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Evil Dead Rise has a second hidden Bruce Campbell cameo

Evil Dead Rise resurrects the horror franchise in style with a no-holds-barred, gore-soaked horror ride that'll satisfy Evil Dead fans and, hopefully, attract new ones to the series at the same time.

But despite various injuries caused by cheese graters, wine glasses and other domestic items (as well as one particularly nasty eyeball moment), writer-director Lee Cronin – the filmmaker behind 2019 standout horror The Hole in the Ground – genuinely thought he hadn't gone far enough.

"We had the world premiere at SXSW a few weeks ago, and I did a test screening that morning – I hadn't seen the movie in a little while – just to check all the tech and stuff, and that I was happy with the audio levels for the movie," Cronin recalls to Digital Spy.

"I was there with my sound designer. I turned around at the end, and I was like, 'I don't know if I pushed this movie far enough'. He was like, 'Are you insane?'. So I think we pushed it right to the edge. And there were no ideas I left behind, which I was happy with. With Evil Dead, it's hard to go too far."

The new movie changes up the Evil Dead formula by moving the Deadite action into the city as two estranged sisters Beth (Lily Sullivan) and Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) find themselves facing a battle for survival.

Ahead of Evil Dead Rise's release in cinemas this Friday (April 21), Digital Spy sat down with Lee Cronin to talk about the challenges of fake blood, hidden Evil Dead references and a second Bruce Campbell cameo in the movie.

You say you were worried it didn't go far enough, but the big difference here, compared to the other Evil Dead movies, is that kids are on the table. You still don't see that in horror movies, nowadays.

Lee Cronin: Yeah, it's really rare that it's from that point of view. And people have asked me: did I ever think of not possessing kids, and doing the things that happen to them in the story?

But again, once it was Evil Dead plus children – we wouldn't be sitting here if I'd let them off the hook. Because in an Evil Dead movie, the innocent must suffer. That's one of the rules.

Evil Dead Rise was shot chronologically, so was it just to make it easier with all the fake blood around?

My first assistant director, one of the things he identified very early on was for the most part, we need to shoot this movie in order because we're not going to have time to clean up the carnage.

What was interesting about that was the film keeps on trying to top itself the whole time. The next scene gets bigger, it gets crazier, it gets more terrifying. So as a cast and crew, we were going on a journey just like the characters.

As we were getting more exhausted, making the movie was getting harder. The set-pieces were getting bigger. The technique was getting challenging. So it was quite a crazy way to shoot a movie. I'd say we shot about 80% or 85% of it in order.

evil dead rise director lee cronin and alyssa sutherland
StudioCanal

While it is unconnected to what came before, it does have plenty of Evil Dead nods in it. Was that a tricky balance to work out because, as a fan yourself, you just want to be like, "Let's put all the Evil Dead in"?

I probably had more in the original draft, and started to pull some back. In the end, the way I handled it was if it was natural to the story.

So for example, I found a way to have the chainsaw in the story because I had a character in a set of circumstances, and I planted the idea of that chainsaw very subtly, very early in the film. But things like the Oldsmobile Delta – which isn't in this film and which I love as an icon – this family were never going to be driving that car.

It was just about trying to find the balance, and there are actually a lot of Easter eggs buried deep in this film for fans. So if they watch the movie, hopefully many times, they'll be digging deeper into it.

It's funny talking about the Oldsmobile Delta, for example. The chainsaw in an Evil Dead movie is usually red, but I changed the colour and it's the exact colour of the Oldsmobile Delta.

So there's really buried Easter eggs. And then there's bigger, obvious ones like the scene with an eyeball that fans of Evil Dead II will understand.

evil dead rise
StudioCanal

One of those was a challenge to find Bruce Campbell's cameo in the movie, but we're guessing you never expected it to be found as quickly as it was?

People went hard at it quite quickly to find that cameo. But there's another Bruce moment in the movie as well. He did some Foley work for me as well. There's a scene around an eye where there's some munching and Bruce created that sound by eating an apple furiously for me.

You could have pretended that was actually the cameo you're talking about.

I could have done, yeah, saved me $50 and said somebody was wrong.

Even though it's not set at a cabin, you do open the movie with a cabin-based set piece. Was that a case of you wanting to do your Evil Dead, but also do a mini 'classic' Evil Dead too?

I like to have a prologue that just teases, or gives an impression of, what the experience of the movie is going to be. I did the same thing with my first movie, The Hole in the Ground. If you watch the prologue in that, it's like a mini version of that's to come. It's thematically showing you a way in.

With this film, I knew I just wanted to scare people upfront. I kind of get to buy their time, so I can then explore character because that was important. I knew that once I turned this film, there's less chance for character development. You've got to go with the crazy, bloody juggernaut that the movie becomes.

I wanted to move into the city, but also a little part of me was disappointed that I wasn't going to get to go the cabin, so I was like, "You know what? I'll put a cabin at the start of it, and slightly subvert people's expectations".

Like with the opening shot where fans so instantly recognise what they're looking at, but then I twist it, and I say, "I get what it is, too, but I'm going to bring you on a different journey".

evil dead rise
StudioCanal

After the first trailer came out, the cheese greater scene went viral for obvious reasons. Doing stuff practically defines an Evil Dead movie, so was there a particular beat that ended up being trickier than expected to deal with practically?

It was all very hard. The thing that I learned was that there's no one-size-fits-all solution to any of those moments in the movie – what the crew always referred to as gags. It wasn't like, "Hey, somebody's going to get stabbed this way," or, "This event is going to happen, and this is how we do it". We needed five solutions to each thing.

So even something as simple as... I was going to say "as simple as a stabbing through your hand", that everyday thing, that required four or five different rigs to actually capture the different angles that were required that I wanted.

We had all these names for different things. It's like, "How's work going with the bow and arrow?", which would be a way of concealing when something went through someone's head, and having a thing around the side so you can't see that it's there.

The crew were worked extremely hard, but they were driven and really creative people. So they helped me figure it all out [and] they had fun, they really did.

evil dead rise director lee cronin
StudioCanal

Finally, what is it you're hoping that Evil Dead fans get from Evil Dead Rise?

I just hope everybody – fans and beyond – has a really good time with the movie. That was on my mind. I wanted to make this an entertaining thrill-ride. The sense I'm getting is that the fans are really embracing it, and really enjoying it, which is great.

What I hope, then, they do for me in return is bring new people in, who haven't maybe experienced an Evil Dead movie before. Older or younger, I don't mind. But just bring new people to the bloody party.

And then they'll turn around to those people, and be like, "What the hell have you introduced me to?"

What have you done to me? But I bet you they'll be hooked, and then they'll be able to come over and watch the other movies.

Evil Dead Rise is out now in cinemas.

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