Written by Matt Long
This booklet is included as part of Arrow Video’s 2026 4K UHD and Blu-ray release of Evil Dead Rise (2023).
Professionalism and production quality
A small format twenty-four page booklet with glossy pages. Given Arrow’s resources, this is a very sleek production. All pictures are printed in perfect high resolution and I really liked the layout. The font size is small, which detracts from the reading experience, and there’s a plethora of stills, so it could have been a point larger, in my opinion. But anyone who reads these Blu-ray booklets will be familiar with the font size.
Grade: A
Text-to-image ratio
There are twenty-three pages with images and thirteen with text, though the essay itself is nine pages. Fairly standard for Arrow, by which I mean there’s filler here with the substance.
The cover of the “Evil Dead Rise” booklet.
Grade: C
Content
“A New Evil Rises” by Michael Gingold is the only essay included. Gingold presents the context for how this film came to be at Warner Bros., specifically how it ended up being the rare example of a film that shifted from its destiny as a streaming title to becoming a successful theatrical release. He places it within context of the early 2020s horror releases, which is interesting for this writer to already be able to reflect on near the end of 2026 when this is no longer the most recent entry in the series. Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin’s path to becoming director is shared, Cronin explaining his history with the series and what he intended with his entry. Some details about the production are shared before it concludes with a tease of where the series is going to go, which includes the upcoming Evil Dead Wrath from Francis Galluppi, the director of The Last Stop in Yuma County (2023) and co-founder of Antenna Releasing.
It’s a good essay, but is this really all Arrow could do?
Grade: C+
Creativity
“Evil Dead” is one of the most fun horror franchises, with each entry taking a different spin on a very familiar and basic story. This booklet does not revolutionize the booklet in the same way. Very basic with its one essay. There must have been something from behind the scenes or something personal from a member of the cast or crew that could have been included, no?
Grade: D
Grade summary
Professional and production quality grade: A
Text-to-image ratio grade: C
Content grade: C+
Creativity grade: D
Final thoughts
Gingold’s essay is worth reading, but it’s a fairly substandard essay overall.
Overall grade: C+
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