Murmurs of first test screenings are making their way around town about New Line Cinema’s latest entry in The Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Rise, and it sounds like the film is absolutely terrifying. Functioning more as a follow-up to the 2013 grizzly horror fest directed by Fede Álvarez, the new film will once again be a gore-drenched demonic possession nightmare with endless buckets of blood on hand. While the studio has been successful in keeping a pretty tight lid on things, here’s why expanding the franchise is working and how it may continue.
The series has covered a tonal gamut between raw independent horror madness, a full-on time-traveling adventure into medieval times, to a television sitcom. The brand of Evil Dead is like a deranged demon, possessing different genres yet always delivering absolute carnage and horrific fun. Regardless of its many tonal iterations, this particular offshoot is straight horror. Yet, at the same time, Raimi and team continue to tease the possibility of more Bruce Campbell hilarity.
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The simultaneous existence and continuation of the original franchise, along with its own reboot, is something we see more and more of. Child’s Play has now birthed a new version of Chucky as an A.I. robot voiced by Mark Hamill while Brad Dourif marches on with the original timeline. Perhaps it’s no coincidence that Raimi also had a hand in the Spider-Man franchise, which established a new benchmark for justifying a multiverse of iterations.
It’s possible the Evil Dead magnum opus will follow Evil Dead Rise, placing Bruce Campbell into a mind-bending follow-up to Army of Darkness and the Ash vs. The Evil Dead TV show. Considering Raimi’s most recent work with Doctor Strange In The Multiverse of Madness, it wouldn’t be too surprising if he used what he learned there to make the most outrageous Evil Dead experience to date.
Evil Dead Raises the Stakes
New Line Cinema
Evil Dead Rise hones in on a family dynamic starring Alyssa Sutherland, Lily Sullivan, Gabrielle Echols, Nell Fisher, and Morgan Davies. The family members are exposed to an ancient evil that will force them to face the most nightmarish version of a family feud imaginable. Bringing Evil Dead into a more subtle family dynamic will help to increase the dramatic element. It helps ensure that viewers feel for the characters and their relationship to one another as they are helplessly consumed by a brand of viciously chaotic evil dreamed up by Sam Raimi back in the late 1970s.
Perhaps Raimi experienced William Friedkin’s The Exorcist and was excited to blend that horrific flavor into something a bit more frenetic and wild. After all, with the exception of a few moments, Regan MacNeil is pretty much bedridden that entire movie. Evil Dead sets the demon-possessed loose with sharp objects in their hands, and it’s pretty much as scary as cinema gets.
Ironically, placing the film in a high-rise setting is knocking off its own knock-off. The 1980s Demons films from Italy were very much a response to Evil Dead, with fast-moving demon-possessed ghouls running amok in a movie theater in the first film and a high-rise apartment building in the second. 28 Weeks Later, the 2007 sequel to Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later from 2002, featured a high-rise invasion that seemed to echo moments from Demons 2 as well. Both franchises employ “fast” versions of their respective monsters, which has often been a point of contention for some horror enthusiasts.
Evil Dead Rise is on track to resonate with its target audience, considering what Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi have said about it. It’s much more adult, according to Campbell, while Raimi told Slash Film, “It’s going to knock people’s socks off.”
Evil Dead in Los Angeles
Bringing the demonic possession madness out of the Tennessee woods and into a major metropolis like Los Angeles is somewhat akin to 1990’s Predator 2. The sequel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger mega hit opened with a tracking shot that appeared to be in a jungle until it panned up to reveal downtown LA. The film will likely play with a similar dynamic as we bring the threat of Deadites into the larger scope of society. With a more serious dramatic tone, the danger posed by something like the Book of the Dead in a major metropolis aligns with contagion outbreak, a horrific theme everyone on planet earth can relate to in recent times.
Perhaps a larger threat will be established by what these particular demons are capable of. The Ash vs. Evil Dead TV series proposed a kind of Kaiju-level demonic menace in the end. While that angle aligns better with the Bruce Campbell version, we may see a similar effort to up the ante on a level that makes sense for the reboot universe.
