Evil Dead has never replicated itself in any fashion in its six installments; it has evolved, mutated, and spawned strains with shared DNA but different personalities. The new Evil Dead Burn is the latest proof of that restlessness. The cabin-in-the-woods nightmare dreamt up by Sam Raimi in 1981 gave birth to a series of movies whose lifespan of 45 years consists of swinging back and forth between sheer terror and absurd humor, between the body as flesh and the body as joke. Each successive filmmaker who tackles this franchise has been faced with the same question Raimi himself never quite answered. And that question is: is this a movie about grief, or is it a movie about how funny grief looks once you’ve chainsawed your own hand off?
The ranking of these six movies entails comparing craftsmanship versus craftsmanship: direction, acting, special effects, scares, laughs, screenplay, the level of complexity involved in making each of the movies, and, finally, how successfully each movie accomplishes the task. Nostalgia doesn’t get a vote here, and neither does franchise loyalty. Here’s where all six, Evil Dead Burn included, land when judged strictly on how well-made they are. The order is worst to best. Ash vs Evil Dead (2015–2018), as good as it is, is not included because, well, it is a TV series.
6. Army of Darkness (1992)
Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams and Embeth Davidtz as Sheila in Army of Darkness (1992) | Credits: Universal Pictures
By the time Raimi got to Army of Darkness, the franchise had completely shed its facade of being horror movies and became closer to Looney Tunes with a Necronomicon: Bruce Campbell‘s Ash went from an ill-fated victim to a caricature of American machismo, all one-liners and boomstick swagger, plopped down in a medieval amusement park made out of leftover Ray Harryhausen movies.
This is a movie that substitutes quantity for quality in terms of its jokes more often than not, and without the sense of dread that gave the previous installments their edge. The stop motion skeletons were well crafted; there was clearly affection behind Campbell’s performance, but what really makes this movie fail is the structure: they forget the fact that Ash was first and foremost supposed to be a coward. Strip the fear out of the equation, and you’re left with camp that congratulates itself. This is why this movie ranks last. And yet, along with the first two movies, it makes for one of the best horror movie trilogies of all time.
5. Evil Dead (2013)
Jane Levy as Mia in Evil Dead (2013) | Credits: Sony Pictures Releasing
Fede Álvarez‘s reboot is a technically superb piece of filmmaking. But it is hamstrung by a screenplay that never earns the craft surrounding it. The practical effects work is genuinely some of the best in the franchise’s history. Jane Levy’s physical performance as the possessed Mia is a feat of control the writing around her isn’t smart enough to deserve.
This is the greatest downfall of the film: the director films like an artist who knows that his images are worth trusting but offers his actors dialogue that views addiction as a metaphor as an obligatory element to be covered before moving on to the gory scenes. The result is a movie that’s flawlessly executed scene to scene and hollow across its runtime — extraordinary technique in service of a story that never bothers to become one. It is ranked above Army of Darkness because it isn’t far removed from the cramped settings that make these movies work.
4. Evil Dead Burn (2026)
Sébastien Vaniček’s contribution to this mythology is perhaps the leanest, least lively chapter this franchise has produced thus far. Evil Dead Burn eschews the cartoonish elasticity of Raimi’s original vision for something closer to New French Extremity. FandomWire’s Sean Boelman awarded the film 9/10 in his Evil Dead Burn review.
The narrative immediately follows the events of Evil Dead Rise and concerns itself with the tale of a grieving widow who heads back to the isolated family home of her deceased spouse, only to see the house become a living hell for a family reunion. The movie is peppered with references and Easter eggs related to the movies that came before, and yet the movie stands perfectly well on its own. It just isn’t as good as the next three, and is thus ranked 4th.
3. Evil Dead Rise (2023)
Alyssa Sutherland as the possessed Ellie in Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise (2023) | Credits: Warner Bros. Pictures
The way Lee Cronin manipulates the horror of loneliness in Evil Dead Rise is quite interesting. He brings the horror closer to the characters. He puts them not in some secluded cottage, but in a decaying apartment building that theoretically one could leave through the elevator or stairs, but in reality cannot.
