Evil Dead Rise: Bruce Campbell says film is dark, serious, excruciating

Last month, director Lee Cronin took to social media to confirm that filming had been completed on Evil Dead Rise, his addition to the Evil Dead franchise. During a new interview with BlairWitch.de, executive producer Bruce Campbell has confirmed that a rough cut of Evil Dead Rise has already been put together:

We’ve seen a rough of it already and it has all the components we need. Like anything, when you see a rough version it just has to be tightened, but we’re good. We’re in good shape.”

When asked how this Evil Dead movie will differ from the ones that came before, Campbell answered,

This one’s dark, this one’s pretty serious. Good, strong performances. It’s a single mom who now has to deal with this book. These days it’s more about the book. That book gets around, that book is handed around, passed along, people try and 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 really it’s just another story of what happens if this book appears in this particular group of people’s lives and how it intersects.”

Cronin, who made his feature directorial debut with 2019’s The Hole in the Ground (watch it HERE) was chosen to write and direct Evil Dead Rise by franchise creator Sam Raimi, who also serves as executive producer on the film. Campbell says that when they’re working with a new director on an Evil Dead project,

we let ’em have a lot of creative leeway, but the basics stay the same. The book, the possession, the rules of how you get rid of them. Every new heroine or hero has to learn how to dispel the evil because there are certain ways you conjure it, and there are certain ways you get rid of it. And not everybody figures that out easily. This family is not the same at the end of the movie. The whole family’s destroyed. These people get possessed; brothers, sisters, sons, daughters. 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.”

Campbell says the fact that the characters in the movie are all related to each other makes it “much more excruciating”.

Evil Dead Rise has the following synopsis:

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.

Lily Sullivan and Alyssa Sutherland star as the estranged sisters at the heart of the story. Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, and Nell Fisher play Ellie’s three kids. Mia Challis is playing Jessica, “an 18 year old girl, who is obsessed with fashion and Instagram. Jessica loves to be the center of attention, although she is smarter than she lets on”.

Campbell doesn’t have an acting role in the film, as he has formally retired from the role of franchise hero Ash.

A collaboration between Warner Bros., New Line Cinema, and Ghost House Pictures, Evil Dead Rise was produced by Robert Tapert. Romel Adam, John Keville, and Macdara Kelleher are also executive producers.

Evil Dead Rise will be released through the HBO Max streaming service, but a release date has not yet been announced.