Since Sam Raimi, four new directors have joined the Evil Dead franchise. But what got Fede Álvarez, Lee Cronin, Sébastien Vaniček and Francis Galluppi the job?
Forty-three years ago, a low-budget horror movie called The Evil Dead had its world premiere at a small movie theatre in Detroit. Its director, Sam Raimi, couldn’t have possibly known that his ultra-gory possession flick would become a cult classic and spawn an expansive horror franchise. Raimi hasn’t returned to Evil Dead in over thirty years, which means that four up-and-coming new directors – Fede Álvarez, Lee Cronin, Sébastien Vaniček and Francis Galluppi – have all been given a stab at crafting their own Evil Dead movies.
Which begs the question – what did Sam Raimi see in their work that made him say, “This guy needs to make an Evil Dead film?” To find out, let’s take a look at these directors, their work, and see if we can figure out what it takes to be handed the keys to one of Hollywood’s most enduring horror franchises.
Fede Álvarez
Fede Álvarez is unique among these new directors in that he only had a handful of short films to his name before signing on to direct 2013’s Evil Dead, the first film in the franchise not directed by Raimi himself. Billed as a “re-imagining” of the original, it stuck closely to its predecessor’s template, following five friends as they travel to a creepy cabin in the woods and rapidly succumb to a body-hopping demon.
Álvarez’s most prominent short film, and the one that most likely got the attention of Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures and secured him the Evil Dead gig, is 2009’s Panic Attack! At just under five minutes long and (allegedly) made on a budget of only $300, Álvarez’ film involves a group of robots and airships attacking a city, blowing up buildings and military planes, before combining into some sort of super robot and detonating a mega bomb that destroys the entire city.
With a shaky handheld aesthetic that absolutely apes Matt Reeves’ 2008 disaster sci-fi film Cloverfield, Panic Attack ultimately feels more like a visual effects demo reel than a cohesive narrative short. Álvarez’s chaotic yet clear cinematography and ability to juggle dozens of VFX shots (which he did himself) and large crowds is undeniably impressive on a technical level, but the use of John Murphy’s composition “In the House – In a Heartbeat” from 28 Days Later is doing much of the heavy lifting in terms of mood and emotion.
Suffice it to say, the film doesn’t exactly scream Evil Dead, and apparently Ghost House originally agreed, as when they signed Álvarez a few weeks after Panic Attack dropped on YouTube, it was to direct a $30-$40 million science fiction film. How Álvarez parlayed that deal into a shot at Evil Dead is ultimately a mystery, but it probably had something to do with his proven ability to create a project with a sense of scale on a miniscule budget, something that Raimi could most likely relate to given his own micro-budget beginnings.
2013’s Evil Dead is, for this writer’s money, the scariest film in the franchise, a visceral, nasty gorefest full of goopy practical effects and effective jump scares. It has blood rain, for goodness’ sake! Álvarez has gone on to be involved in several genre films, some successful (2016’s Don’t Breathe, also for Ghost House), some not (2018’s The Girl in the Spider’s Web, the failed Lisbeth Salander reboot). His latest film, Alien: Romulus, premieres next month, with the trailers promising another claustrophobic, practical effects-driven thrill ride from Álvarez. Whatever “it factor” Raimi and his fellow producers saw in him and Panic Attack, it’s clear that their gambit paid off.
Lee Cronin
Ghost House Pictures waited almost exactly ten years before dropping the next film in the Evil Dead franchise, 2023’s Evil Dead Rise, directed by Irish filmmaker Lee Cronin. Rise was only Cronin’s second feature; the first was 2019’s The Hole in the Ground, a small-scale chiller about a mother (Seána Kerslake) who moves with her son (James Quinn Markey) to the Irish countryside, where she suspects that her boy has been replaced by a supernatural imposter.
