Interviews
[Interview] Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell On “Ash vs Evil Dead”!
This morning Starz announced the start of production on “Ash vs Evil Dead”, a new television series based on Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead franchise.
And while the full details can be found here, Bloody Disgusting joined a roundtable – with Raimi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell – to discuss the inagural 10-episode season that brings Campbell back as the beloved Ashley J. Williams, the aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead. When a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind, Ash is finally forced to face his demons – personal and literal.
“Ash is going to making friends and enemies on this show,” teased Raimi.
Tapert went into detail: “This incarnation has a team that forms around him, Pablo [Simon Bolivar (Ray Santiago)], a young immigrant who wants to be part of the American fabric and forget his roots – and through his encounters with Ash discovers what’s important to him.
“Kelly Maxwell (Dana DeLorenzo) is Pablo’s love interest,” he adds. “At first [she] doesn’t believe in Ash and wants nothing to do with him, but eventually becomes part of the team. They go about realizing there is something greater at play than a series of Evil Dead-like attacks.”
He continues: “[They are] joined by Jill Marie Jones [who] plays Amanda Fisher, a police officer who sees something that she doesn’t believe. [This] causes her great problems in her profession. She is on the trail to hunt down Ash because she believes he is responsible for the series of bodies [she finds] as a Michigan State Police Detective. She teams with Ruby (Lucy Lawless), [who] knows something about the Evil Dead and is also on hunt for Ash.”
The episodes will be 30-minutes long, which came as a surprise. Raimi expressed his excitement about this as it allows them to push the pacing up a notch.
“I really appreciate that Starz let us keep the half-hour idea,” said Raimi. “It’s really cool to me [because] we could really fire on a cylinders, be outrageous and fast-paced and nonstop without a lot of secondary character expositions.” There’s literally no padding, he says.
[Related Post] Will We Ever See Ash or ‘Evil Dead’ Back In Theaters?
ASH IS BACK, BUT WORSE THAN EVER
Speaking of Ash, he’s been through quite a bit since 1981. What’s his mental state going into “Ash vs Evil Dead”?
When asked why he isn’t a basket case by now, Campbell jokes: “What makes you think he’s not? He is a basket case!”
“Were gonna find out that Ash is potentially damaged goods, and God forbid this is our hero,” adds Campbell who explains a bit further. “You have a lead guy, in Army of Darkness was responsibly for the deaths of hundreds of people – because he couldn’t remember three words – this is a guy who has to save the world.”
Adds Raimi: “He’s no finer, nobler nor saner of a character than when we last saw him. In fact, I think he’s digressed. He’s clearly aged quite a bit. And his courage hasn’t been whipped up to a frenzy. [He’s at] his lowest instincts and that’s where we find him – and from that low point, that’s the start of our show.”
When asked what Ash has been up to all of these years, Raimi explains that the “Deadites have been barely dormant, and Ash has been living a low life hiding out. Our story really begins when [the Deadites] come back and someone is needed to stand up against them.”
The answer was followed up with the question, is it Ash’s fault the Deadites have return? Raimi exclaims: “Of course!”
The joking continued when asked about Ash’s love interests. “I think those girls he’s been in love with have been slightly more unlucky than him,” Raimi jokes as he looks back at the previous films.
“Ash, there’s a bit of arrested development there. There are bigger issues, we’re talking life and death,” Campbell adds with caution before cracking a joke of his own. “I would be very careful going out on a date with Ash, [as] they usually end up dead.”
The ladies may love Ash, but so do the guys. What makes Ash so popular? He’s an everyday man.
“Ash has no special skills – he’s not a former Navy Seal, not FBI, not CIA, he’s not trained by anybody,” explains Campbell, who says Ash is the average viewer. “Ash stood the test of time. The way the character’s been set up, the way Sam has written it, he’s a relatable hero.
“In entertainment there has to be an aspect of that,” he continued. “The audience will root for Ash, laugh at him and be frustrated with him. You want to be in the actual fox hole with him, but the next fox hole – he’s the guy you want at crunch time, hit or miss. A lot of heroes in movies are too flawless and it drives me insane.”
EXPANDED (AND DIFFERENT UNIVERSE)
One of the biggest questions is as to where “Ash vs Evil Dead” lives within the world of Evil Dead. Raimi’s answer to my question will shock you.
“[‘Ash vs Evil Dead’] doesn’t really exist in the exact same universe,” Raimi reveals. “It’s a slightly altered universe and takes place somewhere in an alternate universe after Evil Dead II.
“I don’t want too spoil too much for audience,” add Raimi, “but that’s the truest answer.”
Tapert responds to my socked inquisition that Army of Darkness isn’t part of the universe.
“Army of Darkness doesn’t exist,” says Tapert before clarifying a bit. “Well, certainly Ash went through a bad experience, but we’re not really referencing it [on the show], specifics from that, but he certainly has that in his memory.”
