Evil Dead recap: the story so far

No. 01 · 1981 · Film

The Evil Dead recap

The Evil Dead (1981) sends five Michigan State students to a remote Tennessee cabin, where a tape of Sumerian incantations wakes a demon in the woods. Sam Raimi wrote and directed it on a tiny budget, with Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams. Ash brings his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker), his sister Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), his friend Scott (Richard DeManincor) and Scott's girlfriend Shelly (Theresa Tilly). In the cellar they find the Naturom Demonto, a book bound in skin, and an archaeologist's recorder; playing the tape releases the Kandarian Demon. Cheryl is attacked by the trees, then possessed, and the bridge out has been destroyed. One by one the others turn into white-eyed Deadites, and the tape explains that only dismembering the host stops them. Ash is left alone in the cabin, unable to bring himself to cut up the people he loves. This is the first film in the series, followed directly by Evil Dead II.

How The Evil Dead ends

The Evil Dead ends with Ash throwing the Book of the Dead into the fireplace; as it burns, the possessed Cheryl and Scott freeze and rot apart. At dawn he staggers outside, and the unseen demon rushes through the forest and hits him as he screams. Evil Dead II opens by retelling this setup in a shorter form before carrying on from that moment, so the sequel is part remake, part continuation.

Post-credits scenes

No. The Evil Dead has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 02 · 1987 · Film

Evil Dead II recap

Evil Dead II (1987) returns Ash Williams to the cabin, where a taped reading from the Book of the Dead unleashes a demon on him for one long night. Sam Raimi directs and co-wrote it with Scott Spiegel, and Bruce Campbell returns as Ash, this time with more slapstick. A quick prologue recasts the first film with only Ash and Linda (Denise Bixler). After Ash beheads the possessed Linda, his own right hand turns on him, and he cuts it off with a chainsaw. Annie Knowby (Sarah Berry), daughter of the archaeologist who found the Necronomicon, arrives with missing pages and three companions, and they lock Ash in the cellar. Annie's mother Henrietta, buried below, bursts out as a Deadite. Annie translates a ritual that can open a rift and banish the evil. It follows The Evil Dead and leads straight into Army of Darkness.

How Evil Dead II ends

Evil Dead II ends with Annie finishing the incantation as Ash's severed hand stabs her. The rift opens and swallows the demon, Ash and his Oldsmobile, dropping them in the Middle Ages. Knights take Ash for a Deadite until he shoots a flying one, then hail him as the hero from the book's prophecy, the man with a blade for a hand. Ash screams. Army of Darkness picks up from that moment.

Post-credits scenes

No. Evil Dead II has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 03 · 1992 · Film

Army of Darkness recap

Army of Darkness (1992) strands Ash Williams in the Middle Ages, where he needs the Necronomicon to get home and ends up fighting an army of the dead. Sam Raimi directs, with Bruce Campbell as Ash and Embeth Davidtz as Sheila, a woman of Lord Arthur's castle. Taken for a spy, Ash wins over Arthur's court by killing a Deadite in a pit with his shotgun and chainsaw hand. The Wise Man sends him to collect the book, but Ash forgets the last word of the phrase "Klaatu barada nikto" and fumbles it. His mistake raises the dead, led by Evil Ash, a double who split from him in a haunted windmill. Sheila is taken and turned, and Ash uses textbooks from his car to arm the knights. This is the last of Raimi's three films; Ash vs Evil Dead picks up decades later.

How Army of Darkness ends

Army of Darkness ends with Ash beating the Deadites, destroying Evil Ash and saving Sheila, then drinking a potion to sleep his way back to the present. In the theatrical cut he is back at work at S-Mart, where a Deadite he let through attacks shoppers; he shoots it and says "Hail to the king, baby". The director's cut instead has him oversleep and wake in a ruined future.

Post-credits scenes

No. Army of Darkness has no mid- or post-credits scene.

No. 04 · 2013 · Film

Evil Dead recap

Evil Dead (2013) takes Mia, a heroin addict quitting cold turkey, to her family's cabin, where a friend reads from a book of the dead and a demon takes her. Fede Álvarez directs his first feature, with Jane Levy as Mia Allen and Shiloh Fernandez as her half-brother David. Their friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci), a teacher, and Olivia (Jessica Lucas), a nurse, come along, as does David's girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore). Eric finds the Naturom Demonto among animal carcasses in the cellar and reads aloud from it. Mia sees a double of herself in the woods and is possessed, but the others take her terror for withdrawal. Eric learns the demon needs five souls to raise the Abomination, and that Mia can be saved by burial, dismemberment or burning. It works as a soft reboot that stands on its own, with Evil Dead Rise loosely following.

