Film

Evil Dead

Name: Evil Dead
Genre: Horror
Released: 2013
Cast: Jane Levy, Shiloh Fernandez, Lou Taylor Pucci, Jessica Lucas, Elizabeth Blackmore

Sam Raimi's cult classic dragged into the modern splatter era—less winking, way more red. A woman's brutal drug withdrawal doubles as demonic possession, and her friends' good intentions become fuel for escalating spectacle: machetes, chainsaws, entire buckets of blood. It's mean, committed, and gleefully overkill—for horror fans who want practical gore pushed to its structural limit, not jokes.

TMDb rating

6.7

If you liked this

Evil Dead II1987

Raimi's own sequel swaps dread for delirious slapstick—chainsaw hands, talking deer heads, a hero fighting his own possessed body parts. It shows how elastic this story can be.

But The comedy is broad and the effects are rubbery-cheap by design, which can feel like a step down if you came for straight-faced terror.

The Cabin in the Woods2012

Takes the exact setup—friends, isolated cabin, ancient evil—and turns it inside out with a wicked, genre-literate twist about why these stories keep happening to us.

But The self-aware cleverness undercuts genuine scares; if you want to just feel dread rather than think about dread, it might frustrate.

You're Next2013

Same isolated-house dread and unglamorous, brutal violence, but swaps demons for very human killers and a heroine who fights back with terrifying competence.

But No supernatural element at all, so if the demon possession was the draw, this trades it for slasher mechanics instead.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Night of the Demon1957

Both stories hinge on the exact same trigger: someone reads forbidden words aloud and unleashes something ancient. This is the polite, suggestion-based ancestor of that moment, proving the idea worked decades before anyone thought to add a chainsaw.

A black-and-white British classic where reading aloud from a cursed text summons an ancient demon—same ignition point as Evil Dead, played with eerie restraint instead of gore.

But Slow, talky, and almost entirely bloodless by design—patience for atmosphere over spectacle is required.

The Conjuring2013

Released the same year, it's the polished, PG-13 cousin to Evil Dead's splatter—dread built from craft and jump scares rather than buckets of viscera.

But Considerably less gory and more restrained; horror purists after visceral extremity will find it comparatively tame.

Drag Me to Hell2009

Sam Raimi again, but here he leans fully into horror-comedy—a woman cursed by a demon, escalating slapstick gore, and gleeful bad taste throughout.

But It's a comedy first, so the scares are punchlines; if you want the remake's unrelenting seriousness, this will feel like a wink instead.

Hereditary2018

A family possessed—literally and figuratively—by inherited horror, told with the same commitment to escalating dread but in a much quieter, more devastating register.

But Slow-burn and emotionally punishing rather than splattery; if you came for chainsaws, this will feel like an entirely different film.

The Descent2005

Six women trapped underground face something ancient and hungry—claustrophobic, brutal, and just as committed to physical extremity and practical gore.

But The monsters take a while to show up, and the tension is more suffocating than the sudden shocks of the remake.

It Follows2015

An unstoppable, shape-shifting evil that spreads and pursues—dread built on inevitability rather than gore, with a nostalgic, unplaceable sense of time.

But Almost no splatter at all; if the appeal was viscera and volume, this quiet creeper will feel like a mismatch.

Requiem for a Dream2000

Evil Dead uses possession as a literal stand-in for withdrawal; this film removes the metaphor and shows the same collapse without a demon to blame, which makes it much harder to watch and much sadder.

Strips away the demon entirely and shows addiction eating a body and a family from the inside—every bit as harrowing as watching Mia's withdrawal turn monstrous, minus the supernatural excuse.

But There's no catharsis of gore or a villain to defeat—just relentless, realistic despair that some viewers will find unbearable rather than fun.

Little Shop of Horrors1986

Same DIY creature-feature lineage as Raimi's splatter aesthetic—handmade monsters, gleeful excess, a body slowly overtaken by something hungry—just filtered through show tunes instead of screams.

A blood-hungry plant takes over a mild-mannered florist's life in a jaunty musical comedy built on the same puppet-and-practical-effects gore ethos that powers Raimi's whole career.

But It's a musical—characters sing, the tone is broad camp, and there's not a single genuine scare in it.