Evil Dead Rise Ending Explained: What Happens To Beth

WARNING! This article contains SPOILERS for Evil Dead Rise!The Evil Dead Rise ending perfectly reinvents the gory violence that the franchise is known for. However, the Evil Dead reboot’s final scenes also brim with emotional overtones that turn the supernatural horror film into an exploration of parenthood. Set mostly within a night, Evil Dead Rise shifts the series’ focus from cabins in forests to a Los Angeles apartment building. The plot begins with estranged sisters Beth and Ellie briefly reconnecting, only for their reunion to be cut short by the latest appearance of one of the Necronomicons in the Evil Dead universe timeline.

While 2013’s Evil Dead also garnered positive reviews, Evil Dead Rise revitalized the franchise with new claustrophobic settings and morally-conflicted characters. Apart from its awe-inducing hyper-violence and innovative jump scares, Evil Dead Rise was celebrated for Lee Corin’s writing and directorial efforts, along with Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland’s performances. Evil Dead Rise expands on the lore surrounding the Deadites while also putting the spotlight on stronger female leads than the series has historically had.

What Happened In Evil Dead Rise’s Ending

As With All Evil Dead Movies, Not Everyone Survives

Once Ellie awakens as a Deadite, chaos ensues across the apartment building. It culminates with a hybrid Deadite forming from the bodies of Ellie, her children Danny and Bridget, and her neighbors Gabriel and Mr. Fonda. They fuse into a single Deadite, and Ellie’s uninfected sister Beth must rescue Ellie’s youngest and only surviving daughter Kassie from the multi-armed abomination’s clutches. Beth uses a chainsaw to force the Deadite into a wood chipper, and as is typically the case with Deadites, even that isn’t enough to end things; Ellie’s severed head rolls out for one final verbal jab at Beth.

As the Deadite-possessed Ellie targets others’ fears to torment them and work her way towards infecting them, her head still tries to tap into Beth’s professional and personal insecurities. But this time, Beth gets hold of herself and accepts that her sister is dead, finally kicking the head back into the chipper. Beth and Kassie drive away, seemingly ending the story for them.

But all is not well as the story picks up the next day, revealing that another tenant in the building named Jessica is infected by the Deadites. This connects back to the shocking opening scene of Evil Dead Rise in which a possessed Jessica brutally slays her sister and boyfriend. The final scene reveals that the events of Evil Dead Rise actually happened before the gruesome opening scene, and with that timeline pivot, proves that the Deadites are in fact still on the loose.

How Beth Defeats The Multi-Headed Deadite, The Marauder

The Nightmarish Deadite Meets A Particularly Inventive End

It wouldn’t be an Evil Dead movie without a chainsaw, as it became Ash’s signature weapon when he had his hand chopped off and replaced with a chainsaw in Evil Dead II. Since then, chainsaws have been the number one choice for every protagonist when it comes to Deadite defense, including Mia in 2013’s Evil Dead. As Deadites need to be fully dismembered to truly be defeated, the chainsaw has become the signature weapon for the entire franchise, even when there’s no Ash around.

In the basement garage of the apartment building in the Evil Dead Rise ending, Beth finds a chainsaw and uses it to attack each the multi-headed Deadite, prophesied in the Necronomicon as The Marauder. With the chainsaw, Beth cuts off several limbs and heads of the Deadite, and pushes it into a conveniently placed wood chipper, which is also sitting in the basement garage. The final surviving piece of the Deadite is Ellie’s head, which Beth kicks into the wood chipper once and for all.

How Beth & Kassie Survive In Evil Dead Rise

Like Previous Franchise Survivors, Beth Fights Violence With Violence

Despite Danny and Bridget’s best efforts, it is only Ellie’s daughter Kassie and her aunt Beth who manage to survive the Evil Dead Rise ending. In a visually spectacular callback to The Shining, Beth and Kassie escape their floor through an elevator flooded with blood. Despite the overflowing blood, the aunt-niece duo manages to get out of the lift and walk into the parking lot. The naive and nimble Kassie is abducted by The Marauder, who attempts to kill her. She only manages to survive because Beth finds the courage to fight back (with some conveniently-placed weapons).

