Deadite Ellie’s creepy dream monologue in her terrifying first scene inEvil Dead Riseslyly foreshadows the character’s twisted ending. Released to critical and commercial success in 2023,Evil Dead Risebrought the gory terror ofSam Raimi’s classic horror comedy franchiseout of the woods and into a dilapidated apartment complex in Los Angeles. When a couple of kids find a volume of theNaturom Demontoin the building’s flooded basement, they unwittingly invite the pesky Deadites into their family home.
Writer-director Lee Cronin honored the grisly legacy of the franchise while putting his own spin on it and bringing the blood and guts to a whole new stomach-churning level. Whereas previousEvil Deadmovieshad seen a group of friends contending with the Deadites,Evil Dead Risepitted a family against the demonic spirits. The Deadites possess single mother Ellie and her pregnant sister Beth has to protect her nephew and nieces in the ultimate test of readiness for parenthood.
Ellie Possesses Her Kids & Literally Morphs Into Them As “One Happy Family”
After Ellie is possessed by the Deadites in the elevator, she returns to the apartment and her family notices she’s acting strange. Ellie gives a frightening monologue about “the most beautiful dream” she had. She says, “It was a perfect day and all I could think about was how much I wanted to cut you all open and climb inside your bodies so that we could stay one happy family.” This monologue sets an appropriately unsettling tone for the story that follows, but it also grimly foreshadows what Deadite-possessed Ellie will do to her kids inEvil Dead Rise’s ending.
It was a perfect day and all I could think about was how much I wanted to cut you all open and climb inside your bodies so that we could stay one happy family.
In the end, Ellie does just that to her kids Danny and Bridget. Beth manages to escape with the youngest child, Kassie, but Danny and Bridget aren’t so lucky. Ellie cuts Bridget open, then Bridget cuts Danny open. After breaking into the apartment,Ellie deals Bridget a terrible wound, and through that wound, she gets possessed. Then, the possessedBridget fatally stabs Danny, allowing him to be possessed, too. In the horrifying, blood-soaked finale, Ellie morphs herself, Danny, and Bridget intoone ungodly being known as “The Marauder,”bonding them all together as “one happy family.”
The Marauder Is A Twisted Representation Of The Theme Of Motherhood
On the surface, it might just seem like a bloody gore-fest, butEvil Dead Risedeals with some deeper themes. It’s a story about motherhood and the struggle to keep a family together.It’s about a mother’s fear of losing her childrenor having them leave home. Beth is experiencing these feelings for the first time after finding out she’s pregnant, and Ellie is feeling particularly vulnerable and protective of her kids following her divorce.The Marauder monster visualizes a mother’s desire to keep her kids closeand never let them go.
Evil Dead Rise
Cast
The Evil Dead franchise continues with Evil Dead Rise, a dark fantasy/horror film written and directed by Lee Cronin. This fifth entry in the Evil Dead named series follows two sisters, played by Alyssa Sutherland and Lily Sullivan, as they attempt to survive a demonic assault from a Deadite. Beth (Sullivan) heads on a road trip to visit her sister Ellie (Sutherland) and her children. However, when the Necronomicon is discovered in Ellie’s L.A. apartment building, the Deadites rise back from their demonic realm and begin to bring hell back to earth once again. Evil Dead Rise, initially an HBO Max streaming exclusive, instead arrived in theaters on Aug 09, 2025.
