wandering Deadite.

An already uncomfortable family reunion turns even more toxic when her father-in-law Edgar (Erroll Shand) gets infected and turns impulsively violent. After that, the movie doesn't let up, taking place almost entirely within the claustrophobic, run down family home as the curse spreads, and Alice has to both confront the lingering open secrets of her relationship and various deadly obstacles. 

"Evil Dead Burn" has plenty of amusing nods to the franchise's history, and moments of staggering gore that equal the most gruesome of the series. But with greater, more sincere emotional weight than any prior movie, it is somewhat of an outlier -– and with the fallout of a toxic relationship explored with far greater depth in several other acclaimed 2026 horrors, this lessens its overall impact a bit.

After sequel plans to the 2013 movie stalled, "Dead" was brought back as a standalone straight-to-streaming movie in 2021; test screening scores proved so high, it ended up getting a theatrical release. Director Lee Cronin moves the action away from a cursed cabin in the woods after its bravura cold open, taking us to an apartment building in rainy Los Angeles, where an earthquake reveals hidden treasures below. These include a copy of the Necronomicon, and records of priests reading passages as they study it. A curse has been unleashed, possessing Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), the estranged sister of Beth (Lily Sullivan) who only returned a day earlier. Great timing.

"Evil Dead Rise" is an enjoyable return to form, once again pushing the boundaries of onscreen gore –- Cronin estimated that 6,500 liters of fake blood was used –- while never forgetting the dark comedy that makes the series so singular. Although it moves the action out of the woods and into the city, "Rise" works as well as it does because it understands the original movies are essentially confined supernatural home invasion thrillers. 

Here, no character gets beyond the apartment's parking lot, which allows for bloody and brutal set pieces for every room in-between. The jury is out as to whether an "Evil Dead" movie needs a tribute to "The Shining," but it's hard to deny the thrill of seeing the elevator of blood again.

Is it controversial to call the first "Evil Dead" the weakest of Raimi's original trilogy? The low-budget shocker deserves its place on every ranking of the best horror and cult movies ever made, following the formula of many a genre classic by stranding a group of ill-equipped teams in an unsettling, remote location, and pushing it in the most deranged direction possible. Despite the budgetary constraints, Raimi produced some of the most memorable images in modern horror and established his singular approach to the genre, where scares and gore sat comfortably next to slapstick set pieces. It's still an absolute thrill to see with a crowd, more than 40 years later.

So why does it, in our opinion, fall short of the two films that followed? Well, Raimi's brand of horror-comedy has always been dark and mean-spirited, but nothing he's made has ever been as nihilistic as his debut, and it doesn't quite succeed as a melting pot of genres like its sequels. There are laughs, but they're far outweighed by the nastiness. 

But then, this was a cheap passion project made to command major attention, and the most notorious sequences helped spread word of mouth and build Raimi the following he needed to expand his canvas. Plus, most directors would give their left arm to make an audience gasp quite like they do at the infamous "tree scene" –- Raimi had nowhere darker to go after this.

In Raimi and Campbell's original plan for "Evil Dead II," Ash would be transported back to the Middle Ages, where he'd fight a Deadite outbreak in the 1300s. Their tiny budget put an end to that dream, but the sequel's success made it easier for them to persuade Italian super-producer Dino De Laurentiis to follow that time-traveling route on their third go-round. 

More than the prior two movies, "Army of Darkness" established Campbell's goofball screen persona, with Ash now an egotistical fool whose poorly thought through plans to get back to the present only unleash more death and destruction. It leans more into the comedy, to the point it sometimes feels more like an Ash Williams movie than an "Evil Dead" movie –- but as a tribute to the old school fantasy epics Raimi grew up on, it's infectiously entertaining nonetheless.

This is also the "Evil Dead" movie where you can most see the specific comic quirks Raimi would carry over to his Marvel movies, where a higher budget allowed him to imagine all sorts of cartoonish transformations and over-the-top deaths straight out of a comic. "Evil Dead II" possesses a "Looney Tunes" comic energy, but the best scenes in "Army of Darkness" feel even more like animated slapstick brought kicking and screaming into real life. If you've previously written this off as the weakest of the original trilogy, you urgently owe it a revisit.

One of the greatest sequels of all time, and possibly the best horror sequel of them all, "Evil Dead II" is 84 minutes of pure mayhem, opening by essentially remaking the previous film before transforming into a gross-out slapstick carnival. Out is the nihilism that made "The Evil Dead" a punishing watch; in is Campbell reinventing himself as a one-man comedy double act, with Ash transforming into a fabled hero with a chainsaw for an arm. 

It's still a low-budget affair, but funding from Dino De Laurentiis and the support of Stephen King gave Raimi room to try out more ambitious set pieces, with all manner of inanimate objects transformed into living, breathing entities. Most impressively, "Evil Dead II" remained every bit as gory, but the sharp left turn in genre transformed the movie into an unexpected and enduring crowd pleaser. 

It's the balance of hyper violence and comic ingenuity makes this the best "Evil Dead," and the franchise (as well as Raimi himself) have never bettered its approach. Horror-comedy is one of the hardest genres to perfect, as you risk undermining one half if you lean too hard in either direction, as was the case with the overly serious 2013 "Evil Dead" reboot. This might be the finest example of that cross-genre hybrid, expanding upon the supernatural mythos and having an incredible time putting its hero through the ringer.