That old cabin in the woods? So 40 years ago.
The “Evil Dead” horror franchise is moving up in the world, with aLAhigh-rise as the setting of a hellish night for a family in “Evil Dead Rise” (in theaters Friday). Some things have stayed the same, though – as in bad stuff always happens whenthe Book of the Dead is read aloud. And while Bruce Campbell'saccidental hero Ash Williams has been the main man for four decades, "Rise"gives way to a possessed mom who'll scare your socksoff.
Here's how the blood-drenched new film pays tribute to "Evil Dead" past whilealso chartingits own scary path:
The ‘Evil Dead’ model gets a modern, chilling twist
The low-budget cult classic “The Evil Dead,” which was unleashed on moviegoers in 1983,featured a plot that wouldbecome a franchise staple: A group of unsuspecting innocents “with no special skills whatsoever” come across the Book of the Dead (made of human skin and written in blood, naturally) on a cabin getawayand “their life is turned upside down – and not in a good way,” says Campbell, a “Rise” executive producer who starred in the first three “Evil Dead” films and the “Ash vs. Evil Dead” TV series.
In the new movie, this unfortunate scenario occurs for tattoo artist Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland),her three children and theirauntBeth (Lily Sullivan) on the top floor of an apartment building. “Rise” writer/director Lee Cronin saw a way to push the limits of an “Evil Dead” movie with an urban environment and the family element: “Possessing a loving, powerful mother and subverting all that's great about a person like that with evil just felt ripe for psychological horror warfare,” he says.
Those ghastly Deadites are as mean-spirited as ever
For Sam Raimi, who directed the first three “Evil Dead” movies and is a "Rise" executive producer, one strength of the franchise is its monsters. When demonic forces get inside humans and turn them into Deadites, “it’s not about losing them in a blobbish mass with jaws that open four feet wide,” he says. “It’s about seeing their face.” Their eyes change and they’re definitely scarier than before but they still look like the people they used to be, “so they're half friend, half nasty demon.”
Inspired by the demonic taunting of the early “Evil Dead” flicks,the new movie features Deadite Ellie saying creepy lines like “Mommy’s with the maggots now” and sweetly trying to get her 9-year-old to open a locked door. And Sutherland loved every sinister minute: “I wanted it to be like psychologically terrifying for the kids,” the Australian actresssays. “What's the worst way that the mom could be doing this to her children?Mocking them and sneering felt more psychopathic to me.”
'Evil Dead Rise' is judicious with the franchise callbacks
Old-school fans will recognize much of“Evil Dead Rise,” right from the beginning: The film starts as the original did, with a “shaky cam” jauntthrough the forest from the vantage point of a dark monstrous presence. (Back in the day, Raimi did that on the cheap with two guys running with a camera screwed to a two-by-four. “It sprung from necessity," he says. "We didn't have money to eat breakfast.”)
But preferring afull immersion into Cronin’s story, Raimi asked him to remove a bunch of callbacks. “If I'd gone to the guys and said there was no chainsaw in this movie, they wouldn't have blinked,” Cronin says. "But I wanted there to be a chainsaw."
Longtime “Evil Dead” producer Rob Tapert lovesa couple of “Evil Dead 2” tributes: a pizza box shoutout to a Deadite baddie “that makes me laugh every time I see it” and an elevator scene that nods to the “blood floods” that pulverized Ash in the 1987 film. (Fun fact: “Rise” utilized more than 6,500 liters of movie blood.) And Campbell appreciates how the new film uses two sounds digitized from the original movie, a “creepy wind” and a pesky fly. “It’s fun to sneak in the golden moldies,” he says.
'Evil Dead' seeks the next generation of horror talent
The "Evil Dead" brain trust reached out to Cronin about doing a filmafter seeing his 2019 film “The Hole in the Ground,” and their aim with the franchise going forward is to find young filmmakers willing to tell new stories in that gory sandbox.
Raimi is “noodling big-picture ideas so that any new filmmakers could fit into the plan. We're going to try and spit these out a little quicker,” says Campbell, who for the first time isn't seen as Ash in “Rise.” (He appeared briefly in a post-credit scene in the 2013 "Evil Dead" film.)“We're all geezers. Let's get some new blood in there."
For more of the scary stuff:
- 'Renfield' review:Nicolas Cage's campy Dracula keeps horror comedy from totally sucking
- Ranked:10 best big-screen Draculas, from Bela Lugosi to Nicolas Cage's 'Renfield'
- 'Scream VI':How the new Ghostface matches the bloody 'brutality' of New York City
- Looking for a good horror film to watch?We've ranked the 75 best of this century
