Evil Dead II can be seen as a sequel to Evil Dead, a remake, or a little of both. Rather than starting off where its predecessor finished, Evil Dead II goes back to the beginning - sort of. The first ten minutes of the second film essentially recap what occurred in The Evil Dead.

Why was Evil Dead 2 a remake of Evil Dead?

The reason for the retcon at the beginning of the movie was explained by Campbell in a clip from the special features of Evil Dead 2 (via Den of Geek), where he revealed that Raimi didn't own the rights to his own movie, so they had to shoot a recap with different actors, which ended up becoming a different story.

Did they remake Evil Dead?

The franchise was resurrected in 2013 with Evil Dead, both a reboot and a loose continuation of the series directed by Fede Álvarez, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rodo Sayagues, and produced by Raimi, Campbell, and Tapert.