'Evil Dead Rise' brings blood, chills and a chainsaw in first trailer for Raimi-produced revival

As of this year, it's a decade since the last time we got a new Evil Dead story on the big screen. That changes this April with the arrival of Evil Dead Rise, and based on the creepy first trailer, it's an experience that was well worth the wait.

Written and directed by Lee Cronin (The Hole in the Ground), the new film takes the "Spooky Book in a Cabin Cellar" dynamic and supersizes it, turning the cabin into an entire apartment building where Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) is trying to keep things together as a single mom in a small apartment. Things get quite a bit harder when the building's basement turns up a mysterious and familiar old book, and of course somehow those evil words get read, and soon the whole place is swarming with Deadites, leaving Ellie's children and her sister Beth (Lily Sullivan) to fight to survive the onslaught.

In a brief tease released Tuesday, Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell revealed that he'd seen the film already, and that in his mind it was "the scariest" film the franchise has put forth yet. Judging by this trailer, he might be right.

Check it out below:

Then you can check out the red-band version of the trailer here:

The trailer shows off a good bit of what horror fans can expect, and it certainly looks just as unsettling and terrifying as any of the OG Evil Dead films. It's also worth noting, if these are the moments that made the trailer, we can't wait to see what was too extreme to show here. The first footage also included some touchstones fans will certainly recognize: the Necronomicon, deadite transformations and of course a chainsaw.

In development in some form basically since Evil Dead hit theaters in the spring of 2013, Evil Dead Rise has gone through several different permutations, eventually settling on a story by Cronin, who's certainly bringing his own horror bona fides to the table. And he's not doing it alone. Original Evil Dead II producer Rob Tapert is back on board for the film, and both Campbell and original writer/director Sam Raimi are serving as executive producers on the project. So you see, they're all one big Deadite family, and they're coming for us again.

Evil Dead Rise hits theaters April 21, 2023.

Hoping to be scared before Evil Dead Rise arrives? Watch Day of the Dead, The Black Phone, They/Them or Prom Night, all now streaming on Peacock. 

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