WHEN Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead was released in 1981, critics named it an instant classic and said that it marked a new milestone in graphic horror.
Now, more than four decades later – and 10 years since 2013’s Evil Dead reimagined the original – Skerries-born filmmaker Lee Cronin has reignited the beloved franchise with Evil Dead Rise, a hauntingly fresh take on Raimi’s concept.
“I was an Evil Dead fan from childhood,” says Cronin when we sit down to discuss his terrifying film.
“I saw The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II back-to-back on VHS – my dad showed them to me when I was about eight years old. It left a mark, I suppose.
“So, given the opportunity when I met with Sam Raimi, who’s a filmmaker that I greatly admire, and he asked would I be interested in taking a look at Evil Dead, and maybe bringing it to life and refreshing it in some way, I was obviously very flattered, but then had to hunt down a story that I wanted to tell.”
The story writer/director Cronin tells is set far from the rural cabins of yore, in a small Los Angeles apartment. It follows Beth, played by Lily Sullivan, who is visiting her older sister Ellie, played by Alyssa Sutherland, who is struggling to raise three children on her own.
Their reunion is, however, horrifically interrupted when an earthquake unearths a strange book hidden in the depths of the apartment building which, when opened, unleashes flesh-possessing demons that turn the domestic scene into a bloodbath.
“In the past movies, basically, people go to a creepy place, they go to a cabin, and something bad happens. In this case, I bring the horror to the home, which is quite different because it’s people who are in their comfortable space,” says Cronin.
“They’re in a place that they know, a place that should be secure.
“And then I come banging on the door, in a bloody, scream-y way.”
Setting the film in the home, and centring it around a family with a mother at the heart of the horror, was appealing to Cronin because, he says “family in peril is a beautiful shortcut to freak out an audience”.
“And that’s my job as a horror film-maker, is to get under people’s skin, to make sure that they get scared and have a good time,” he says.
“I’m always drawn to movies that are about domestic situations, like the horror of the domestic – some movies that inspired me like The Shining, or even not a horror movie, but something like ET – where there’s a family in peril. People really connect with those things.
“And then at the centre of family is the power of the mother in this story. That’s a really interesting thing to subvert.
“When you’ve got this mother character, that then you twist the other way… it really gets under audiences’ skin.”
Cronin’s debut feature film, 2019 supernatural horror The Hole in the Ground, was set in Ireland, but while Evil Dead Rise’s story takes place in California, the action is mostly within a confined, domestic space that could well be anywhere at all.
“I like to tell stories that have an ‘any town, almost any time’ feel, even though this movie is very of the now and I think feels fresh with the characters and their attitudes – nonetheless, I always try and create something that could be deemed timeless,” says the filmmaker.“I did dance around where it could be in America, but ultimately, I really wanted an earthquake in the story. And the earthquake brought me back to LA.“I also thought that the top floor of a building in Los Angeles couldn’t be any further from a cabin in the woods. It felt very different.“But, you know, I don’t think the film would have ever really worked in Ireland.“It’s an interesting thought, but there are little hints of my Celtic origins in the story.”
While there might only be subtle hints of home in Cronin's Evil Dead Rise, the gore and body horror that has underpinned the franchise since its inception remains gloriously unsubtle.The making of Evil Dead Rise involved 6,500 litres of fake blood – “that’s all real proper movie blood, it’s not like water with red food colouring – there’s no cheating at all – it is all sticky,” says Cronin – and leaning into the special effects and gore was something the filmmaker relished in.“I like a lot of different aspects of horror movie making, but the practical effects, and the creation of all of these unusual moments, for want of a better description, is something I do really enjoy,” says Cronin.“Because it kind of brings me back to childhood. And what drew me towards filmmaking in the first place was actually special effects.“That was the first thing I tried to do, before I understood how to maybe tell a story, it was just about building blood rigs and trying to make things out of fake skin and explode things in my garden.“So to get to do that as a grown-up now and still, essentially, be a child, and someone pays for it – it’s a lot of fun.”
That said, Cronin is “not an absolute gore hound” by his own admission, instead preferring psychological horror as a viewer.“But Evil Dead’s a little bit of an exception to the rule for me, because it’s gore done in a very entertaining way,” he adds.“But for me, the gore is all a waste if you don’t care about the people in the story. That’s the key.“Otherwise, it’s just a series of stunts and events and, you know, bloodletting.“But if you care about the people and the context and the peril that they’re in, then gore is a very, very powerful thing, because it’s so visceral, it’s so visual, it really shakes people up.“And this movie has no shortage of gore at all.”Evil Dead Rise is released on Friday April 21.
