The Perfect Horror Franchise Is Streaming All In One Place
All five Evil Dead films are streaming on Max.
The Evil Dead franchise has a lot going for it across five movies — a book made of human skin, a man who replaces his hand with a chainsaw, an over-the-top trip to the middle ages, and thousands of gallons of fake blood drenching the scenery. This, combined with compelling characters and frenetic pacing, make it no surprise that the property is still going strong after four decades. Now, fans of the franchise can watch all five Evil Dead films on the streaming service Max (Formerly HBO Max).
The original movie was a low-budget horror film made in 1981 by future Spider-Man and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness director Sam Raimi. It was made with just $375,000 — all of which was earned by shopping around a prototype 32-minute short film called Within the Woods that Raimi made in 1978.
Within the Woods was the first horror film the independent filmmaker made — previously, he had created slapstick comedies such as the 1977 movie It’s Murder!
Starring a then-unknown Bruce Campbell, The Evil Dead followed the now-iconic Ash Williams as he found himself trapped in a cabin fending off evil spirits and his demon-possessed friends. The film’s heavy use of gore shocked some audiences, but it was a sleeper hit, making almost $3 million.
Evil Dead 2 is a bit of an odd movie, as it’s pretty much a higher-budget remake of the original film despite being billed as a sequel. However, while the original film was played as straight horror, the sequel leans heavily into comedy.
This second film is where many of the series’ most iconic moments come from, such as Ash fighting off his own demon-possessed hand and attaching a chainsaw to his stump.
Army of Darkness is even more bizarre than Evil Dead 2, featuring Ash Williams going back in time with his chainsaw arm and “boomstick” to fight off the undead in medieval Europe as he tries to find his way back to his own time. While less well-received by critics, the movie is still something of a cult classic.
After Army of Darkness, however, it seemed like the Evil Dead franchise was dead in the water. In 2000, Raimi said in the book The Evil Dead Companion that he had no plans on making another sequel to the film. This statement prompted an unknown production company, Awards Pictures, to attempt to make their own unauthorized sequel titled Evil Dead 4: Consequences in 2012.
The attempt to make a bootleg Evil Dead movie ultimately failed because that’s illegal. Award Pictures president Glenn Macrae didn’t even bother to show up in court after Raimi’s company, Rennaisance Pictures, sued to stop the production of the movie.
It was then that we learned that Raimi was going to make another movie — the quasi-remake Evil Dead, which was released in 2013.
The 2013 Evil Dead proved that there was still an audience for the franchise, making $97.5 million off of a budget of just $17 million. The success led to the production of yet another sequel, Evil Dead Rise, which was released this year. Evil Dead Rise was even more successful, earning almost $150 million, meaning there’s a good chance that yet another film will be on its way.
The franchise has not been limited to the medium of film, however. The franchise has been adapted to comic books, along with 10 separate video game adaptations (dating all the way back to the 1984 Commodore 64 game). There is even Evil Dead The Musical, a stage play famous for having a “splatter zone” where audience members can expect to get hit with stage blood.
There was also a three-season TV series, Ash vs Evil Dead, which ran from 2015 through 2018 on Starz. The Sam Raimi-directed series, which plays more into comedy than the 2013 and 2023 films, followed the protagonist of the first three films as he once again has to fight off the titular Evil Dead.
The series is not available on Max, however — but it can be viewed on Hulu and Amazon Prime if you add a Starz subscription to your plan.