How Evil Dead ends

Evil Dead ends with David burying Mia alive and reviving her with a homemade defibrillator, which drives out the demon. David then dies in an explosion, the fifth soul, and blood rains as the Abomination rises. Mia loses her hand to an overturned car but splits the Abomination in half with a chainsaw, and walks away unaware the book survived.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. A post-credits scene shows Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) in silhouette saying "Groovy."

No. 05 · 2015 · Series

Ash vs Evil Dead recap

Ash vs Evil Dead (2015) finds Ash Williams, now a stock boy living in a trailer, unleashing the Deadites again 30 years after Army of Darkness. Starz aired it from 2015 to 2018 over three seasons and 30 episodes, with Bruce Campbell returning as Ash. Two co-workers join him: Pablo Simon Bolivar (Ray Santiago), who calls him El Jefe, and Kelly Maxwell (Dana DeLorenzo), who loses her parents to the Deadites. Ruby Knowby (Lucy Lawless) hunts the book and turns out to have her own plans for it. Season one ends back at the original cabin. Season two takes Ash home to Elk Grove, Michigan, where the town remembers him as "Ashy Slashy", the demon Baal hunts the group, and Ash's father Brock (Lee Majors) appears. Season three introduces Ash's teenage daughter Brandy Barr (Arielle Carver-O'Neill) and the Knights of Sumeria. It follows Army of Darkness and ignores the 2013 film.

How Ash vs Evil Dead ends

Ash vs Evil Dead ends with "The Mettle of Man": Ash stays behind in a tank and fires a shell carrying the Kandarian Dagger through Kandar the Destroyer, killing it. He wakes in a ruined future with a mechanical hand, meets a woman named Lexx and drives off with her in a rebuilt Delta 88. Starz cancelled the series before that cliffhanger could be followed up, and a planned animated revival was later dropped.

No. 06 · 2023 · Film

Evil Dead Rise recap

Evil Dead Rise (2023) brings the Deadites to a Los Angeles apartment block, where an earthquake exposes a vault holding a volume of the Book of the Dead. Lee Cronin writes and directs. Guitar tech Beth (Lily Sullivan), newly pregnant, visits her sister Ellie Bixler (Alyssa Sutherland), a tattoo artist raising three kids alone in a building set to be torn down. Her son Danny (Morgan Davies) brings up the book and some 1923 records from a priest who studied it, and plays them. Ellie is possessed and turns on her family and neighbors, while the stairs and lift are wrecked. Daughter Bridget (Gabrielle Echols) is infected next, leaving Beth to protect the youngest, Kassie (Nell Fisher). Bruce Campbell has a voice cameo on one record. It follows the 2013 film in the new thread, and Evil Dead Burn follows it.

How Evil Dead Rise ends

Evil Dead Rise ends with the possessed Ellie, Bridget and Danny merging into a many-limbed creature called the Marauder. Beth and Kassie escape the falling lift into the car park and grind it up in a wood chipper, and Beth kicks Ellie's talking head in after it. The prologue, with a possessed young woman named Jessica at a lake cabin, turns out to take place the next morning. Evil Dead Burn picks up Jessica and Ellie.

No. 07 · 2026 · Film

Evil Dead Burn recap

Evil Dead Burn (2026) follows Alice, a young widow staying with her late husband's family, as his corpse returns as a Deadite and possesses them one by one. Sébastien Vaniček directs from a script he wrote with Florent Bernard. Alice Price (Souheila Yacoub) lost William (George Pullar) when the possessed Jessica, from Evil Dead Rise, caused his car to crash and burn. After his cremation she stays with his brother Joseph (Hunter Doohan), Joseph's girlfriend Thya (Luciane Buchanan), his parents Susan (Tandi Wright) and Edgar (Erroll Shand), and grandmother Polly (Maude Davey). Edgar is burned by the Deadite at the crematorium and turns first. Joseph has his grandfather's research on the Kandarian Dagger, which can send Deadites back to Hell. The siege also brings back Alice's memories of William's abuse. It follows Evil Dead Rise.

How Evil Dead Burn ends

Evil Dead Burn ends with Alice finding the dagger, killing the possessed Joseph and Susan and setting the house on fire. William's charred Deadite chases her to a construction site, where she stabs him, refuses a vision of him saying he loves her, and crushes his head. She crawls to the road and tells police her ex-husband did it. A prequel, Evil Dead Wrath, is set for 2028.

Post-credits scenes

Yes. Post-credits scenes show Polly escaping and attacking a motorist, and Ellie Bixler returning at a crematorium.