Evil Dead Rise’: inside the year’s scariest horror film

Lee Cronin was nine years old when he saw Sam Raimi’s seminal 1981 horror The Evil Dead and its 1987 sequel Evil Dead II. At his family’s Dublin home, he watched them back to back one night with his dad, who had rented them on VHS. “I grew up in a house where everybody watched horror movies all the time. There was no concealment from those things,” he says. Rather than be terrified, he was excited. “I didn’t understand what they were. And I didn’t understand the importance. But I knew I’d seen something I’d never seen before.”

The story of five Michigan college students who inadvertently unleash demonic spirits while holidaying in a remote cabin in the woods, The Evil Dead was indeed unique. Dubbed “a good campfire story” by none other than horror maestro Stephen King, its raw mix of black humour and extreme gore became notorious. A cult in the making, it launched the careers of Raimi, producer Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell, who starred as the demon-slaying lead Ash Williams. Then came the sequel six years later, and finally trilogy-closer Army of Darkness in 1992.

After that, the franchise was kept alive by the likes of Fede Álvarez, who made reboot Evil Dead in 2013 starring Jane Levy and Shiloh Fernandez. Campbell also returned to his most famous role in Ash Vs Evil Dead, a TV series continuation that lasted for three seasons on cable network Starz.

Although a sequel to Álvarez’s film was also mooted, it never got off the ground. Then Cronin stepped in.

 After his 2019 supernatural debut The Hole In The Ground played at Sundance Film Festival, Cronin was invited to lunch by Raimi, impressed by what he’d seen. As Raimi recently said during the SXSW Film Festival, “I saw in Lee a great craftsman. It takes another plumber to recognise a good plumber. You’ve got to be able to know what type of pipe to use, the gauge. I recognise a good weld that another plumber makes. A lot of people can’t but if you do that yourself you really see the art and the care that goes into it and I saw that in The Hole In The Ground.”

At the time, they talked about movies and influences – anything but The Evil Dead. “It was just the last ten minutes of [our] conversation, I said, ‘By the way, what are you doing with Evil Dead?’” remembers Cronin. “And he was like, ‘Why?’ And I was like, ‘Well, I’m a massive fan. And I’d like to see more Evil Dead movies.’ And he went, ‘Oh, shit! You like Evil Dead!?’” Cronin was heading out the door to catch a flight to Dublin. Quickly, he “blurted out” some initial thoughts on what would ultimately form the basis for the franchise’s fifth movie: Evil Dead Rise. 

Curiously, it hadn’t struck Raimi to bring it up.

“He didn’t think I’d have any interest in Evil Dead,” says Cronin. “The Hole In The Ground is like a whisper at the back of your neck. Evil Dead Rise is like a full-frontal bloodied scream right in your face.” Yet over the next six months, and many emails, Cronin came up with an idea. “I pitched to Sam, Rob and Bruce the full storyline and they fell in love with the story I was trying to tell and the way I was trying to break the mould.” 

Cronin doesn’t just break the mould. “I think it’s a big bloody crack open into a new part of the universe,” he says.

One of the most intense horror movies in years, Evil Dead Rise captures the renegade spirit of the Raimi originals and yet slams something new down on the table. Primarily set in Los Angeles, there’s no cabin-in-the-woods setting or Ash Williams. “It’s the first Evil Dead movie that has neither of those things,” says Cronin. “It just felt like it needed to step into some fresh territory, to reinvigorate what’s there.

When he proposed his idea to Raimi, the director had two key bits of advice: ‘Make sure the Deadites are really scary” and “make sure there’s a Book in there.” The Deadites, of course, are the demons that look to possess the bodies of mere mortals and feast on their souls. And the Book? Well, that’s the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, the ancient Sumerian text also known as the Book Of The Dead that originally unleashed hell when Ash and his friends find it in the cabin’s cellar. But what about other totems in the franchise – like the use of a chainsaw and shotgun? “They weren’t givens,” says Cronin. “In a way, we all agreed it was about the Book.”

When he proposed his idea to Raimi, the director had two key bits of advice: ‘Make sure the Deadites are really scary” and “make sure there’s a Book in there.” The Deadites, of course, are the demons that look to possess the bodies of mere mortals and feast on their souls. And the Book? Well, that’s the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, the ancient Sumerian text also known as the Book Of The Dead that originally unleashed hell when Ash and his friends find it in the cabin’s cellar. But what about other totems in the franchise – like the use of a chainsaw and shotgun? “They weren’t givens,” says Cronin. “In a way, we all agreed it was about the Book.”

At the time of the film’s SXSW world premiere, Cronin promised a prize to the first person who figured out where Campbell features. “[Someone] ran up to me, as I was leaving the stage after the Q&A, and quoted the exact moment, so I owe that person $50. And I still need to announce it.”

Held at Austin’s Paramount Theatre, the premiere was, according to Cronin, “like a rock concert”, with 1300 people cheering and, at times, recoiling in horror at what they were witnessing. It was the perfect launch for a film that currently has a 96 per cent critics’ score on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. “So far, the signs are good, the reactions are good,” the director says. “My only anxieties are with the viewers… because I want to entertain and engage and terrify an audience. That’s my goal.” The nine-year-old Cronin would surely be delighted.