This is not a review of Evil Dead Rise. I haven’t reviewed it as of yet, and I may at some point. No, this post is about the home video release of the film on DVD/Blu-Ray/4K. For some background info, Evil Dead Rise was initially intended to be a direct-to-HBO Max release. This was before Warner Bros. got bought out by Discovery. The new heads of Warner Bros. loved the movie so much they decided to give it a full-blown theatrical release. As an die-hard fan of the Evil Dead franchise, I was really excited about this movie. So, I went and saw it, and I LOVED it. So, when the home video release was announced, I couldn’t wait to get my demonic claws on the Blu-Ray. Then, I started seeing reviews of the 4k and Blu-Ray. The picture and audio quality of the film were uniformly excellent, but there were no special features. Sooo, I went to Walmart after work and bought a copy of the film on Blu-Ray for 26 bucks, which includes tax. I can confirm that there are NO special features whatsoever. No trailers, no sneak previews, NOTHING, except the menu and the movie itself. As someone who collects movies on physical media, be it DVD, Blu-Ray, or 4K, this is unacceptable. Now, I understand that the initial decision to go straight to HBO Max made it so that there was really no press done for the flick. No EPK(electrionic press kit), no commentaries, and no interviews with the cast and crew. For the first time in the history of the franchise, Evil Dead gets a release that is completely bare-bones. Why? WB has been pretty good about giving their movies extra features for us collectors. That’s why we collect these things.
Every film in the franchise up until this one has had multiple releases, with each one featuring a treasure trove of behind-the-scenes featurettes. Army of Darkness, the third film in the series, got a brilliant collector’s edition from Scream Factory which featured no less than FOUR versions of the film, including the edited-for-TV version. That’s the kind of care that I expect for cult movies like these. I don’t know if Warner Bros. will revisit this film with a special edition release that includes interviews, commentaries, trailers, and/or other information. But as it stands, I can’t recommend fans of this movie to buy the Blu-Ray/4K at full price. No way. You can buy a digital copy on Amazon Prime for about 13 bucks, which is a better deal, in my opinion, especially if all you want is the movie. We’ve been seeing studios cut back on special features for discs over the last few years. I get it, it’s expensive, but the value that’s provided to the customer allows them to come back and buy more of your movies on physical media. This release is baffling to me, especially for the price that I paid. I recommend the movie itself, hands down, but I can’t recommend buying the physical home video release until there’s a version that includes everything that collectors come to expect. Now, if WB wants to let Scream Factory handle the release, I’d be okay with that, because THEY would be getting my money as well, and I support Scream/Shout Factory, as well as the other boutique media companies. So, I think this would probably be one of the most disappointing home video releases of the year. Come on, WB, you can do better than this.