After years of waiting, we are finally closer to watching a brand new Evil Dead film. Evil Dead Rise, the fifth installment of the cult classic franchise, has officially completed filming according to writer and director Lee Cronin.
The director, who previously received acclaim for his 2019 Irish horror The Hole in The Ground, broke the news on Twitter in bloody fashion. “8 months, 1 Covid Lockdown, 6,500 [liters] of blood, and more memories than my brain can even process,” his post says. “That is a wrap on #EvilDeadRise. Thank you New Zealand, it’s been a blast.” While that might sound like an insane amount of blood, we should expect nothing less from the gruesome and gory franchise.
Although much of the new film is still shrouded in mystery, we do know some important plot details about it. Evil Dead Rise is said to focus on the relationship between two sisters, Beth (Lily Sullivan) and Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland). When Beth comes to visit her older sister and her family in Los Angeles, they find themselves in the midst of a Deadite invasion thanks to the discovery of the Necronomicon. We have also previously reported that this new film will have Beth “face a twisted version of motherhood” in the process.
Sullivan and Sutherland will be joined by Morgan Davies, Nell Fisher, Mia Challis, and Gabrielle Echols. Series mavericks Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell are executive producers on the project and also hand-selected Cronin to revitalize the franchise. Raimi’s banner Ghost House Pictures serves as the film’s production company alongside Warner Bros. Pictures and New Line Cinema.
Whether focusing on scares or laughs, the Evil Dead franchise has been a favorite of many horror fans since the first film’s release in 1981. The last film in the franchise was Fede Álvarez’s soft-reboot simply titled Evil Dead. However, its last project was the Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead, which ran from 2015 to 2018.
Evil Dead Rise will, well, rise on HBO Max sometime in 2022. In the meantime, check out the entirety of Cronin’s tweet below.