WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Evil Dead Rise!The Evil Dead Rise ending perfectly reinvents the gory violence that the franchise is known for. However, the Evil Dead reboot’s final scenes also brim with emotional overtones that turn the supernatural horror film into an exploration of parenthood. Set mostly within a night, Evil Dead Rise shifts the series’ focus from cabins in forests to an old Los Angeles apartment building. The plot begins with estranged sisters, Beth and Ellie, crossing paths only for their reunion to be cut short by The Evil Dead’s infamous Necronomicon AKA the Book of the Dead. The volume’s curses open a Pandora’s Box of demonic possession that endangers the protagonists’ family.
Even though the 2013 remake of Sam Raimi’s original The Evil Dead also garnered positive reviews, Evil Dead Rise revitalized the franchise with new claustrophobic settings and morally-conflicted characters. Apart from its awe-inducing hyperviolence and innovative jump scares, Evil Dead Rise also garnered positive acclaim for Lee Corin’s writing and directorial efforts along with Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland’s performances. Largely considered a cult classic, 1981’s The Evil Dead also had drawbacks such as its treatment of female characters. However, Evil Dead Rise has enough Easter Eggs and hidden details to offer tribute to the original films while also putting the spotlight on stronger female leads.
What Happened In Evil Dead Rise's Ending
Ever since Ellie awakened as a Deadite, chaos ensued in Ellie’s residential building with the Necronomicon foreshadowing many other Deadites. This includes the hybrid form that Beth fights against in the Evil Dead Rise ending. With the bodies of Ellie, her children Danny and Bridget and her neighbors Gabriel and Mr. Fonda fusing into a single Deadite, Beth must rescue Ellie’s youngest and only surviving daughter Kassie from the multi-armed abomination’s clutches. Beth uses a chainsaw to force the Deadite into a wood chipper. Even when the Deadite seems to be killed, Ellie’s head rolls out.
As the Deadite-possessed Ellie has a habit of targeting others’ fears and bringing them down, Ellie’s head still tries to tap into Beth’s professional and personal insecurities. But this time, Beth gets a hold of herself and accepts that her sister is dead. She finally kicks the head back into the chipper. But all is not well as the story steers towards the next day revealing that another tenant in the building named Jessica is possessed by the Deadites. This connects back to the shocking opening scene of Evil Dead Rise in which a possessed Jessica brutally slays her sister and boyfriend.
How Beth Defeats The Deadite
It wouldn't be an Evil Dead movie without a chainsaw, as it became Ash's signature weapon when he had his hand chopped off and replaced it with a chainsaw in Evil Dead II. Since then, chainsaws have been the number one choice for every protagonist when it comes to Deadite defense, including Mia in 2013's Evil Dead, making it the signature weapon for the entire franchise even when there's no Ash around.
In the basement garage of the apartment building in the Evil Dead Rise ending, Beth finds a chainsaw and uses it to attack each part of the multi-headed Deadite. With the chainsaw, Beth cuts off several limbs and heads of the Deadite and pushes them into the conveniently placed woodchipper, which is also sitting in the basement garage. For the last remaining part of the Deadite, Ellie's head, Beth forcefully kicks it into the woodchipper like a football.
Beth And Kassie Are The Only Ones To Survive
Despite Danny and Bridget’s best efforts, it is only Ellie’s daughter Kassie and her aunt Beth who manage to survive the Evil Dead Rise ending. In a visually spectacular callback to The Shining, Beth and Kassie escape their floor through an elevator flooded with blood. Despite the overflowing blood, the aunt-niece duo manages to get out of the lift and walk into the parking lot. Sadly, the naive and nimble Kassie is abducted by the final Deadite that attempts to kill her with a chainsaw. It’s because of Beth that she survives as she kills the Deadite with a chainsaw.
