‘Evil Dead Rise’ director breaks down the ‘universe-opening’ ending

With its brutal scalpings, decapitations, gut-wrenching possessions, and the amalgamation of Deadites flushed down the wood chipper, Evil Dead Rise’s sickening gruesomeness follows the franchise’s legacy for fear-inducement and the macabre.

With frightening jump scares coupled with a gripping storyline addressing the themes of family conflict, sibling relationships, and motherhood, Evil Dead Rise delivers a mind-blowing addition to the saga.

While the primary storyline revolves around the possession of a mother of three, Ellie by Deadlites ensuing a series of murders, and gore-filled escapism, it is the film’s prologue that has captured the attention of many.

It features a girl named Jessica, who in a state of demonic possession tears her friend’s scalp off her head before decapitating another using a drone, after which she rises from the water and hangs in the air while the film’s title flashes across the scene.

Not only does the scene divers from the primary plot which is shown to have taken place a day earlier, but it also introduces the viewers to a preview of what’s in store.

Still, the prologue leaves a trail of questions like, who is Jessica? How did she get possessed and what happened to the film’s leading characters? It is not until the end that we are provided with an explanation that showcases she is none other than a resident of the building who after discovering the bloody wood-chipper from last night’s misadventures is immediately possessed by an unseen entity the same way as Ellie.

In an interview with Indiewire, director Lee Cronin explains how this connection between the prologue and epilogue is quite unlike any other Evil Dead movie.

“The first sequence we experience in the movie, if you actually reordered it, is the last thing in terms of the timeline. The order of the movie is what happens in the city, then it’s the epilogue with the girl in the parking lot, and then it’s the opening, which I found quite fun and also just felt different for an Evil Dead movie. But also as much as it felt different, Evil Dead is kind of weird. Like Evil Dead II, it’s got this weird prologue and nothing quite connects. So it felt within the world and acceptable to do”

The curiosity doesn’t end there, as it led many to wonder how a possessed Jessica managed to drive up to a weekend getaway with her friends. Cronin answered this question by saying that the psychological ability of certain victims to withstand their immediate possession is not unique to the franchise, and we have in one way or another encountered it in other Evil Dead films.

“The idea of someone, who is slowly turning into a Deadite, driving a car kind of cracks me up. And I remember taking influence from COVID: everybody gets it different, right? There’s no one size fits all. In the Evil Dead world, your psychological strengths and weaknesses have an impact in terms of how you’re possessed and how you behave.”

With the addition of various newer ideas, the movie continues to be successful in terrifying – as well as immensely impressing – viewers.