A remake of Evil Dead is coming whether some fans like it or not. Trust me, there are plenty of fans outraged by this film happening. However, I am not one of them due to the fact that both Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi are on board with this so at the moment I have faith in it. The legendary Bruce Campbell who we all know as ‘Ash’ from Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead recently discussed the upcoming remake with Digital Spy. He reveals some interesting new info, such as the fact that we will see none of the original characters from the original film and that this will be an entirely fresh new take on the franchise. So, fans that were worried that this would just be the same movie shot by shot can take one sigh of relief.
On just how different this one is to the previous movies:
There’s none of the original characters. We didn’t want to compare apples with apples. It’s a contemporary movie – just like Evil Dead was contemporary in 1979, this is contemporary for young adults now. It’s basically five new kids who are going to have a really bad night with a brand new director – Fede Alvarez, who was handpicked by Sam Raimi. I’ve seen it already; I think it’s definitely fabulous.
Does he think fans will embrace this remake:
We’re really excited and really behind it, [but] it’s going to take a bit to get the Evil Dead fans behind it. We know we’ve pissed a lot of them off. We appreciate that and we appreciate their anger and their zeal, but the only thing we want to impress upon them is that we didn’t screw it up. This is going to be just as memorable as [the original] Evil Dead without being the same movie.
You don’t want to remake something shot-for-shot. I can’t believe they remade Psycho – what the hell kind of a waste of celluloid is that? It’s a creative medium.
The nice thing is the film looks beautiful. The effects are 10 times better than we ever had access to and the actors are all better than we were in 1979. Though granted Sam Raimi is a mad genius, so we got a crazy result like Evil Dead out of this amateur enthusiasm sort of thing.
On the subject of whether or not he will make a cameo and if he would ever be willing to play Ash again in the future:
I’m not at liberty to discuss that. But the thing is we want it to be a standalone movie. You’re going to have some references [to the original] in there and there’s going to be things the fans will enjoy as far as familiar aspects, but it’s a whole new ball game.
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know if I could – the last one was 1991. I was a virile young man; I’m 54 years old now so I’m not sure 54-year-old guys need to be doing that s**t anymore. But if Sam wants to lace the boots back on and do something that makes sense, that’s fine. We may need to do the movie one day, if our careers fly off the tracks and we crash and burn, we might look at each other and go ‘Let’s make an Evil Dead movie’!
His thoughts on the current trend of remakes and reboots:
Well I’ll be honest with you… I’m not a fan of them. So I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth. Here I am remaking a movie at one end… but here’s my spirited defense – it’s our movie. Myself and Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, we own that movie, it’s our movie. We’re not looking into some file drawer of some property that’s owned by a studio that’s 30 years old, that we can get for cheap and [saying] ‘Let’s remake that’.
Our only obligation to the viewer is that we don’t give them a piece of s**t. It’s going to wind up being a very handmade movie, Fede Alvarez is so far from being a hack – we didn’t get some 18-year-old director who just wants to make his movie look cool. We got a guy who is an adult.
I think people will be pleasantly surprised that it’s not something that was cranked out, where no-one gives a crap. We were involved in casting, we were involved in everything. We’re all over that movie like a cheap suit, so if it blows it’s our responsibility.
Evil Dead hits theaters April 12th, 2013.