Theatrical experiences are essential, but there’s also something to be said for getting the pants scared off you in your own home. Netflix watchers seem to agree, as they’ve been flocking to “Evil Dead Rise” en masse since it hit the streamer just two days ago, according to FlixPatrol. The analytics site tracks what Netflix subscribers are watching, and Lee Cronin’s gross and grimy addition to the Sam Raimi-created “Evil Dead” universe is currently the second-most watched movie on Netflix according to its metrics.
“Evil Dead Rise” is losing out only to “The Garfield Movie,” which is no surprise given that kids’ movies typically dominate the home media charts (likely for both rewatchability and ease of access reasons). The two titles couldn’t be more different, though, as one features a cat who loves lasagna and one (literally) takes a cheese grater to a demonically-possessed woman’s leg. As skin-crawling at that scene is, it’s not even the grossest part of Cronin’s film, which does away with much of the humor and camp of Raimi’s original trilogy while keeping its sicko spirit alive. The film famously utilized over 1,700 gallons of fake blood, and is generally a hell of a movie to accidentally click on if you’re browsing the Netflix home page.
Assuming that’s not the case for most viewers, the immediate success of “Evil Dead Rise” on Netflix is yet more proof that horror fans reliably show up for good movies. The genre has pretty consistently been a moneymaker in recent years, with movies including “Alien: Romulus,” “Five Nights At Freddy’s,” “Scream VI,” and “A Quiet Place: Day One” all crossing the $100 million threshold at the box office in the past two years. “Evil Dead Rise” also hit that coveted benchmark, turning a reportedly small budget into a $146 million global theatrical payday (per The Numbers).
Evil Dead Rise dominated the box office and now it’s taking over streaming
“Evil Dead Rise” is technically a standalone installment of the classic franchise, with a powerful, devilish book and the relentless demons known as the Deadites as the only connective tissue between the new movie and the originals. In case you haven’t seen it yet, the movie stars Lily Sullivan as Beth, a band roadie whose attempts to escape reality for a bit at her artistic sister Ellie’s (Alyssa Sutherland) LA apartment are thwarted when the Deadites come knocking. Together with her sister’s kids (Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols, and Nell Fisher), Beth faces off against some nasty supernatural beasties who seem to never run out of free time or energy.
The film earned mostly positive reviews upon its release, with /Film’s Jacob Hall writing in his review that Sutherland’s performance is a “real revelation” and the movie’s gross-out special effects are “frequently stunning.” As Jacob put it: “Cronin knows what made the first two ‘Evil Dead’ movies in particular work and leans into it while being unafraid to leave a new mark. While certainly darker than Raimi’s films, this is, like them, a hyper-violent tour through a nightmarish funhouse that pauses only to show off something gnarly enough that you can only scream or laugh.”
“Evil Dead Rise” was nominated for dozens of genre awards in 2023, and /Film even named it the second-best horror movie of the year. Now, it’s available to stream on Netflix in all its creepy, stomach-churning glory — that is, if you dare watch it.
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