There’s an Evil Dead Wrath rumor coming out of a test screening that has me hoping like hell it’s true. […]
There’s an Evil Dead Wrath rumor coming out of a test screening that has me hoping like hell it’s true. If it pans out, we could finally reconnect with a character whose story I’ve wanted to see continued for thirteen years.
Potential spoilers for Evil Dead Wrath follow.
What I’m hearing is that Jane Levy returns as Mia. I haven’t been able to independently confirm it, but holy shit, I hope this is the beginning of something more for her.
Yes, that Mia. The woman who went through absolute fucking hell in Fede Álvarez’sEvil Dead and walked out of it covered in blood, missing a hand, and having earned the right to carry this franchise into another nightmare.
If she’s coming back, I hope it means something. Because I’ve been waiting thirteen years to find out what happens to her next.
To explain why this gets me so excited, we need to go back to 2013.
I don’t think everybody knew what to expect from that movie. I certainly wasn’t prepared for how ruthless it would be. There was a lot of conversation about the absence of Bruce Campbell, whether Ash would appear, and whether an Evil Dead movie could work without the goofy personality people had come to associate with the franchise.
But Sam Raimi’s original The Evil Dead, released in 1981, was a nasty horror movie. The Three Stooges insanity became much more prominent in Evil Dead II, before Army of Darkness took that personality somewhere else entirely.
Álvarez went straight for the throat. His movie was hardcore, brutal, and so relentlessly mean that I’m still amazed by what made it into an R-rated theatrical release. Watching that finale now, with the burning cabin and the blood raining down, it’s hard to believe something that spectacularly excessive played in multiplexes everywhere.
For my money, it’s the best horror film of the 2010s. It’s become one of my go-to Halloween movies, and every time I revisit it, I find myself thinking the same thing: we had somebody special in Mia, and we barely got started.
Look at Ash’s evolution.
In the first movie, he’s a guy trying to survive the night. He’s frightened, overwhelmed, and watching the people around him turn into monsters. The swaggering, chainsaw-wielding asshole we love develops over time. Campbell and Raimi keep finding new things to do with him, pushing the physical comedy, the arrogance, the cowardice, and those moments when he actually rises to the occasion.
By Army of Darkness, he’s practically a god to horror fans. An idiot, absolutely, but our idiot. An imperfect hero we’d follow anywhere.
That took three movies. We got to watch him become that character.
Mia got one.
And what a fucking first chapter it was. She enters the movie trying to overcome an addiction, spends much of it having her suffering dismissed or misunderstood, becomes part of the nightmare herself, and ultimately has to fight her way out. There’s a whole battle with her own demons happening underneath the literal one.
By the time she picks up that chainsaw, I see the beginning of a franchise protagonist. Somebody who could change, harden, surprise us, and become more complicated with every new encounter.
I’m not saying she needs Ash’s personality. Levy already gave her a personality worth following. What she needs is the opportunity he got: another movie.
And there really were conversations about where that could go.
Back in 2013, Álvarez and Campbell publicly discussed the possibility of continuing both branches of the franchise before bringing them together. At WonderCon that March, Álvarez described an ambition involving his own Evil Dead sequel, Raimi’s Army of Darkness 2, and an eventual crossover.
I remember hearing about the possibility of Ash and Mia sharing a movie. That was an incredibly exciting prospect, especially while everyone was trying to figure out what the franchise would become after 2013.
There was even an idea to put them together at the end of that first movie.
As I reported in 2020, covering Álvarez’s appearance on The Boo Crew, he wanted Ash to be the driver who picks Mia up in the extended ending. Campbell felt the coincidence didn’t give his return enough purpose, and the idea was dropped. The released movie instead gave fans his brief “Groovy” appearance after the credits.
Álvarez also explained that he and Rodo Sayagues had worked out a story to bring Ash and Mia together, but Raimi’s plans for Ash’s television continuation complicated that direction.
That’s especially interesting to revisit now. Even then, there was a question of whether a familiar face appearing actually served the story.
Eventually, we got Ash vs. Evil Dead. Levy and Álvarez reunited for Don’t Breathe. The years passed, and Mia’s next chapter never happened.
From the outside, it felt like she got left behind while the franchise pursued all these other possibilities. But the affection for that character didn’t disappear. If anything, my appreciation for her has only grown as I’ve returned to the movie.
Now we’re in another exciting era of Evil Dead, with different filmmakers getting to bring their own sensibilities to the mythology.
I love that approach. As much as I love Álvarez’s movie, I don’t need every installment to come from the same director. Give me different backgrounds, different influences, different interpretations of what happens when somebody encounters the Necronomicon.
It reminds me of following horror franchises in the ’80s, when a new Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street, or Halloween could bring a different filmmaker and a different flavor. You could feel those changes from movie to movie. Sometimes they worked better than others, but that was part of the fun.
With Lee Cronin, Sébastien Vaniček, and Francis Galluppi, this newer run of Evil Dead gives us filmmakers approaching the same nightmare from different directions. There’s room for that freedom and for a character like Mia to return.
Which brings me to Evil Dead Burn.
As I discussed in our article about its ending, Evil Dead Rise‘s Alyssa Sutherland makes a surprise appearance as Ellie. The funeral-home connection places those stories in relation to one another, giving us a little more of the geography of this world.
On its own, though, that appearance left me asking why. Was it simply a wink to the audience? Was it establishing something we’ll understand later?
I enjoy connections when they lead somewhere. Fan service for the sake of recognizing somebody doesn’t do nearly as much for me. If a scene is there, I want to feel like it has a reason to exist.
Burn shows that Raimi, Robert Tapert, and Campbell are willing to let these newer movies overlap. That doesn’t confirm the Mia rumor or establish some grand crossover plan, but it does make me wonder whether Wrath might continue building those connections.
And if Mia is involved, there’s a pretty big question to answer.
So how would she appear? A framing sequence? Another credits button? Some kind of time-travel insanity?
No fucking idea. I don’t know the context of the rumored scene, and I’m not going to pretend I do.
What I do know is what I hope comes out of it.
If Levy returns, I hope we’re opening the door to more films with Mia. Let us find out what surviving that cabin did to her. Let another filmmaker explore who she’s become and what happens when someone who already knows how awful these things can get has to face them again.
Would she run? Would she recognize the danger before anybody else? Could she help someone survive it? There’s a character there with experiences that a new group of unsuspecting victims simply doesn’t have.
That’s why this possibility gets me so excited. We’ve already watched her earn her place in Evil Dead. I want to see what she does with it.
Written and directed by Galluppi (The Last Stop in Yuma County), Evil Dead Wrath is scheduled to open April 7, 2028. Its announced ensemble includes Charlotte Hope (The Nun), Jessica McNamee (Mortal Kombat), Zach Gilford (Midnight Mass), Josh Helman (Mad Max: Fury Road), Ella Newton (Dangerous Animals), newcomer Ella Oliphant, and Elizabeth Cullen (The Bureau of Magical Things). Levy’s involvement has not been confirmed.
We have a long wait to see whether this rumor amounts to anything. But thirteen years after that blood-soaked finale, I’m still ready to follow Mia out of those woods.
Ash got the chance to become Ash. Give Mia the chance to become whatever comes next.
