To celebrate the release of Evil Dead Rise in UK cinemas on April 21st, FILMHOUNDS sat down with director Lee Cronin last week to discuss the film and what it was like creating an Evil Dead film that felt different and fresh, whilst also retaining the essence of the original films that have become iconic in the horror canon.
Did you feel any pressure coming in to write and direct the latest instalment in such an iconic franchise?
I don't want to sound arrogant when I answer this, but I didn't feel any pressure because as a filmmaker choosing to take it on, I had to have confidence because I wanted it to be a confident movie. So of course there's the pressure of making a film. Filmmaking is pressurised in lots and lots of ways. There's the natural pressures that you feel. I didn't feel a weight of expectation or burden on my shoulders because as much as I love the movies, I just went to make my own movie my way.
That was what I had to do and then the only real tension for me was when I was asked to take a serious look at making this film and I knew what a great opportunity it would be because I'd wanted to make an Evil Dead film, I'd had an ambition to do so but if I didn't find the story and a set of characters that I fell in love with I was going to have to say no. That was the burden that I felt. To be able to say yes. To find something to say yes to because I had to go find the story but beyond that then, it was just the general pressures of movie making.
Was there ever a point where you wanted to continue the story of Bruce Campbell's Ash or was the idea always to move away from that and find new characters?
It was always the idea to have new characters and that wasn't me being difficult, it also came from where the headspace of Rob [Tapert], Sam [Raimi] and Bruce [Campbell] was at. Bruce Campbell has shared publicly that he's hung up his chainsaw and in a way I don't blame him that he can drop the mic and walk away and he's delivered some all-time performances and such great references to what he's done in the past.
So there was a never really a push. I think even if I'd found a way to shoehorn Ash in, more than the little hidden cameo that's there, I probably would have been told no. The movie had been rebooted already so I felt that we had to go somewhere else. If you're gonna make a change, make a change. And being able to own that was a very positive thing.
That's one of the things I loved about it, switching up the cabin in the woods for an LA high rise, what prompted this decision to move away from the cabin in the woods?
I couldn't think of anywhere further from the cabin in the woods than that LA high rise. You know what it was as well, the difference in this movie? I knew it but I haven't thought about it in a while. I knew it instinctively at the start but I've been thinking about through discussions recently, in the other movies, it's about people that go to an unfamiliar place, a strange place and a creepy place. In this film, we're in the comfort of a home which is a familiar place. and the characters are surrounded by the trappings of their existence and then I bring the horror to them which is quite different. You don't necessarily think about it in those terms when you watch the movie but I think that's part of why people are seeing it as quite a fresh thing. I hope it is anyway.
When you've got a film that's all set in entirely in one location, how do you ensure that the audience don't got bored of that one location by the end?
That's a great question because it's hard man! One of the things that was really important to me, my last movie The Hole in the Ground was all shot in real locations, and there can be a great beauty to doing that, but it restricts you sometimes visually because you can't just knock a wall down in a house that you've hired out as a location. This had to be shot in a studio because I needed to have the ultimate play set in order to keep the film really visually refreshed. But as much as it's in one apartment I utilised the corridor, the elevator, there's the underground parking lot. It was also one of the reasons to make the choice to have the cold open prologue that we have in the movie. It was to actually open up the world a bit wider before I started to close in. I think I shot every possible corner and angle of that apartment and covered every square foot in some sort of fluid.
You mentioned doing it in a studio so you've got your own play set, I'm guessing the effects are all done with gallons and gallons of fake blood there. What's it like doing it this way? Is there a pressure to get things done on the first try when you're doing it all practically and it takes so long to set up beforehand and clean up afterwards?
There's certain things that you know you won't get right the first time and sometimes it's kind of like a cost analysis. It's like we can have a lot of goes at this, and then there's other things like the major blood tidal wave in the movie where I had two goes at that which was one in the morning and then it'd take eight hours to reset the shot and then I could shoot for the rest of the day and get the final take. But we got it in one thankfully. And there are a few moments like that where my 1st AD will be reminding me that we've got to cross our fingers and hope that we get it done in one.