“We want to take a politicians stance on that,” Raimi jokes. “We don’t want to deny nor confirm that claim. We want the audience to be open with no previous expectations going into the show. We want them to have seen one or all of the Evil Dead. We designed it to live outside of having seen any of the movies. But if you’ve seen 1, 2, or 3 it will work very well for the viewer. That was the intention.”
The expanded universe will play into the creation of new Deadites, too.
“We’ll certainly play to what we once did with Deadites, even through the remake,” says Tapert. “We’re trying to expand the universe, so the storytelling over the ten episodes, we will encounter Deadites that are very different than other forces of evil out there. Then we will expose the audience to new entities that were not presented in the Evil Dead universe so that the audience is surprised.”
[Related Post] Here’s Who’s Directing Episodes of “Ash vs Evil Dead”
KEEPING TO THE TRADITIONS IN THE FILMS
Raimi confirms that the new series will mix both horror and humor, although he emphasized the return of horror.
“It’s a mix of both elements of the Evil Dead films – a very hard edge, intense horror designed to frighten [the] audience,” said Raimi stating that it’s no holds barred. “There is [also] a comedic element that is alive in this. It’s the thing the audience liked the most about the movies. More and more we brought Bruce to the forefront. First, he was a guy who happened to just star in the movie [The Evil Dead]. Then we started to realize the audience really likes this guy and the second, [Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn], became all about him. Delved into his natural strength as a performer, Army Of Darkness tried to capitalize on that and the character created through the first two.”
Tapert speaks to keeping the tradition of gross-out effects alive.
“[We] absolutely want to continue the Evil Dead tradition,” he explained. “We’re working with Roger Murray, and that’s one of the expectations of the franchise – makeup and gore effects. [We] absolutely plan to have those [makeup and gore effects] to continue on with what the audience expects from the franchise in a new and different way.
Campbell puts emphasis on this, clarifying they aren’t holding back: “This is not going to be a watered-down version of Evil Dead.
“Thankfully, by partnering with Starz, the gloves are off and we have no restrictions almost literally,” adds Campbell. “That will suit the Evil Dead fans because they don’t like it watered down. They want the hardcore stuff and they’re going to get it!”
Speaking of gore, what’s going to cause the bloodfest? Raimi explains that we won’t be seeing any new incarnations of the infamous chainsaw, but the classic is oiled up and ready to dismember Deadites.
“Bruce has stored his rig the last 30 years just in case,” Raimi says with glee. “He’s been living in fear of the resurgence of the Deadites. It’s the one thing he’s kept oiled up [and] in tip-top shape. We will see that sweet baby come back and come roaring to life on the Deadites!”
Campbell speaks to the importance of getting the chainsaw’s sound right. “[It’s] important that we don’t use digital sound, that we use analog recorded on reel-to-reel tape because it needs a bite and an edge that only analog can give you.
“I hope we can get a 1979 recording of that,” added Campbell before Raimi chimed in: “I got it on reel-to-reel!”
Problem solved during the interview, literally. Deadites beware.
Interviews
‘In a Violent Nature’ Director Reveals How His Unique Slasher Was Reshot Almost Entirely [Interview]
Writer/Director Chris Nash’s feature debut, In a Violent Nature, is set to unleash an arthouse twist on the slasher in theaters this Friday, but the journey getting there has been long and arduous. So much so that Nash reshot a large percentage of the film just to get it, and the gory practical effects, just right.
That included a recast of the film’s undead slasher villain, Johnny (Ry Barrett), who is unwittingly summoned when a locket is removed from a collapsed fire tower in the woods that entombs his rotting corpse. That spells terrible news for the campers vacationing in his territory.
Bloody Disgusting spoke with filmmaker Chris Nash and star Ry Barrett ahead of the film’s theatrical release about Johnny’s nature and the tough hurdles in making this unique indie horror film. The inspiration behind In a Violent Nature, Nash reveals, didn’t actually originate from iconic slashers, and that informed his overall approach to the arthouse horror movie.
Nash tells us, “I took a lot of inspiration from Gus Van Sant’s 2000s work of Gerry, Elephant, and Last Days. I love those movies, and I really wanted to see what I could do to bring that into a genre film. The slasher just seemed like the best way to do that; especially, the ‘slasher in the woods’ type of thing. We can really just hang out in that environment. But the main thing for nailing the tone was really, I think, just stepping back and letting the scenes just exist as they were and not even aiming for a tone.
“It was a weird thing talking it over with Pierce Derks, my cinematographer,” Nash continues. “We didn’t have the biggest budget to do something crazy and wild with lighting and stuff, and I was like, ‘Well, let’s just go super naturalistic.’ He said, “Yeah, no look is also a look.” So, this is very much a ‘no tone is a tone’ type of movie. We tried to treat it almost like making a nature documentary where we’re just following something, or following a letter carrier at work, just going from house to house. It’s not the most thrilling work in the world, but it’s honest work. That’s how we approached it, being as objective as we could.”
