'Evil Dead Rise' Is "All About The Necronomicon," Says Bruce Campbell

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The Man with the Golden Chin himself, Bruce Campbell, recently sat down to discuss all things Evil Dead. After dropping some details about Fathom's 40th Anniversary screening of the first flick, he shared some fun tidbits about the upcoming installment Evil Dead Rise. 

Campbell laid out as much as he could about the upcoming installment in the series with Entertainment Weekly, though it's clear the franchise continuity is just as sketchy as it's always been. After all, this is a series where the first sequel is also kind of a reboot, the third movie is only kind of canon because of a rights dispute, and the remake could actually be a part of the original continuity and not a remake at all. None of that really matters, though, especially to Campbell.

"­People can actually call it what [they] want: Sequel, remake, reimagining. It really is just another Evil Dead movie," he explained.

"It's book-centric. It's all about [the Necronomicon]. Where does this book wind up and what happens to it over the millennia?" he elaborated. "In this case, it's set in the city, it's no more cabin in the woods. It's entirely different, unsuspecting heroines who are going to save the day."

The Necronomicon ex Mortis, the Book of the Dead, has featured heavily in every Evil Dead iteration, so it's nice to hear Evil Dead Rise will continue carrying that human flesh-bound torch. The book first appeared in The Evil Dead in 1981, though it was called the "Naturom Demonto." (It was also called this in the 2013 remake/reboot!) It was first called the Necronomicon ex Mortis in Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn in 1987, and retained that name for Army of Darkness in 1992 and the Ash vs. Evil Dead TV series from 2013 through 2015. The book was created by powerful demons and contains a whole bunch of spells to unleash Kandarian demons, resurrect the dead, and opening rifts in time and space. Ash vs. Evil Dead added a unique feature to the book, transferring its powers to a person and creating the living embodiment of the book in the form of Ash's buddy Pablo (Ray Santiago).

Campbell also shared his thoughts about his trust in series creator Sam Raimi and the folks at the helm of the latest Evil Dead movie and his personal involvement.

"Sam handpicked Lee Cronin, who is a very good Irish director, who did a movie called The Hole in the Ground. Lee is a very interesting filmmaker and Sam also worked with him on a couple of Quibi projects [with] Sam in a producing capacity. So he hand-picked him like he had picked Fede Álvarez [for the 2013 film]," Campbell said. "It's filming now in New Zealand, with some of their amazing crews down there and they're well into it. Rob Tapert is the hands-on producer and we're all very involved in the script. We all jump in at various times to chime in. But, yeah, the three of us are very involved."

Despite his level of involvement, Campbell confirms that he won't be reprising the role of Ash in Evil Dead Rise. He will, however, be contributing his voice acting talents to the upcoming Evil Dead: The Game.

"I won't be appearing in [Evil Dead Rise], no," he confirmed. "I will be in the upcoming Evil Dead game, which I think is due for February 2022. I just finished the voice for that. The nice thing is, your voice doesn't age as much as your body, so I can milk that for a few more years."