After Fede Álvarez in 2013 and Lee Cronin ten years later, French director Sébastien Vaniček has now become the latest filmmaker to craft a new entry in the iconic Evil Dead franchise – with his film Evil Dead Burn released in UK cinemas this weekend.
As with those two previous examples, Vaniček’s film obviously owes a huge debt to the work of franchise originator Sam Raimi – and the virtuoso director once again serves as an executive producer on the new movie.
But according to Vaniček, Raimi – who he described as a “very fun and cool uncle” – more or less gave him free reign to stamp his own authority on the series.
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“He’s never trying to protect the franchise, because he’s working with people who know and love the franchise,” he explained in an exclusive interview with Radio Times.
“So he knows it’s in good hands. The only advice he has is, ‘have fun, enjoy, and go as far as you want – and if we need to have conversation, we will have them in editing.”
And Vaniček added that even when it did come to the editing process, Raimi was very hands off, sending him “the nicest email” in which he said he was “proud of the images” and really happy with the movie.
“I respected the guy even more when I discovered him even more,” he said. “He wants the movie to be good. It’s not about making a good Evil Dead, it’s about making a good movie… that’s all he wants!”
Interestingly, Raimi himself spoke to Radio Times earlier this year and explained how he loved watching a younger generation of filmmakers do their own thing with his original idea.
“It’s fascinating, the process,” he remarked. “Because it’s like writing a little ditty – a six note little ditty – and seeing these really fine filmmakers come in and take that and orchestrate it and make it their own verses and make it their own and take it in directions I never even thought of.
“But you can still hear that little ditty in there sometimes!”
One of the major influences for Vaniček’s take on the franchise was the New French Extremity movement of the early 2000s, with the filmmaker explaining how the films of Alexandre Aja or Gaspar Noé had had a huge impact on him when he watched them as a teenager.
“I was like a teenager trying to be shocked by something… and I think these movies are really grounded,” he said. “I think that’s why they were touching me more than American movies that felt a little bit more over the top, bigger than life.
“So when I had the job and I had to do an Evil Dead movie, I was like, I will have another grammar for violence and brutality, and I want it to be really grounded, even if we have Deadites and we have supernatural situations.
“I want the wounds, I want the hits, I want the kills to be very grounded. I want the audience to close their eyes, and I want them to avoid the screen. That’s the type of feeling I wanted to create, because that’s how I felt when I discovered those movies.”
On that front, it’s safe to say that Vaniček’s film very much delivers – with our 3-star review of the film calling it a “relentless onslaught of horror set pieces and mean-spirited brutality” that “might just push [the franchise’s] boundaries further than ever before.”
Evil Dead Burn is released in UK cinemas on Friday 10 July.
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