Evil Dead Rise Director Explains How New Film’s Necronomicon Connects to Previous Movies

The upcoming Evil Dead Rise has a number of behind-the-scenes connections to previous installments in the series, as original star Bruce Campbell, original director Sam Raimi, and original producer Rob Tapert all serve as producers on the film, but the movie itself features some narrative changes from what audiences might be expecting. One change, as confirmed by the first trailer, is that the Necronomicon in this movie, the “Book of the Dead,” doesn’t look quite like what has appeared in previous movies, with director Lee Cronin recently breaking down the ways in which this book connects to not only the original trilogy, but also 2013’s Evil Dead reboot. Evil Dead Rise lands in theaters on April 21st.

“There are connections to the past, lines are drawn,” Cronin teased to Empire Magazine of the book in this film. “In one of the early meetings I had with Sam Raimi, I said, ‘You know the way in Army of Darkness, there’s three [Necronomicons]? You had one, [2013 Evil Dead director] Fede [Álvarez] had one, I’m going to take the other one.’ It gave me that platform to nudge things forward, and also to showcase that we live in a world where there is more than one copy of the Necronomicon. Those books may all have slightly different personalities — it’s not exactly the same book, necessarily, that Ash had in the cabin. But it’s very, very firmly related. It could even be more dangerous…”

Not only did the book in the new film require thematic significance, but the production itself took great care to perfectly craft the disturbing tome.

“We probably worked on it for three months,” Cronin confirmed. “It’s all completely hand-made, hand-drawn. It’s got a different visual style to what you’ve seen before internally. I even brought in little hints of Celtic influences and different things to give it a hell of a lot of personality. It’s the bastard cousin of the other books, and they’re the bastard cousin of this.”

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.

The new film stars Gabrielle Echols, Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher, Alyssa Sutherland, and Lily Sullivan.

Evil Dead Rise lands in theaters on April 21st.

Are you looking forward to the new film? Let us know in the comments or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!