Bruce Campbell Teases New Evil Dead Rise Details, Including Female Lead

A variety of clues about what audiences can expect from the upcoming Evil Dead Rise have emerged in the months since the project was announced, with longtime star and producer Bruce Campbell recently offering the tease that the plan for the new movie is to have a female heroine be featured front and center, with Campbell’s Ash taking center stage in the original trilogy of films and three seasons of Ash vs. Evil Dead, while it was an ensemble showcased in the 2013 Evil Dead reboot. Campbell has previously teased that the new film won’t be taking place in the woods, with his latest comments hinting at how the new film will keep in line with its predecessors, despite shifting locations.

“Rebooting can be very confusing and frustrating and not always successful. Reboot, sequel, remake; we have all these crazy terms,” Campbell recently shared with AL.com. “What we’re doing now is we’re saying, ‘Look, this is another Evil Dead movie and that book gets around, a lot of people run into it and it’s another story.’ The main key with Evil Dead is they’re just regular people who are battling what seems to be a very unstoppable evil, and so that’s where the horror comes from. It’s not someone who’s skilled. They’re not fighting a soldier. They’re not fighting a scientist. They’re not fighting anybody more than your average neighbor. This one is going to be a similar thing. We’re going to have a heroine, a woman in charge, and she’s going to try and save her family.”

While the series has featured a number of compelling and capable female heroes, Ash has largely dominated the franchise. Given Campbell’s on-screen legacy as Ash, the previous reboot smartly pivoted away from any character even resembling Ash, though when fans failed to connect with that endeavor as strongly as its predecessors, Campbell returned as the character just years later for the Starz TV series.

In addition to these latest details shared about the project, we also know that Lee Cronin will serve as the sequel’s director.

“For me, the key thing I kept reminding myself of, when you’re in the trenches and you’re developing something, was to make sure it’s a roller coaster,” Cronin previously shared with ComicBook.com about the key to a new Evil Dead. “To make sure that it has twists and turns and that it’s visceral and engaging. To sum all that up, to come back to what I just said, I wanted to create a roller coaster of terror. That was really the key for me. my memories of Evil Dead, when I watched them at a young age, always marveling at ‘how does this even exist?’ It just continues to poke at my brain and refresh every time I watch it. So to boil it down to an even simpler thing was that it’s experiential. It has to be a horror experience. And that”s the key and that’s what I’m trying to achieve with this.”

Stay tuned for details on Evil Dead Rise.

Do these comments have you excited about the new movie? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!