Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin on directing Blood, Puke and Kids

Dormant for ten years, the Evil Dead have finally been exhumed by Warner Bros. and "The Hole in the Ground" director Lee Cronin.

The urban horror spectacle - in theaters this Friday - takes place on the totally fucked up upper floor of a newly Deadites-infested Los Angeles apartment. And though it's set far from the shack in Sam Raimi's original trilogy, 1981's spirits of the legendary cheapie, its brilliant 1987 comic sequel, and even a pinch of its dividing third chapter (stupidly named), "Army of Darkness" from 1992, living in this troubled metropolis.

"I'm a fan of the movies, but I had no interest in doing another 'Evil Dead' movie in the cabin because they did a reboot," Cronin told IndieWire in an interview via Zoom. , referring to Fede Álvarez. a ruthless, gory version of the Necronomicon from 2013. “So I wasn't going to reboot a reboot. And if you want to change it, you might as well go to the other end of the spectrum. The top floor of a downtown LA apartment is about as far as you can go from a cabin in the woods without leaving the planet.

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In the film, Alyssa Sutherland stars as a tattoo artist and mom of three, played by Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols and Nell Fisher, who sees Lily Sullivan appear as their guitar tech aunt just in time for the damn fun to start with.

Cheese graters, tattoo needles, and a truly terrifying doll on a stick — long live Staff-anie — spice up a violent regurgitation of blood, vomit, and bloody vomit we've seen in previous episodes. And when it comes to tonal volume, "Evil Dead Rise" is the loudest series yet: a true volume boost of up to 11 types of experience. (And yes, certain vertebrae are stressed.)

"What I did before when I worked was I played music on set, especially to time scary tracking shots and stuff like that," Cronin said. "But because this movie is so heavy metal in so many ways, I didn't really play any music on set because I would have blown everyone's ears off if I could find music to reflect the movie energy."

Read on to learn more about Cronin's interview with IndieWire, as the filmmaker discusses the challenges of directing children and liquids, as well as the future of the Evil Dead franchise and the use of practical terror on sets.

The following interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

IndieWire: You resurrected 'Evil Dead' 10 years after the last film in the franchise. What is your personal story with these films?

Lee Cronin: It was when I was nine years old and my dad showed me 'The Evil Dead' and 'Evil Dead 2' back to back on VHS. He rented them and I lived in a house where there were a lot of horror fans in my house and I was the youngest brother for many years. I was exposed to movies I shouldn't have seen at a very young age, and they dug in their claws and latched on.

Do you remember preferring "The Evil Dead" or "Evil Dead 2" when you first saw them?

Hard to say at the time, but when I rewatched the movies during my teenage years, "Evil Dead 2" was always my favorite. I love the first one as in, I'll watch it once a year. But I could watch "Evil Dead 2" once a month just for entertainment.

These films have a well-known and, in many ways, beloved formula. Someone reads a book they shouldn't, someone else gets possessed, all hell breaks loose. How did you approach the recipe for "Evil Dead Rise"?

I had to research the characters, setting, and circumstances first, and then figure out how to make everything work within that setting. It was hard to go into a city because it was like, “How do I run a chainsaw into a building? How can I get the book there and how is the book found?"

Once I set the context, set the world, and set the characters, I had to look within that to find the answers. That's how I went about it, was setting it up and then going around looking around the corners how I could put those mainstays of the franchise into play.