New Evil Dead Spinoff Director Promises a “Big Statement” and “Something Crazy”

Evil Dead fans were given a reboot of the core concept in 2013 from director Fede Álvarez and last year brought us the spinoff Evil Dead Rise from director Lee Cronin, with Sébastien Vaniček confirmed to be developing the next entry in the franchise. With the franchise earning five films, three seasons of the TV series Ash vs. Evil Dead, and multiple comic books and video games, there are many avenues that can be explored in a new film, with Vaniček confirming that he’s in the early stages of scripting the story for his spinoff while also hinting at what his approach to the project will be. Vaniček’s latest film, Infested, lands on Shudder on April 26th.

“The first thing [Sam Raimi and his team] asked me was, ‘What would be your Evil Dead?’ And there was the word ‘your,’ so that was like, ‘Yeah, that gives me some artistic freedom,’ and I think I understood what’s Evil Dead and I was like, ‘Okay, if this is Evil Dead, I will do this and that because I want to explore this and that,’” Vaniček confirmed to ComicBook.com. “And they liked my answer and that’s why they gave me this job.” 

He continued, “But I love what Sam Raimi did. He was a 20-something-year-old guy with a camera and he wanted to do something crazy, so he did a lot of crazy shots and he wanted to shock the audience, and that’s something I really identify with because I was this guy … I did a lot of short movies with my team without any money or anything … I also like the vision of Fede Álvarez, for example, in 2013 when he thought, ‘Okay, let’s do an Evil Dead movie, but let’s do it a more realistic way because now the audience grew up and now we need to have something less a bit … I would say silly, less funny.’ And I’m thinking about doing something that would give justice to both of these visions. The vision, the real vision, something realistic that hurts you, a mean movie that moves you, and when you go up to the theater, you are like, ‘What the hell?’”

Vaniček also reflected on how much Raimi was able to accomplish on the original film, regardless of his limited budget or feature-film experience.  

“Something that’s also kind of crazy, this 20-year-old guy with some crazy camera shots, and also the statement that Sam Raimi had about friendship, about love, about family, it’s really important to me to stick with something that’s is in the script, in the writing process,” the director detailed. “I need to have strong characters. I need to have a big statement. I need to have an intelligent movie or smart movie. And after, as soon as I have this, I will be able to do something crazy and with a lot of Deadites and things like that, and to have a strong movie, but I need to have a really strong basis and I think that the strong basis is in Sam Raimi’s work, so I’m trying to take the best of every part of even that.”

With Álvarez coming from Uruguay and Cronin hailing from Ireland, the upcoming Evil Dead will also continue the trend of enlisting international filmmakers to lend their unique cultural perspective to the franchise that originated with a group of friends from Michigan.

“That’s why I think that the Ghost House team is really smart,” Vaniček shared of the diversity of the filmmakers. “They are looking for visions and they trusted Fede Álvarez even though he only did a short movie, and they trusted Lee Cronin even though he did a small movie in Ireland, and they trust now a French guy who did a movie in France, but I think that they see a vision, they see a way of dealing with tension, of dealing with the editing, of dealing with sound and image, and they think like, ‘Okay, this guy is another generation that will give a new path to Evil Dead.’ And they are looking for this, I think, so that’s why they gave me freedom, and it’s so cool to work with them because they are so trustful and it’s really cool.”

Infested is described, “Kaleb is about to turn 30 and has never been lonelier. He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

Stay tuned for updates on the future of the Evil Dead franchise. Infested premieres on Shudder on April 26th.

Are you looking forward to the new Evil Dead? Contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter or on Instagram to talk all things Star Wars and horror!