Before the demonic possession even begins in Evil Dead Rise, things aren't exactly rosy between its lead characters, sisters Beth and Ellie. After a cabin-based cold open sets the tone of the movie, we jump to Los Angeles, where the former is dropping in on the latter and her kids – and it's quickly established that the pair have been estranged for some time.
While Beth (Lily Sullivan) has been living it up and touring with various music bands, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland) has been struggling to raise her children alone following the sudden departure of their father. What's worse? The rundown high-rise she's living in is booting them out, and as it stands, they've not got anywhere else lined up to move to.
In a new interview with Total Film and GamesRadar+, Sullivan suggests that introducing the sisters as they face their strained relationship "twists the knife" when proceedings start to lean into the supernatural. "It ties into that fear of worrying about the last thing you said to someone. It shows the clumsy nature of family, too, and explores feelings of guilt and responsibility, and how we don't always say what we wish we'd said or could say," she explains. "I feel like it sets the film up nicely so once she's... converted, it's more of a sucker punch."
"I think it also just helps establish characters as well, from the intellectual standpoint. I think it helps you understand who each of the sisters are at the beginning. And then you see them completely flipped in having to deal with something that they never believed could happen" adds Sutherland.
"I think it can tap into a mother's deepest fear that her kids are being harmed, but she's the one harming them," says Sutherland. "I'm not a mother, but I would imagine that would be my greatest fear – that I was going to harm my children in some way. Like, whether intentionally or not, that's going to be in your head."
"For me, it speaks to the multiple layers of motherhood; the idea of what that even means and not having to necessarily be a mother to have that primal, instinctual, guttural feeling of protecting. Self sacrifice and selflessness, you know what I mean? Putting other people before you, which feels like Beth's transition in the film," says Sullivan, before giggling: "We also make the joke of, like, how it explores cutting out toxic relationships and setting boundaries..."
There's something deliciously ironic about the fact that Sutherland, who is a self-proclaimed wuss when it comes to scary movies after being scarred for life by Tim Curry's It when she was 11, is the one terrorizing Sullivan, a horror lover since she was a child, onscreen. That said, Sutherland has found a new appreciation for the genre having worked on Evil Dead Rise and watched the movie with a bunch of excitable gore hounds at South by Southwest earlier in 2023.
"Now I'm like, 'oh, I get it'. You go and you watch it in a cinema, not in your living room at night, and you have the experience with everyone," Sutherland notes. "It can be an incredible, communal thing and I've been trying to chase the high ever since [the festival], and going to cinemas. But do I want to watch them at home at night-time? Probably not. I still have an overactive imagination."
"I so do," Sullivan chimes in. "The more fear and adrenaline I have through my body, the better, and that feeling of just being paralyzed at the end of the film? I'm like, 'job well done'." Not that her enthusiasm for the genre could adequately prepare for the sequel's arduous albeit "fun" shoot in New Zealand – or the 1,717 gallons of fake blood they went through on set.
"Acting almost comes last in a way because to pull off the gags and the suspense element to it, it's such a dance with the camera, it's such a dance with the set decoration. But yeah, my nervous system was shot," Sullivan recalls. "I'd be like, 'let me be the one toying instead of in constant fight or flight'. Some days, honestly, my body would go into overdrive and there would just be certain moments where I'd go into micro-panic attacks and just be a bit frozen. It was like my body was going into overdrive. It's an Evil Dead film, it takes place over a very short period of time; same costume every day, and you're just in constant survival mode. Thank god for the chainsaw moment; that kept getting me through. It was the only thing holding me at the end. I'd be like, 'I will get the chainsaw soon, I will get the chainsaw soon.'"
"With something like this, you sort of just have to take it day by day. You can't really map it out too much," says Sutherland, who argues she had a much easier time of it during production. "Obviously, we're doing our prep as actors, but to prep for an Evil Dead film? I actually sort of think less is more and you have to take it moment by moment. Just like, 'what do we have on tap today? How do we get through today?' It's like baby steps."
To avoid time-consuming clean-up at the end of the carnage-filled days, Evil Dead Rise was largely filmed chronologically, which meant that the stunts, violence, and scares got bigger (and stickier) as its practical production went on – culminating in an elevator full of the gooey, red stuff and "the craziest monster" Sullivan has ever seen. Over the course of four months, she didn't just wield a chainsaw but a shotgun, a big ol' pair of scissors, and more too. In the story, Beth and the youngsters are trying to avoid being injured by things like a tattoo gun, a wine glass, a wood chipper, and... a cheese grater; all due to a increasingly unhinged, zombified Ellie.
"Turns out, I have a lot of unexpressed rage, and I think a lot of women can relate honestly. I certainly have a history… I've been conditioned by society to sacrifice myself and make other people comfortable at the risk of making myself uncomfortable – but that's better than making a man uncomfortable," Sutherland admits.
"So, I found that it wasn't that hard for me to feel a bit of rage, and getting it out and expressing it was really therapeutic," she goes on. "Like there's a shot of me at the door and I'm kind of just railing and going for it - it's incredible. It's like how I imagine those rooms are where you destroy and hit things."
Recognizing the importance of not being afraid to embarrass yourself on a project that demands such extremes, both actors praise Cronin for making them feel secure enough to do whatever felt authentic to their characters whenever the camera was rolling.
"Lee, you know, he's an Irishman. So he just brought this edge, and laced the script with great one liners and it had that slapstick aspect, too," Sullivan, who recently described the movie as a "black comedy on acid" on Twitter, continues. "Like in his first film The Hole in the Ground, which is so rich character-wise and grounded, it was really nice to see that he brought that to the Evil Dead world. He's meticulous as a director; so technical and he lives in the edit, so it's very, very cool working with someone who allowed us to forget the franchise and that we could just trust.
"We didn't have to be conscious of what had come before, whether we were trying to be new or go in a different direction," says Sutherland. "We felt so confident with him, and that's what he had expressed to me right from the get go; 'I want you to feel really comfortable. That's my goal, for you to feel as comfortable as possible.' And, well, goal achieved because my fear of failure was completely removed – and you have to lose that, especially if you're being a psychotic monster."
Telling us that she's couldn't imagine having made a film like Evil Dead Rise with someone else, Sutherland also mentions Cronin's advise about there being "a rhythm to a scare", which allowed her to screw with and unsettle her other actors in certain scenes – much like how a deadite would gleefully mess with its victims.
"I could fake them out, then stop and wait just a beat, and then go again. That was really fun and a new thing for me as an actress to do," she remembers. "It was a very technical role and experience in filmmaking. Much, much, more technical than I had experienced on other sets. There's a timing to everything and how it all happens, which is pretty fun, actually. Then you have to forget all that and just let loose and act." If not holding back was the aim, there's no doubt Evil Dead Rise unleashes hell, and then some.
Evil Dead Rise releases on April 21. While we wait, check out our list of the greatest horror movies of all time for some viewing inspiration.
