While Evil Dead Burn only performed modestly at the box office (despite good reviews), the franchise seems to be on solid ground, with a new movie, Evil Dead Wrath, having already wrapped shooting and being set for an April 7th, 2028 release. Once again, original series star Bruce Campbell is on board as an executive producer, and while out promoting his new movie, Ernie & Emma, he told Men’s Journal about what he’d change regarding the movies.
“I’d like more humor back in. The three features have been mostly humorless, and I personally have a problem with that,” says Campbell. “There’s no point for these to get too grim. You can be scary without being grim.”
Indeed, the new films have been criticized for taking an increasingly dark approach to the material, with little room for the madcap antics that endeared Campbell’s Ash to generations of fans. But it’s not only the tone. Campbell also thinks the films have too drab a visual style. “Modern filmmakers love to color their movies like a David Fincher movie, like a hospital room, you know?…Gray-green, like a garage. Garage lighting. And so, okay, it’s a choice. It’s not mine. I think even a horror movie can look pretty. Why not throw them off? Make it all look pretty and wonderful, and then let them have it.”
I agree with Campbell on both fronts. Evil Dead Burn was a great horror flick, but outside of some gallows humor, it was fairly grim stuff, a criticism that could be levied at the last two movies too (Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead and Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise). However, what he really nails is the visual style, which was especially oppressive in Evil Dead Burn, with the visuals so dark they actually obscured some of the nifty gore effects.
At any rate, Campbell seems high on Evil Dead Wrath, with him praising director Francis Galluppi’s previous film, The Last Stop in Yuma County. “Wrath will be good, because I saw that filmmaker’s first movie, and it was really cool, and really smart, and really well thought out.”
Bruce Campbell’s latest, Ernie and Emma, will be getting an Alamo Drafthouse Tour starting September 4th. We’ll be back with our own chat with Campbell around that time.
Do you think Campbell has a point about the modern Evil Dead movies? Let us know in the comments.
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