How to watch the Evil Dead movies in order (2024)

Evil Dead Rise is now available on Netflix UK, so here we place it in the Evil Dead timeline in case you needed some help to watch all Evil Dead movies in order.

It all started with a man, a demon and a cabin in the woods.

Since the release of the first movie in 1981, Evil Dead has grown to become a successful horror franchise made up of director Sam Raimi's original three cult classics, a TV series, a reboot and now the aforementioned Evil Dead Rise, which the grisly supernatural action relocates to a Los Angeles apartment building.

That's pretty impressive when you realise the Evil Dead story began with a short film Raimi made in 1978 called Within The Woods, on a budget of just $1,600.

The 30-minute short starred Raimi’s school friend Bruce Campbell as Bruce, who goes on a murderous rampage in the woods after he is possessed by evil forces.

Raimi and Campbell teamed up once more to make a feature-length version of the story – 1981’s The Evil Dead – and Campbell took on the now iconic role of Ash Williams, who attempts to fight the demons that can possess the living, and probably wishes he hadn't picked a remote, spooky cabin as a romantic getaway.

While the timeline of the original three movies – The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness – is pretty straightforward, and the 2013 reboot Evil Dead and 2023's Evil Dead Rise are set a few decades later, there is also the TV sequel Ash vs Evil Dead (all three seasons of which are on Netflix) to squish into the timeline.

It's set roughly 30 years after the events of the original trilogy, and features an older Ash still taking on the undead. It was intended as a follow-up to the first three films, but to keep the timeline in order, it makes more sense to watch the series after the 2013 movie reboot (but before Evil Dead Rises) for reasons we'll make clear in a bit.

Read on to find out how you can watch all the Evil Dead movies online and in timeline order – along with what you need to remember from each instalment so far.

The Evil Dead

Watch now: Prime Video | iTunes | Microsoft Store

Five college students drive to a remote cabin in the forests of Tennessee for a vacation and discover the Naturom Demonto, also known as The Book of the Dead, in the cellar.

They also find archaeologist Raymond Knowby's tape recorder and play back the tape in which he recited incantations from the book. This resurrects a demon, and hell pretty much breaks loose as the group realise they are trapped by the demonic presence intent on their destruction.

The movie ends as dawn breaks with Ash as the sole survivor, having decapitated, stabbed and slaughtered his possessed companions, and tossed The Book of the Dead into the fire.

An invisible demon then rushes through the woods and heads straight for him…

Evil Dead II

Watch now: Prime Video | iTunes | Microsoft Store

Also known as Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn, this 1987 sequel is also a remake of the 1981 original – but with a bigger budget and more emphasis on comedy.

Ash takes his girlfriend Linda to a cabin in the woods, and while there – you guessed it – he plays a tape they find of Raymond Knowby reading from The Book of the Dead (now called The Necronomicon).

A demon – the Kandarian – is unleashed and possesses poor Linda, leaving Ash no choice but to decapitate his girlfriend and bury her in the woods. Trapped at the cabin, Ash is attacked by her headless corpse while her decapitated head bites his hand, and it becomes possessed. He discovers a chainsaw and uses it to cut off his own demonic hand.

Four more people turn up at the cabin – including Knowby's daughter Annie –and over the course of the night they either turn into Deadites (the possessed) or meet gruesome ends.

Only Ash and Annie remain, and after she has helped him attach the chainsaw to the stump of his arm, Annie reads the last part of the incantation to supposedly rid them of the demons before she dies of her injuries.

However, the words instead open a swirling portal that sucks in the demon, Ash and his Oldsmobile car, and transports them to the Middle Ages.

A group of knights surround Ash, but seeing him use his shotgun to blast away a demon, they hail him as the hero who has been sent from above to save them.

Army Of Darkness

Watch now: Prime Video | iTunes | Microsoft Store

"Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas," went the poster for Raimi's third Evil Dead movie.

It picks up where Evil Dead II left off, with Ash (plus his chainsaw appendage, shotgun and car) stuck in the Middle Ages and enlisted to help Lord Arthur save his kingdom from deadites.

Luckily, there is a wise man who can help Ash return to his own time, but they first need The Necronomicon and when Ash gets to the place where it is meant to be, he instead finds three copies of the book (remember this for later, folks) and has to decide which one to take.

It doesn't help that he has forgotten the words – "klaatu barada nikto" (which sci-fi fans will recognise as a nod to 1951 sci-fi movie The Day The Earth Stood Still) – he was told to recite to safely retrieve it, or that a demonic version of Ash is busily off elsewhere forming an army of darkness made up of rampaging Deadites.

After saving the girl (Sheila, as played by Embeth Davidtz) and defeating the army, Ash is given a potion and more words to recite to return him to his own time.

He's last seen in the present day, working at an S-Mart store, shooting a Deadite that has presumably followed him from the past (probably because he got the incantation wrong again).

Evil Dead

Watch now: Prime Video | iTunes | Microsoft Store

Fede Álvarez – who later made the horror Don't Breathe – took over directing duties for this 2013 reimagining of the first movie.

"It continues the first one," Alvarez wrote on Twitter at the time (via Movieweb). "The coincidences on events between the first film and mine are not coincidences, but more like dark fate created by the evil book. (Ash car is still there rusting away.)"

This time, a woman named Mia, who is overcoming an addiction to heroin, is at the cabin with a handful of people including her brother, and once again The Book of the Dead is discovered and read from, unleashing demonic forces.

The movie ends with Mia battling a demonic version of herself, amputating her hand with a chainsaw, and eventually walking away from the cabin – with The Book of the Dead still intact.

There is a final post-credit scene featuring a brief glimpse of Bruce Campbell as an older Ash, which fits nicely in with the Ash vs Evil Dead TV series that followed two years later.

Ash vs Evil Dead

Watch now: Netflix

Ash and his buddies at the S-Mart take on a plague of Deadites in a variety of battles over three seasons of the TV show.

Evil Dead Rise

Watch now: Netflix UK

The first movie that doesn't feature Ash at all, new instalment Evil Dead Rise moves the supernatural nastiness to a Los Angeles apartment building – where The Necronomicon happens to be lurking in the basem*nt, waiting to be discovered.

In an interview, director Lee Cronin explained that it is The Book of the Dead that links his movie to the previous Evil Dead films.

"In one of the early meetings I had with Sam Raimi, I said, 'You know the way in Army of Darkness, there's three [Necronomicons]? You had one, Fede [Álvazez] had one, I'm going to take the other one," Cronin said.

"It gave me that platform to nudge things forward, and also to showcase that we live in a world where there is more than one copy of The Necronomicon. Those books may all have slightly different personalities – it's not exactly the same book, necessarily, that Ash had in the cabin."

"But it's very, very firmly related."

Evil Dead Rise is now available on Netflix UK.