By the time it’s released, director Lee Cronin‘s (The Hole in the Ground) Evil Dead Rise, the brand new installment in the Evil Dead franchise that’s going directly to HBO Max, will be the franchise’s first movie in nearly 10 years, following in the wake of Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead and course, the Starz series “Ash vs. Evil Dead” that brought Bruce Campbell back into the mix.
Evil Dead Rise is likely on its way sometime next year – no date at this time – and filming is complete. Speaking with the website BlairWitch.De, Bruce Campbell gives us a bit more insight into what we can expect from the new movie. And to be clear once more, Campbell is creatively involved in the project as a producer, but he’s not expected to appear in the film in any capacity.
But first, the official plot synopsis for Evil Dead Rise…
“In the fifth Evil Dead film, a road-weary Beth pays an overdue visit to her older sister Ellie, who is raising three kids on her own in a cramped L.A apartment. The sisters’ reunion is cut short by the discovery of a mysterious book deep in the bowels of Ellie’s building, giving rise to flesh-possessing demons, and thrusting Beth into a primal battle for survival as she is faced with the most nightmarish version of motherhood imaginable.”
“[The film will be] different, this one’s dark, this one’s pretty serious,” Campbell tells BlairWitch.De. “Good, strong performances. It’s a single mom who now has to deal with this book [of the dead]. These days it’s more about the book. That book gets around… handed around, passed along. People try to get rid of it, they try to bury it or destroy it, and they really can’t. So this book just keeps popping up. So it’s really just another story of what happens if this book appears in this particular group of peoples’ lives and how it intersects.”
Campbell continues, “Lee Cronin is a very serious man. He’s a very serious director. He’s a very atmospheric director. It’s gonna be really good. We’ve seen a rough [cut] of it already. It has all the components that we need, it just needs… like anything… it has to be tightened. But we’re in good shape. We let him have a lot of creative leeway. But the basics stay the same. The book, the possession, the rules of how you get rid of ’em. Every new heroine or hero has to learn how to dispel the evil.
“This family is not the same at the end of the movie. They’re gutted. The whole family’s destroyed. These people get possessed – brothers, sisters, sons, daughters. It’s a family affair. This one’s a family affair. They’re all related in this one. I think that makes the possession and killing your siblings, things like that, even harder.”
Gabrielle Echols (Reminiscence), Morgan Davies (The End) and Nell Fisher (Splendid Isolation) will star in the new movie alongside Alyssa Sutherland and Lily Sullivan.
Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert are producing Evil Dead Rise. According to Campbell, the three have been “very involved” in the project every step of the way.
