How Evil Dead Burn's Director Pulled Off The Movie's Most Impressive Scene [Exclusive]

Throughout my life as a cinephile and my career as a film journalist, I've always cited the original "The Evil Dead" as the movie that got me into filmmaking in a big way. That's because of how enamored I was with the way director Sam Raimi captured so many outrageous, even audacious shots in that film. It's the movie which helped me realize that a camera can be a malleable, physical object within a film's space, and not just an invisible observer. This quality continued through Raimi's two sequels, and has been paid homage to within the "Ash Vs. Evil Dead" TV series as well as 2013's "Evil Dead" and 2023's "Evil Dead Rise." Bravura camerawork became one of the franchise's staples.

This month's "Evil Dead Burn" continues the tradition in good stead, with director Sébastien Vaniček and cinematographer Philip Lozano bringing their A-game behind the camera. As a matter of fact, the film's first teaser trailer (attached to some showings of "Lee Cronin's The Mummy" back in April) was solely made up of the one-take oner in the film, in which a dazed and wounded Alice (Souhelia Yacoub) tries to make her way out of the living room where several Deadites are violently attacking some of her still-human in-laws. As cool as that shot is, there's a moment a bit later in the film which is just as jaw-dropping, where Alice is attacked by a Deadite and gets dragged literally around the room. The shot became even more impressive after I had the chance to chat with Vaniček himself, who revealed to me that the moment was captured in a far more straightforward manner than one might've thought. In other words, the characters were literally dragged around a room instead of the other way round.

In instances of characters moving completely around a room in a movie, a set called a rotating room has traditionally been used. This is where a facsimile of a location is constructed on a ferris wheel-like framework, with all the various objects and furniture in the room bolted or glued down. The camera is also locked off, making it appear like the only thing moving in the shot is the person, rather than the entire room itself. This technique can be seen in films like "Poltergeist," "A Nightmare on Elm Street," and even last year's "Now You See Me: Now You Don't." However, when it comes to the moment in "Evil Dead Burn" where Alice is dragged by a Deadite onto the ceiling of a bathroom, Sébastien Vaniček didn't have the luxury of using a rotating room. As he told me, "I would have loved to, but that's expensive." Instead, he explained how the shot was achieved via ingenuity and stunt performer strength:

"We had a lot of cables on the stunt performers and we had like a 360 [degree] head [attached to the camera, which allows it to rotate]. So a lot of people were involved to pull the wires and everything. But this was like an amazing stunt performance. The room was still and they had so many cables. It was really complicated. We just removed the cables in CG, and the camera movement, everything was here."

It's a shot worthy of the legacy of "Evil Dead," as it feels like something Sam Raimi might've tried. When taken within the context of "Evil Dead Burn" as a whole, the shot is just one of many moments in the film which make it shockingly visceral. All these years later, the "Evil Dead" franchise continues to be daring and inventive.

"Evil Dead Burn" is in theaters now.