Sightlines · reception

How Evil Dead Rise was received

2023 · Lee Cronin · Evil Dead Rise on Sightlines

The arc

Landed in 2023 as that rare legacy-franchise revival critics and gorehounds both embraced, and a sleeper box-office hit; a few years on it's settled in as proof the Evil Dead series can thrive without Ash, with Cronin handed the keys to keep going.

What’s debated

The forever fight: does it capture Raimi's splatstick spirit or play it too straight — and is it better or worse than the also-humorless 2013 remake?

Its footprint

The cheese grater scene instantly became horror shorthand — 'you'll never look at a cheese grater the same way' was half the marketing and most of the memes — and 'Mommy's with the maggots now' is the line everyone quotes.

Where it stands

A modern horror crowd-pleaser and Letterboxd favorite — the franchise entry people now recommend to prove legacy sequels can actually work.

Did you know? It was originally made as a straight-to-HBO-Max streaming release, but test screenings went so well that Warner Bros. upgraded it to a full theatrical run — where it went on to gross over $145 million on a modest budget.

Named by the director

• The Shining (1980) — Cronin has acknowledged the flooding-elevator-of-blood moment as a deliberate nod to Kubrick's film.