Alyssa Sutherland is hypnotic and eerily believable as the possessed mother, and she is the most disturbing in the franchise’s history (it makes us happy that her character is back in Evil Dead Burn). The practical effects make for some disturbing visuals. The cheese-grater scene alone is enough to validate the film’s reputation. It falls short of perfection mostly because of the fact that the second part of the film sometimes sacrifices a character-driven plot for action sequences. Forgivable sin, but sin nonetheless. And yet, it is the third best Evil Dead movie ever.
2. The Evil Dead (1981)
Ellen Sandweiss as Cheryl Williams after her Deadite possession in Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead (1981) | Credits: New Line Cinema
Sam Raimi really was Kane Parsons or Curry Barker of his time. Or more appropriately, Parsons and Barker are today’s Raimi. The Evil Dead is one of American horror’s most powerful displays of unabashed sincerity, a movie shot with no money, no famous actors, and no regard whatsoever for restraint by a man only twenty-one years old who made us believe the camera itself was possessed. This is why the movie is a little scrappy and rough around the edges. There is also a controversial scene, a shot really, that Raimi himself regrets. But then again, he probably had no idea it would give birth to one of the most terrifying horror movie franchises.
The relentless, gliding “shaky-cam” (a technique Raimi invented for this movie) that stalks its characters through the Tennessee woods is a formal argument that evil here is an atmospheric condition. It’s not necessarily a monster you can outrun. From its very first moment, the movie sets out to prove that dread and absurdity are one and the same. That’s why the sequels feel like natural evolution, and not betrayal. The first sequel beats it for the top spot because it is just so self-assured.
1. Evil Dead II (1987)
Not a sequel but rather an act of self-revision, Evil Dead II is the point where Raimi took back his own work with full power and resources, and realized that comedy and horror aren’t separate entities but rather different facets of the same impulse. It is the movie about a man who loses everything he can rely on — his sanity, his arm, his understanding of time — and finds some purpose behind that, which, in retrospect, makes it the most emotional and logical movie in the series.
Every subsequent Evil Dead film, Burn included, is still answering questions Evil Dead II asked first and answered best: how far can you push a body before the audience laughs instead of screams, and what does it mean that sometimes they do both at once? It is the best Evil Dead movie because it is the most Evil Dead movie.
Here are all the Evil Dead movies, summarized:
RankTitleDirectorPremiseIMDbRotten Tomatoes6.Army of Darkness (1992)Sam RaimiAsh Williams is transported to medieval England, where he must recover the Necronomicon and battle an army of the undead to return home.7.4/1068% | 87%5.Evil Dead (2013)Fede ÁlvarezFriends gather at a remote cabin to help Mia overcome drug addiction, only to unleash Deadites after reading from the Book of the Dead.6.5/1064% | 64%4.Evil Dead Burn (2026)Sébastien VaničekA grieving widow returns to her late husband’s isolated family home, where a reunion descends into carnage after the Deadites emerge.6.9/1074% | N/A3.Evil Dead Rise (2023)Lee CroninTwo estranged sisters reunite in a condemned apartment building as a demonic force turns their family into bloodthirsty Deadites.6.5/1085% | 76%2.The Evil Dead (1981)Sam RaimiFive friends vacation at a remote cabin, where an ancient recording awakens demonic forces that possess them one by one.7.3/1085% | 84%1.Evil Dead II (1987)Sam RaimiAsh returns to the haunted cabin and battles Deadites in a horror-comedy that reimagines the original while expanding the franchise’s mythology.7.6/1088% | 89%
Where would you rank Evil Dead Burn? Were we too harsh on Army of Darkness? Does Evil Dead II deserve the crown? Sound off in the comments.
All the Evil Dead movies are streaming on HBO Max.
Evil Dead Burn released in US theaters on July 10, 2026.
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