Evil Dead Rise: EP Bruce Campbell on Franchise’s Return to Theaters

There’s no secret how synonymous the Evil Dead franchise has become with director Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell (along with producer Rob Tapert) with their initial claim to fame with the 1981 original horror film. The duo would return for two sequels in 1987’s Evil Dead II, 1992’s Army of Darkness, and the Starz! series Ash vs. Evil Dead. While Raimi only directed the pilot episode, Campbell’s Ash Williams would see plenty of adventures that went beyond, including video games, comics, and an end credits cameo in Fede Álvarez’s 2013 remake that starred Jane Levy. With Campbell announcing his physical retirement from the role after the Starz! series cancellation, he’s joined with Raimi to executive produce Lee Cronin’s Evil Dead Rise. The upcoming film takes the setting out of the cabin to a more urban setting with Alyssa Sutherland and Lily Sullivan playing sisters Ellie and Beth, who try to deal with the demonic forces of the Necronomicon while Beth tries to protect Ellie’s children from their possessed mother. He spoke with Looper about how the Warner Bros film managed to make a theatrical release after initially being regulated to an HBO Max-exclusive due to concerns from the pandemic, Sutherland and Sullivan, and more.

Evil Dead Rise’s Uncertain Journey

When it came to how Evil Dead Rise should be enjoyed in cinemas, “I agree. It deserves to be theatrical, but they don’t do things for altruistic reasons necessarily at a studio,” Campbell said. “We screened it before the movie was done — you always screen it while you’re finishing it up — and the scores were okay but not amazing. We’re like, ‘Okay, let’s just finish this movie,’ because they had warned us early on, “This is going to stream, so don’t get your hopes up. Because the industry was really weird a couple of years ago, they didn’t know if [theaters] were coming back or not. We had a second screening when the film was done, and it shot up so dramatically [that] Warner Brothers went, ‘All right, we’re going theatrical.’ It proved itself, which is where we give them credit for being flexible. I give the movie credit for kicking ass enough that they [changed their minds] because it does deserve a theatrical [release]. I’m a producer; I’m supposed to say that, but some movies don’t. But ‘Evil Dead Rise’ is very visually arresting, and if you want a movie with good visuals, man, you want that as big as you can.”

Regarding any advice Campbell parted to Sutherland and Sullivan, the actor resigned to having them find their way. “It wouldn’t help to tell them anything. I stayed completely out of their hair. I don’t want to get involved in their process,” he said. “I don’t want to be in their head. They both leaned into their roles, which is all you could ever hope for, that they didn’t grope their way through this. They charged through it. They both were very confident in their performances.”

Campbell also explained how he and Raimi trusted the process. “Lee is a decent director. He’s good at [getting the best] performances, and he cares about everything. He cares about the technical stuff, and he cares about the acting. He wrote it, so he cares about the dialogue. You have to have a good tour guide through it. Even though it was very hard on every cast member, [the Kiwi crews are] the best crews in the world. They started with ‘Hercules’ and ‘Xena,’ they worked with Peter Jackson [for ‘The Lord of the Rings’ movies], and they came back to Rob Tapert. They’ve done so much work down there that they know how to take care of actors. They know how to get them clean and fresh, and they have all kinds of standby. They have Hudson sprayers to spray them down; they have little bathtubs they can jump in. They have towels and warming blankets. They’re not shivering in the cold like we were on ‘Evil Dead’ — not even close — but it only helps so much. The blood never lies if you’re covered in blood. During ‘Ash vs. Evil Dead,’ my wife came into my trailer one time; she goes, ‘Man, you look like you’re sitting in a poopy diaper.’ I said, ‘That’s a good analogy. I am sitting in a poopy diaper.’ I call it ‘poopy diaper syndrome.'”

For more, including how Campbell explains how the latest film fits into the franchise paradigm and the trio’s success, you can check out the interview here. Evil Dead Rise comes to theaters on April 21st.