As you may have heard, Evil Dead, the vicious and gleefully violent 2013 remake of the 1981 classic, is dropping on DVD and Blu-ray today. To promote the venture, director Fede Alvarez chatted with Collider about the process of making the box office hit. Their entertaining phone interview covered everything from struggling to avoid an NC-17 rating, the definition of director’s cut and just how one can win over diehard fans with a Hollywood remake.
But the part that most caught our attention is what Alvarez said about the development of a sequel, which he is currently writing (though he is as of now not attached to direct):
We’re discussing. We’re still talking with Sam about it and trying to figure out what we should do. Maybe because I’m a child of the 80’s, but for me a sequel is a story that follows the previous one, and sometimes if you haven’t seen the original then you don’t understand the second one. Like Back to the Future 2. If you haven’t seen the first one, you’re not going to get anything out of Back to the Future 2. So that’s kind of my ideal sequel – a movie that continues the story, takes one character and moves on, and moves forward with that character that survived with the first one. That’s what I want to do. But the reality of the industry today is that the sequel is just the same concept, but with a new bunch of characters. That’s the reality of Final Destination or Saw. Generally it’s a new bunch of characters and you play with the same concept again. But I don’t think, personally, we should just get a new bunch of kids and throw them in the cabin and open the book again. So that’s what we’re trying to- were just going back and forth about what is the reality of the market and what kind of film should we do.
Fascinating stuff. Alvarez goes on to state that all of the same collaborators, including the Evil Dead triumvirate of Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Rob Tapert, are on board to work this out.
If someone is genuinely advising for the Evil Dead sequel to be a simple rehash of the original in the cabin, they should think again. Horror movies have always been about rehashing the same premise again and again. Think Friday the 13th or Halloween. However, the beauty of the entire Evil Dead series is that it follows characters into bizarre adventures. Sure, Ash (Campbell) redid the cabin again, but then he got out and time traveled the world. Personally, I would love to see Mia, Jane Levy’s character from the remake, become a similar self-styled badass after surviving this horror and go on to have her own adventures. Perhaps, she and Ash could even meet up?
The cabin has been done three times. The joy of the remake stems from excessive gore and hilarious inhibitions being exhibited in its demented characters. That could follow Mia anywhere. Saw should be no one’s guide on how to make a franchise.
The rest of the interview is a terrific read, which you can find by clicking on the link above.