The film is the feature debut of Alvarez, whom Raimi selected. It was produced by Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert G. Tapert: the writer–director, lead actor, and producer of the original trilogy respectively. The film had its world premiere at the South by Southwest festival on March 8, 2013. On March 9, it was announced that a sequel was in development.
The film opens with a girl being captured in the woods by a pair of men. She wakes up tied to a post in a basement, with an old woman reading the Necronomicon, saying that her soul must be saved. As her father is about to light her on fire, she at first pleads for him to save her but then reveals she is possessed, her skin turning pale and eyes yellow. She is burned to death.
Mia is attempting to stop her addiction to heroin with the support of three of her friends (Eric, Olivia, and Natalie) and her brother David. The siblings have a strained relationship due to the death of their mother. David, fearful her insanity was genetic and that he would suffer from it, ran away from the situation while Mia had to tend to her as she died, causing her addiction. The group is led to a secret cellar under the house (the site of the events at the beginning of the movie) by the smell of decaying animal carcasses. Eric finds the Necronomicon and, despite repeated warnings in the book, utters an incantation from it. Mia begins to see images of a girl with pale skin and yellow eyes. Later, going through withdrawal, she attempts to escape the woods but is captured by tree branches and raped by a long spiky worm-like tentacle which exits the mouth of the dead girl from the opening of the film and enters Mia's body and stays there.
Making her way back to the cabin, Mia attempts to warn David about the demon but the group believes she is trying to leave to find more drugs. Mia kills the family dog with a hammer and then burns herself in the shower, sustaining serious injuries. David attempts to drive her to a hospital, but the rainfall has flooded the exit routes. Back at the cabin, Mia, who now looks possessed, warns the group they will not survive the night. Mia attacks Olivia, vomiting in her mouth. In the struggle, Mia falls into the cellar and they lock her there. Olivia now shows signs of being possessed, and following a cue from the book, cuts off the skin from the lower half of her jaw with a piece of glass. When Eric tries to stop her, she attempts to kill him, but is stopped when he beats her head open with a piece of the sink.
While David treats Eric's wounds, Natalie hears the real Mia talking and goes into the cellar, only to be bitten on the hand by the possessed Mia. Natalie escapes, but her hand becomes possessed and she is forced to cut off her arm to prevent the spread. Eric reveals from reading the book that the demon needs to devour five souls to rise from the dead and rain blood. To do this, the demon has attached itself to Mia's soul, and the only ways to save her soul are to burn her, bury her alive, or dismember her. Natalie attacks David and Eric with a nailgun; she is killed in the struggle, but Eric sustains near-fatal injuries. David resolves to burn Mia and the cabin down, but at the last minute decides on a different plan.
David enters the cellar with tranquilizers but is attacked by Mia. Eric saves him but is stabbed to death in the process. David buries the possessed Mia with a bag over her head while she taunts him. After he sees a fire of paranormal origin extinguish itself, he digs her up and attempts to shock her heart back to life, the possession now removed. David goes back into the house for the car keys but is attacked by Eric, who was possessed due to the knife he was stabbed with having Mia's blood on it. David locks Mia out of the house then burns it down with himself and Eric still inside.