There's also an action scene built around a peephole. I ended up editing the scene and cutting forward and then back but it was envisaged and shot as a single moment and so it was this incredible crew I worked with, so amazing to watch, but all of that happened in one shot and there was so much off-camera and so much effort to just have this one tiny point of view and that was a weird one because I think we did two takes, but most of our shooting day was not shooting, it was just re-rehearing which makes producers nervous because they're like ‘why are you not rolling cameras?' and it's because when we do I'm going to go get 90 seconds of the movie in one shot. That was a lot of fun. A hell of a lot of fun!
That one shot through the peephole I thought was great.
It's a restricted view action set piece where you get to see certain things and then you get to hear other things which I really want to try and do in my next movie. I really want to try and do something like that again in an even bigger way but I love what I call these restricted view set pieces.
The film focusses on a family dynamic rather than a group of friends, was that, again, trying to get as far away from the cabin in the woods and the original films?
I never looked at it as I was trying to get far away from them because I have a lot of respect, but it was just about finding the right story. I think I'm drawn to stories about domestic circumstance and the horrors that can exist within them. It is a lovely shortcut to communicate with an audience. If you can get an audience to feel connected or familiar with people or place, I'm not saying it's easier to scare them, but there's more to scare them with because of that familiarity, and they can then carry it home with them later on. Because one of my jobs is I want people to enjoy the movie but I also want them to take it home with them.
That's the thing I love most. When I was younger and I'd watch a scary movie and I'd be lying awake at night thinking ‘holy shit'. And that's something that I want to do. With families in peril, I think I was inspired and influenced by a lot of movies when I was younger that are about that from The Shining in terms of the deconstruction of that family in that movie but even just the way the family is in E.T.. It's lighter and it's softer but it's still a family that's in some sort of peril. There's changes, dads not there, and I just thought if I can crack a story around family and then weigh in all of the Evil Dead madness on top of it, it could be really unique experience.
It definitely was a unique experience. That's what I liked that, that it was very different to the original films but it still retained that essence.
The spirit. I'd wanted to maintain the spirit for sure.
You mentioned this idea of you want the audience to take something home. Originally the film was meant to be released straight to streaming, how do you feel now that people are able to see it in a cinema?
I'm really excited. The missing part of that story is the first part of the three acts which was it was originally supposed to be theatrical but it was COVID that was forcing studios to push moving to streaming so it kind of slid that direction but myself and especially the studio execs at New Line Cinema who are in the business of making theatrical releases and making successful horror theatrical releases, we never gave up hope.
It was a bit of a kick in the teeth to be honest because it wasn't what I was setting out to do. And I wonder truthfully had I had known at the start that I was making this movie for HBO Max or for any streamer, I might not have made the movie because I'm theatrically focussed but it came in the middle of the process and then we just held our nerve and I kept fighting to make the movie as spectacular as I could and thankfully the test screenings went well and audiences kind of lost their shit a little bit and got really excited. And no one wants to leave money on the table so it felt like putting it in the cinema was the right thing to do, and I'm so excited that people will get to go into a dark room and watch it on a big screen with a bunch of strangers. It's an audience participation movie.
Now that the film's finally here, what are you most proud of about the film?
Completing a movie is definitely something to be proud of. I think what I'm most proud of though is that I was able to communicate my vision to a bunch of really talented actors and crew and I was able to motivate them in a way that they were supporting that madness. It was a really challenging and hard movie to make. You can see when you watch it. All of the practical effects, and the visual effects, and the nuanced performances where there's emotion and terror, characters that feel reel, characters that fall apart, characters that become possessed. So I think I'm proud that I was able to communicate my ideas to people and that they were able to then in turn help me realise this and put it on the big screen.
Evil Dead Rise is in cinema from April 21st. Read our review of the film HERE.