Even though Beth was just introduced as an ordinary guitar technician, the unpredictable turn of events after Ellie’s possession tested her survival skills to the fullest. Making use of whatever object she can grab (from a pair of scissors to the chainsaw), Beth proved her worth as a notable foe to the Deadites. Kassie might have been caught in the end, but even she previously showed her capacity to inflict violence such as the scene in which she impaled a possessed Bridget. The ultimate survival also required mental strength as Beth was constantly being put down by Ellie’s judgmental behavior and Kassie falsely believed that her mother is still alive.
Beth Overcomes Her Fears About Parenthood By Defeating The Deadite
The Evil Dead Rise ending perfectly closes the film as a tale of parenthood. Earlier in the horror, Ellie is depicted as the mother of three children. Despite her financial struggles as a tattoo artist, she manages to do her best to secure her family’s life. Beth, on the other hand, has recently found out that she’s pregnant and wishes to talk to Ellie to discuss her future as a mother. With professional instability and emotional baggage, it is obvious that Beth fears becoming a parent. But since Ellie’s transformation into a Deadite, Beth proved that she too can be a devoted and protective guardian just like her elder sister.
Even though Danny and Bridget died, Beth gave her all to save them from the Deadites infecting Ellie’s building. She could’ve also safely run away when the final Deadite attempted to kill Kassie. The very fact that Beth braved her way to fight the grotesque entity adds to the fact that Beth is an efficient paternal figure. Even before the final battle, she tried her best to safely hide Kassie given that she was the youngest member of the family. A full circle is reached when Kassie remarks that Beth would make a good mother. The woman who feared turning into a mother just got validated by her own niece.
The Ending To Evil Dead Rise Sets Up More Sequels
The Evil Dead Rise ending opens up the possibilities of many more sequels and spin-offs as the Deadites are still out in the open. Moving from Ellie’s residential complex to Jessica’s forest getaway, the Necronomicon continues to wreak havoc. In this sense, the Deadites have spread like a zombie virus and need to be contained in the sequels. With Bruce Campbell’s hidden voice cameo in Evil Dead Rise, there’s a possibility that the actor can return as Ash in any sequels. With Beth’s blood-stained face and chainsaw-wielding skills mirroring Ash’s image, it is also possible that she leads the franchise and becomes as iconic as Ash.
As scary and violent as the original Evil Dead films, Evil Dead Rise was instantly cherished by genre fans ever since it was released in theaters. A financial success for producers New Line Cinema and distributors Warner Bros. Pictures, Evil Dead Rise can kickstart its own horror universe much like the two companies’ Conjuring Universe. Going by the lore set by its predecessors, it is also highly possible that there are many other volumes of Necronomicon scattered all over the world. If more such books get discovered, the sequels will dabble into higher stakes following up on Jessica’s possession that ended Evil Dead Rise.
What The Evil Dead Rise Ending Means
The Evil Dead Rise ending with a new hybridized incarnation of a Deadite means that the original Deadites were just the beginning, and there could be way more terrifying and continuously evolving Deadites in future installments of the franchise. As the Book of the Dead revealed the multi-limbed Deadite before all of the Deadites in the movie morphed into one entity, there's no knowing what other mindblowing, disgusting, and shocking types of Deadites are on the following pages.
The mysterious entity attacking Vanessa before the movie cuts to the credits is more than just a simple reference to the original movie's ending too. That shot also means that no matter how much Ash or Beth or anybody else "kills" a Deadite, its essence will never die. Groups of people becoming possessed by Deadites is almost like a neverending loop, as the Evil Dead Rise ending perfectly leads into the beginning of the film where Vanessa is camping with her friends.
At the end of the movie, Beth grabs Kassie's hand and they leave the apartment building, but Beth also has the shotgun in her other hand. The shotgun acts as proof that the movie is ushering in a new Evil Dead hero and becoming the franchise's new version of Ash, as the famous Boomstick was another of Ash's signature weapons. She certainly isn't finished killing Deadites. Further proof of this is one of four Evil Dead Rise sequel ideas director Lee Cronin has, which is picking up where Evil Dead Rise left off, with Beth and Kassie, and where they go next.