Evil Dead has proven to be one of modern horror's most persistent horror franchises. After the original film launched the careers of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, Evil Dead has evolved into an ever-changing property. Previous entries embraced a blend of creature features and campy comedy, while others -- like 2013's Evil Dead remake -- committed to a fully horrific tone. Evil Dead Rises is a unique embrace of everything that makes the series special, while still finding new ways to approach classic beats.
The result is one of the best entries in the series, and one that feels wholly unique while still retaining enough of the DNA to be clearly an Evil Dead -- which was very much the intention of the filmmakers. During an interview with CBR ahead of Evil Dead Rise's release on DVD and Blu-Ray on Jun. 27, Director/Writer Lee Cronin discussed the trickiest days of filming the new entry in the long-running horror franchise, why it was important to move the action to an urban environment, and his excitement about the future of the series.
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CBR: Looking back at the history of the Evil Dead franchise, what were some of the big lessons you wanted to keep in mind during production on Evil Dead Rise?
Lee Cronin: Look, I'm a huge fan of the franchise. [I] have been for a very long time. I always wanted to be respectful. What I wanted to do is to be additive, you know? To build something fresh. I'm a writer and a director with my own kind of voice and vision, and this film is very different to my previous [work], The Hole in the Ground. Nonetheless, I felt very confident with what I could do in an Evil Dead movie -- but I am always going to tell the stories the way that I like to tell them. So what I needed to analyze was whether my sensibilities would actually -- despite my passion and want to make an Evil Dead film -- would my sensibilities blend with the type of horror that it needed to actually be.
That was the first kind of part of the journey towards figuring it out. The key lesson that's consistent across all the previous movies is the relentless nature of them [is that] when they turn, you just go for it. That was something that was very important to me early on. Outside of that, it was making sure that it was a great spectacle, extremely scary, [and] had a lot of energy. I think all that is really important. Once I had all that pegged, I'd worked on my characters, and I'd worked on the world and the story that I wanted to tell, then the job was the blend. Trying to bring all that together. When you see it on paper, it doesn't happen all the time -- it was one of those screenplays that from the first draft, it just felt like it worked. And everybody else was pretty confident.
Evil Dead Rise takes the series almost entirely into an urban environment, which is a big change for Evil Dead. What were the biggest advantages -- and challenges -- of shifting the story to a city over keeping it in a cabin?
It was something early on. I thought, if they had brought me a screenplay, and it was Evil Dead set in a cabin in the woods, I'd probably be the first to buy a ticket, you know what I mean? Like, I want to go watch that movie. But again, I just felt like it needed [something else]. They also had the appetite to want to do something different. To do something kind of fresh, I think. Probably one of the biggest challenges was kind of creating isolation within that world. When you're still just at a cabin in the woods, and the bridge is broken, and the car smashed up, or whatever it might be, it's pretty easy to have nowhere to go.
In this case, it was trying to create that isolation. So it was finding a slightly more refined story notes around that world. For example, the fact that it's not just a building, it's actually a building that's condemned and getting ready to be knocked down. There's not many people living in it, and that's very important that an audience understands that early on in the story. It's so that you can get that sense it's not that easy to escape. Then, obviously, you've got this possessed elevator, the stairs are gone, [and] all that really helps. When I'd kind of roughly finished the first draft, I just kept thinking about the sense of isolation in the story, and that's when I brought the rain in. It's that heavy type of rain, this envelope around the building that just creates even more claustrophobia.
When Beth tries to make a plea to someone outside, [the person] can't even hear it, you know? Even if they could, could they even see or through that rain? It's kind of fun, because you do get those sorts of rainstorms from time to time in LA. It made sense that it could happen. They've had so much actually, it rains so much during the release of this movie, which was great because people go to the cinema and watch it. It really helps. That kind of sense of claustrophobia, you could feel the claustrophobia when we were shooting the movie because we were in a dark studio and a dark set with rain machines running outside the windows all the time. Once I was inside that world with them, I felt total confidence that the team created the necessary isolation.
It really does work, by the way -- and it's just enough to feel isolating without necessarily feeling like over-explaining it. It's just another detail of their terrible night.
As a little reference point, I remember thinking about David Fincher's Panic Room. It rains the whole entire movie as well. It's two people trapped in a domestic environment where it could be easy to get out. But they're trapped -- obviously there's a panic room for traffic for different reasons, but the rain really helped again, just create this extra curtain around what was going on.
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There are some wild stunts and effects in the film. I can't image making your own version of The Shining blood elevator couldn't have been simple. What would you say were the trickiest day of filming?
Every day on this movie was a tricky day. [Laughing] You don't you don't get off easy making a movie like this. I think the hardest was shooting the monster [at] the end of the movie. That was very, very challenging, because there was no one size fits all fix to creating something like that. Every shot, the way I like to direct as well, as looks quite a lot of unique shots. I don't just go, hey, this works, let's shoot a lot of it from that angle. I'm always trying to do something new, each shot telling a new story. Every shot is a new painting, a new picture.
That was incredibly hard from the moment I wrote it, trying to describe what [the monster] was on the page to communicating that and getting it designed -- and then trying to actually practically apply that? That was without a doubt the most challenging thing, and it's one of those things, you cross your fingers on that, and hope that it works. It didn't always work on set, so we have to find other ways of doing things. And then, the power of getting that material and reworking it, bringing it together in the edit and not showing too much of what it is either. There's great power to a little bit of restraint and letting your imagination fill in the gaps. That was one of the hardest things for me as a director or for the crew. It was like, we're getting three shots a day, because each one of these shots is going to take us three or four hours.
Where do you want to see the Evil Dead series go from here?
I think the most important thing is that the follow-up would be as exciting and entertaining as all the Evil Dead movies to date. Whether that's me or some young buck, I think that's the most important thing is it's thankfully a franchise that seems to have managed to hit every time. Everybody's got their preferences, and that's cool. Thankfully, I didn't drop the ball. In that respect, I think there are more characters to explore. I think what I've done with this film was maybe open up the universe a little bit wider, and show that there's a pathway, that it doesn't all need to be tethered to the cabin.
That it doesn't necessarily need to be tethered to action. That's not to say that it wouldn't also be cool to revisit those other things as well. I think Evil Dead Rises has created a little bit of a bigger sandbox, and I'd just be excited in either seeing or making or knowing there was more Evil Dead coming to theaters, that it's a new experience. I think that's actually the key thing, because each movie has its own tonal strengths. It's got its own identity. And whatever the story, I think that's the most important thing.
Evil Dead Rise will be available on DVD and Blu-ray on Jun. 27.
