With Evil Dead Rise bringing attention back to the classic Sam Raimi franchise, there have been plenty of questions about deadite possession. In 1981, Sam Raimi directed the video nasties-era movie, The Evil Dead. In this movie, Ashley Williams (Bruce Campbell) went to a cabin in the woods for a vacation. When they read from a book called The Necronomicon, they released the evil deadites, and one by one all of Bruce's family and friends at the cabin ended up possessed and he had to kill them one by one. After two sequels, things remained quiet on the deadite front for a couple of decades.
In 2013, Evil Dead brought the deadites back with a new story and no Ash. This removed much of the comedy and made the deadite possession deadly, dangerous, and bloody. Ash returned for a TV series that once again rewrote the rules of the deadites for a new generation. Finally, Evil Dead Rise followed suit with the 2013 movie and made them deadlier and more serious than ever. All through the series, the rules of the deadite possession changed, as did the appearance of the demonic beings and the ways to kill them changed as well. However, with all the changes, there came a real explanation of why they were all different, and how they all still remain connected with the originals.
How Deadite Possession Worked In The Original Evil Dead
When franchise hero Ash first encountered deadite possession in the original Evil Dead, he lost his best friends, his sister, and his girlfriend Linda when the beings were unleashed from the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, AKA The Book Of The Dead. While his companions get taken over throughout the story, Ash himself somehow avoids the deadite possession. The first deadite viewers meet is the one that takes over Ash's sister Cheryl, who was the victim of the movie's now-notorious tree rape sequence. Following Cheryl, it appears every character who is subsequently possessed is either wounded or at the point of death when they are taken over.
Scotty is essentially drawing his last breath when he is zombified, while Linda invites the entities in while she is passed out from the pencil wound to her ankle. Though she is not mortally wounded, this speaks to the second possible source of deadite possession in Evil Dead - strength of character. Linda is not particularly strong-willed, which may have allowed the demons to take hold as she wasn't able to fight off their possession.
Ash, in comparison, is later possessed in Evil Dead II for a time and this first happens when he seemingly drowns in muddy water. Sunlight quickly banishes the evil from Ash, but when he's later taken over again he regains his humanity and pushes the demons out when he finds Linda's necklace, which he had given to her as a gift. Being able to regain his soul through sheer force of will might be one reason Ash is named the Chosen One.
Most Of The Evil Dead Franchise Didn't Change How Deadites Work
These ideas continue in Army Of Darkness and Ash Vs Evil Dead, where viewers are introduced to characters who share Ash’s strength and can fight off possession because of their inner strength or lack of mortal wounds. Kelly and Pablo, like Ash, are possessed by the entity but eventually find their way back to humanity, but with lingering effects. Ash’s cop friend, Amanda, is not so lucky as she is impaled and bleeds out, becoming a deadite at the point of death. In Army Of Darkness, Sheila is one of the few characters who is able to survive possession as well.
She is turned by Bad Ash, a mutated, somewhat cloned copy of the hero after he kisses her, and she becomes his deadite queen. In this case, she does not necessarily fight off the entity but is saved when Ash destroys the evil and erases its effects on the land. In the Evil Dead remake, Mia isn't able to fight off her possession, so her brother literally has to bury her alive and then revive her in order to save her soul. It changed the rules of deadite possession once again.
Obviously, the Necronomicon makes its own rules but is seemingly unable to simply possess a human unless that person is dying or lacks the inner strength to fight back. It also has the ability to possess inanimate objects too, with such examples as a mounted deer head, a Little Lorie doll, and even Ash’s severed hand. So, like becoming a zombie, there are methods to Evil Dead’s deadite possession, even if none of the movies necessarily spell out the logic. The Evil Dead, however, thrives on creativity so these "rules" could most likely change at the drop of a hat - one that's still attached to a severed head.
How Evil Dead Rise Changes The Deadite Possession Rules
The rules of deadite possession changed in the 2023 release Evil Dead Rise. Not only that but director Lee Cronin revealed that all the Evil Dead movies co-exist, and he explained why the deadites change in each movie. There is a line from Army of Darkness that revealed there were three different Necronomicon books - and each one was different with different rules and variant deadites. Cronin said the deadite possession from Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies was from one book, the remake was from a second book, and Evil Dead Rise was a third book. This means all three Evil Dead versions can live in the same universe and co-exist.
Evil Dead Rise makes some huge changes to the deadite possession. For one thing, the priest in the recording says that burial does not work on these, as it did in the remake movie. He also said that fire and daylight also do no harm, as the deadites just dance in the flames. This means one of the big ways to eliminate them from Ash's movies was also gone. Also, the deadites in the new movie are even crueler than in the other versions. Instead of mocking its victims, these add an almost satanic flair to the horrors and make things look bleaker than ever.
The final big change is how the deadite possession works. In the first three movies, it was mostly a deadite attacking a vulnerable person and taking control of their bodies. It wasn't until Ash was strong enough to withstand the deadite possession that he defeated them. There was also the idea that someone who received a bodily injury from a deadite could end up possessed, but that also changed somewhat in Evil Dead Rise, as even injured people withstood the deadite possession. In Evil Dead Rise, deadites can manipulate even inanimate objects and use them to target their victims, as it did with Ellie and things just imploded from there.
This leads to the reason why injuries can cause some people to end up possessed and others not. One example is when Ellie is injured, and she ends up possessed, and there is no turning back for her. However, there was also a point where Beth was stabbed. Even with the injury, and her open body wound, she never ended up showing signs of a deadite possession. This is likely because she never let her fear overwhelm her. In Evil Dead Rise, Beth wanted to save her nieces and nephew and her strength, like Ash in Evil Dead, allowed her bravery to overwhelm the fear, and the weakness deadite possession requires was nowhere to be found.