Happy Halloween! Here's A First Look At Evil Dead Rise

Happy Halloween, /Film readers! This is one of our favorite holidays, and honestly, we can't think of any better way to celebrate than with the first look at Lee Cronin's "Evil Dead Rise," the fifth installment in Sam Raimi's gloriously gory franchise. Warner Bros. released the first still from the film on its Twitter account, showcasing a woman that could be in better shape through a bloody peephole. Cronin also posted the photo on his account, teasing that his film "is gonna make your eyes bleed." We wouldn't want anything less.

This new look at "Evil Dead Rise" further affirms something that has been debated since the official merging of Warner Bros. Discovery in August. The film was originally slated to be an HBO Max exclusive release, but when titles for the platform began getting canceled or removed, fans began to worry that the return of the Deadites would meet a similar fate. Thankfully, it was announced in late August that "Evil Dead Rise" was slated for a theatrical release, being one of two previously-HBO Max exclusive titles to receive such news (the second being "House Party," which will arrive in theaters on January 13). Needless to say, we're happy that Warner Bros. is committed to releasing this bad boy in theaters, as it is shaping up to be quite the moviegoing experience.

While the majority of information on "Evil Dead Rise" is being appropriately kept under wraps, there are still some nuggets of details we can sift through. The film will center around two sisters, Beth (Lily Sullivan) and Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), as their tension-filled reunion is torn apart by the reawakening of a certain book in Ellie's apartment building. Why is the Necronomicon there? How does it get reawakened? Who knows! Honestly, the less that is known about the plot of "Evil Dead Rise" before its release, the better.

In addition to directing the film, Cronin wrote its script. Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert G. Tapert produced "Evil Dead Rise" under their Ghost House Pictures banner, with Raimi even hand-selecting Cronin to revive the franchise. According to an interview Campbell did with Empire Magazine, he was selected for the job after the debut of his 2019 film, "The Hole in the Ground," a film that /Film's Chris Evangelista wrote "manages to scare the sh*t out of you, building an atmosphere of dread so thick it might suffocate you" in his review out of that year's Sundance Film Festival.

"Evil Dead Rise" storms into theaters on April 21, 2023.