Bruce Campbell Says EVIL DEAD RISE i]Is Dark, Serious, and Much More Excruciating

Bruce Campbell continues to hype the upcoming horror film Evil Dead Rise, which is coming from producer Sam Raimi and director Lee Cronin. While we all know what the Evil Dead franchise has delivered in the past, it seems like this next one is going to take things to a new level of darkness.

Campbell says that Evil Dead Rise is going to be a "much more excruciating" experience from an emotional level. In an interview with BlairWitch.De, the actor shared:

"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."

Evil Dead Rise tells a twisted tale of two estranged sisters, played by Alyssa Sutherland (Vikings) and Lily Sullivan (Picnic at Hanging Rock), “whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.”

Campbell went on to talk about the director they hired to take on this film and why they believe he’s the right person for the job, saying:

"Lee Cronin is a very serious man, he's a very serious director. Sam Raimi picked him because he did a pretty good job on a movie A Hole in the Ground. He's a very atmospheric director and Sam thought, 'Let's give this guy a shot.' It's gonna be really good, we've seen a rough [cut] 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."

That great to hear! It sounds like we are going to get a crazy Evil Dead movie that is going to take audiences on a hell of a ride. He then said that the filmmaker still used a lot of familiar elements from the franchise that he embraced saying:

"We let [filmmakers] 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, it's one thing to conjure it, 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. They're gutted, 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. Because in the original Evil Dead, there was one brother-sister combo, Ash and his sister Cheryl. The rest were just friends. Now, they're all related in this household."

In the fifth Evil Dead film, “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.”

Bruce Campbell previously shared some additional information about the story and explains that the story is all about the Necronomicon, a.k.a. The Book of the Dead.

“It’s book-centric. It’s all about [the Necronomicon]. Where does this book wind up and what happens to it over the millennia? In this case, it’s set in the city, it’s no more cabin in the woods. It’s entirely different, unsuspecting heroines who are going to save the day.”

As for whether the film is a sequel, a remake, or a reimagining, Campbell says it doesn’t matter, “­People can actually call it what [they] want: Sequel, remake, reimagining. It really is just another Evil Dead movie.”

Campbell also said, “At its core, Evil Dead is about ordinary people overcoming extraordinarily terrifying situations. I can’t wait for Alyssa and Lily to fill the blood-soaked shoes of those who have come before them and carry on that tradition.”

Cronin added, “The Evil Dead movies filled my brain with terror and awe when I first saw them at nine years old. I am excited and humbled to be resurrecting the most iconic of evil forces for both the fans and a whole new generation.”

The film is being produced exclusively for HBO Max.