Even though Beth was just introduced as an ordinary guitar technician, the unpredictable turn of events after Ellie’s possession tested her survival skills to the fullest. Making use of whatever object she can grab (from a pair of scissors to the chainsaw), Beth proved her worth as a notable foe to the Deadites. Kassie might have been caught in the end, but even she previously showed her capacity to inflict violence as she did when she impaled a possessed Bridget. Even Kassie showed the necessary survival instincts when called upon, impaling Bridget when necessary.

Evil Dead Rise’s Final Scene Explained

An Obscene Amount Of Blood Marks The Movie’s Ending

The production of Evil Dead Rise gained a certain level of notoriety when it was revealed just how much fake blood was needed to make the movie. The Evil Dead Rise crew famously needed a separate kitchen to create the gallons upon gallons of fake blood that was necessary for the elevator scene and the death of The Marauder. Beth’s blood-soaked face is a clear callback to Bruce Campbell’s Ash in a similarly gory state at the end of 1981’s The Evil Dead, marking Evil Dead Rise as a sort of reset button for the franchise.

Evil Dead Rise pushed the limits on the franchise, killing multiple children en route to its bloody end. It sets a new, darker, more horror-centric tone for the franchise, which occasionally veered towards silliness with Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness. More importantly, Evil Dead Rise‘s epilogue scene with Jessica being infected by the Deadites reveals that Beth killing The Marauder is far from the end of the story when it comes to the recently rediscovered Naturom Demonto, or Necronomicon.

What Evil Dead Rise’s Ending Really Means

Beth Overcomes Her Fears About Parenthood By Defeating The Deadite

The Evil Dead Rise ending perfectly closes the film as a tale of parenthood. Ellie is a single mother of three, and despite her financial struggles as a tattoo artist, she does her best to secure her family’s life. Beth, on the other hand, recently found out that she is pregnant and wishes to talk to Ellie to discuss her future as a mother. With professional instability and emotional baggage, it’s obvious that Beth fears becoming a parent. However, in the end, Beth proved that she can be a devoted and protective guardian, just like her older sister.

Even though Danny and Bridget died, Beth did her best to save them from the Deadites infecting Ellie’s building. She could’ve abandoned them or abandoned Kassie at the end of the movie, but she proved that she has the strength and courage to be a guardian. In Evil Dead Rise, Beth has to defend three children against the monstrous and murderous Deadites, while as a mother she’ll need to defend her child from the evils of the world they grow up in, the same as any parent. Beth and Ellie’s journeys prove how integral parenthood is as a theme.

At the end of the movie, Beth also has the shotgun in her hand. The shotgun acts as proof that the movie is ushering in a new Evil Dead hero and becoming the franchise’s new version of Ash, as the famous Boomstick was another of Ash’s signature weapons. It seems as though she certainly isn’t finished killing Deadites. In fact, one of four Evil Dead Rise sequel ideas director Lee Cronin has picks up where Evil Dead Rise left off, following Beth and Kassie and what happens to them next.

The Evil Dead Rise ending with a new hybridized incarnation of a Deadite also means that the original Deadites were just the beginning, and there could be way more terrifying and continuously evolving Deadites in future installments of the franchise. As the Book of the Dead revealed the multi-limbed Deadite before all the Deadites in the movie morphed into one entity, there’s no knowing what other mind-blowing, disgusting, and shocking types of Deadites are on the following pages.

How Evil Dead Rise Sets Up A Sequel

The Book Is Not Closed On The Deadites

The Evil Dead Rise ending opens up the possibilities of many more sequels and spin-offs, as the Deadites are still loose. Moving from Ellie’s residential complex to Jessica’s forest getaway, the Deadite infection continues to wreak havoc. With Bruce Campbell’s hidden voice cameo in Evil Dead Rise, there’s a possibility that the actor could return as Ash in any sequel. With Beth’s blood-stained face and chainsaw-wielding skills mirroring Ash’s image, it is also possible that she leads the franchise.

As scary and violent as the original Evil Dead films, Evil Dead Rise was instantly cherished by genre fans ever since it was released in theaters. It was financial success for producers New Line Cinema and distributor Warner Bros. Pictures, meaning Evil Dead Rise can kickstart a new chapter in the greater Evil Dead franchise. It introduced a third Book of the Dead, which could pave the way for a greater overall threat than individual Deadites, now that all three books have been unleashed upon the world.