The Evil Dead series is by far one of our favourite trilogies of all time. I highly recommend taking a listen to episode 123 of the Sound On Sight podcast, when we reviewed all three films along with Raimi’s Drag Me To Hell. Strangely the first film was extremely controversial at the time of it’s release for its graphic terror, violence, and gore, being initially turned down by almost all U.S. film distributors until a European company finally bought it in the Cannes Film Festival marketplace. Compared to todays standards, Evil Dead seems pretty tame but perhaps the controversy helped the movie in getting noticed more so that other horror films back than. Despite getting mixed reviews by critics at the time, it has since developed a huge cult following, and launched the careers of Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi and Joel Coen who worked as an assistant editor for the picture.
For decades there has been rumours floating about that Raimi and Campbell would team up again for a third sequel or possible remake, but nothing ever came of those rumours – until now. Dread Central reported last night that a fourth film is gearing up for production with long-time Sam Raimi editor Bob Murawski (Army of Darkness, Spider-man, Drag me to Hell) heading out to Detroit to begin work on the long talked about fourth entry into the franchise. According to The Playlist, Bruce Campbell responded to a fan on Twitter overnight saying, “Believe in the remake, dawg! The project is real. In the works. Cool as hell. Scary as hell.”
The good news is according to Dread Central, the film will be treated as “a small indie thing like the first two.” There is still no word if Raimi will return to direct, considering Oz The Great and Powerful is about to commence shooting in only a few weeks. Hopefully whoever does step in as director will remain faithful to the tone and spirit of the original three films.