What is a nature documentary without a subject? In a Violent Nature finds it in the undead Johnny, quietly stalking through the woods for large swaths of the runtime. What was Nash looking for when searching for the right actor to play the killer, you might be wondering?
“I’m still trying to answer that question myself,” Nash responds. “I definitely feel like we found it, and we lucked out with Ry. Ry actually stepped in to replace the actor that we originally had cast as Johnny. This was one of the problems that we faced during our first attempt at shooting, as the actor that we had portraying Johnny had to step away for medical reasons. So we had replacements come in. At the time, we were thinking, ‘This isn’t going to be too much of a problem because he’s in a costume the whole time.’ But when you’re following this mute character, as an audience, you’re picking up on everything. When you don’t have those visual cues, you’re just seeing all the physicality and the tiny, tiny differences between posture, between where people actually hold their weight when they’re walking, and just the size of the gate itself.
Nash continues, “It was pretty shocking and pretty jarring when we had that assembly together of like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s that actor. That’s that actor.’ We could see that it was completely different. So, when we asked Ry to step in, we did a lot of rehearsals with him. We talked about how to walk. He actually did research himself. He was watching animal videos, just nature videos of animals walking to try to just get a feel for how a predator would walk around the woods stalking its prey.”
Barrett corroborated, “They had an initial shoot that I wasn’t a part of, and that was about a full year before they approached me and had decided to reshoot. At that time, I don’t think it was a plan to reshoot everything, but there were key scenes and key moments that they definitely had to 100% go back and redo. The entire film is pivoting on his movements and everything; I think you’d be able to tell if suddenly it was somebody different. So then the decision, on top of a bunch of other factors, was made to reshoot the entire thing. I was really happy to be on board, and the fact that they were going to do that, and to kind of build this character and just be there for all of it.”
As for Barrett’s process of cracking his character, he looked to Nash’s script.
“I think Johnny is supposed to be a bit of a mystery, psychologically and what is going through his head,” Barrett explains. “It was more about, I think, treating him like an animal, like a wild animal sort of, and that’s what the analogy [in the film] sort of encapsulates: what Johnny is and how he works. I looked at it that way because of that. The monologue that Lauren Taylor gives is that he’s like a wild animal, a bear that just has something wrong, and that’s how he operates. It doesn’t necessarily make sense what he’s doing, but it does to him.”
“The suit really lends itself to the character,“ Barrett elaborates. “I had my rules that I stuck to, but once you get into the suit as Johnny, it kind of just locks everything into place. Getting the suit on wasn’t too extensive of a thing. There was an underlayer, like Under Armor, with skin, latex skin, and everything looking like it’s rotted underneath the pants and underneath the shirt. Then there was either a cowl I wore some days with an open mask that you’d see the back of Johnny’s head, and then other days there was the mask, the full mask, and then some days we had the mask that had a cutout so I could see better and move better. The only the real day that took the most time was the day where you actually see Johnny’s face. That was a longer makeup day because that was a full application and took probably close to three hours.”
It wasn’t just the actor that changed during the reshoots, but Johnny’s design, too. Nash walks us through some of those key changes that ended up improving upon his original vision.
Nash explains, “Watching the assembly cut, we realized that there were small things that we could improve upon that just changed the tone rather dramatically. For instance, how far we followed behind Johnny with the camera, just giving him that perfect amount of space in the frame. Because we were a lot closer the first time around, and the second time around, we were like, ‘We need to pull back a lot further.‘ Another thing that we were looking at was we actually redesigned the weather mask. It was a much more accurate depiction of what the actual firefighting mask was in real life, but we realized that it kind of looked a little too much like a diving bell; it looked a little too goofy. So, we redesigned it, made it a lot more form-fitting to his head, and gave it that goggle look for just kind of more of a piercing eye.”
“There were so many things we took away from the first time around, even just how we were achieving some gore gags, little flourishes we could throw in,” he adds. “So I don’t recommend, and I also very much recommend, reshooting movies in their entirety before you release them.”
Check out In a Violent Nature in theaters this weekend, and stay tuned for a follow-up interview piece here on Bloody Disgusting about the film’s practical effects and gory kills.
8 New Horror Movies Releasing This Week Including ‘In a Violent Nature’
Five Summer Slashers to Stream This Week
‘The Front Room’ – A24 Horror Movie from the Eggers Brothers Releasing in September
Vincent Price Action Figure from NECA Features Multiple Heads from Different Eras
Mike Flanagan Officially Set to Write/Direct All New ‘Exorcist’ Film for Blumhouse
You must be logged in to post a comment.