Much like with Álvarez, there’s not much stylistic similarity between Cronin’s debut and the Evil Dead film he would go on to make. The Hole in the Ground doesn’t stray too far from the slow-burn “A24” style (they distributed the film but didn’t produce it) that was particularly popular amongst horror films in the late 2010s. Cronin gets solid performances out of his actors and utilizes a handful of satisfyingly crunchy practical effects, but there’s little of the stylish camera movement and flair that he brought to Rise (not a single split diopter!), and the film is ultimately too familiar to make for an exciting watch.
The closest ties between the two films are thematic; both feature a family member being replaced by a monster their loved ones don’t recognize, as well as the fear of failing as a parent to your child. Even though the premises might share some common elements, Cronin’s approach to them is entirely different from a filmmaking standpoint. The Hole in the Ground plays its supernatural premise completely straight; Evil Dead Rise, meanwhile, comes closest to capturing the blend of horror and comedy that Sam Raimi perfected in Evil Dead II (watch the hallway massacre, complete with flying eyeball POV, to see for yourself).
Cronin proved himself a chameleon through his foray into the Evil Dead franchise. Details on his next film, an untitled horror film produced by genre maestros James Wan and Jason Blum, are being kept tightly under wraps. Whether it’s a franchise entry or not, it’ll be exciting to see how Cronin adapts and evolves his style once more.
Sébastien Vaniček & Francis Galluppi
We come now to Sébastien Vaniček and Francis Galluppi, whose entries in the Evil Dead franchise have yet to be released (or even enter production). Despite the differences in their respective debut features’ premises and even genres, there’s a few similarities between the movies that speak to why these directors might have been brought into the Evil Dead fold.
Vaniček’s Infested (Vermines) is a creature feature about the residents of a Paris banlieue who are set upon by hundreds of venomous spiders who can grow as large as dogs. The comparisons to Evil Dead Rise are right there in the apartment building setting, but Vaniček is arguably even better than Cronin at making use of his claustrophobic locations and dilapidated production design. Evil Dead films are often ensemble-driven affairs, and Vaniček is adept at juggling his huge cast of characters, even if their emotional beats don’t always land. Couple that with skillful camera moves and a satisfying blend of CGI, practical effects and real spiders, and it’s easy to see why Vaniček would be courted to join the Evil Dead franchise.
Galluppi’s The Last Stop in Yuma County is a more curious case at first glance, as it’s a Tarantino-esque noir rather than a horror film (although it arguably has more moments of high tension than any of the other directors’ films). The 1970s-set crime thriller tells the story of a colorful cast of characters waiting for a gas truck to show up at the titular last stop. A pair of bank robbers take its patrons hostage, kicking off a pressure-cooker of a film that eventually explodes into tightly-edited, gory violence.
It’s probably the most impressive debut on this list; Galluppi knows not only how to keep up the tension and pace, but manages to craft characters that play with and subvert clichés in equal measure. Like Vaniček, he does an excellent job of establishing the geography of his chosen single location, and if his Evil Dead movie ends up being another cabin-in-the-woods type, it’s all but guaranteed that he will shoot the hell out of it.
The Evil Dead franchise’s willingness to reinvent itself and play with different genres arguably makes Galluppi’s film the most intriguing, as it could really end up being something the franchise hasn’t seen before. Maybe he will stick to his crime comedy roots and make a heist film featuring Deadites; maybe it will be a road trip film that utilizes the same gorgeous location shooting of his debut.
Both Vaniček and Galluppi are talented directors who know how to make the most of a small budget and one main location (the Evil Dead special), but whereas Vaniček’s hiring feels somewhat like a reinforcement of the franchise’s status quo, Galluppi’s feels like a step in a new direction.
So at the end of the day, what is the common thread that connects all of these directors? They all know how to move the camera and get solid performances out of their actors, but that doesn’t feel specific enough. Sébastien Vaniček might have put it best in a recent interview with Screen Rant, saying, “…Sam Raimi and his team are the only ones in Hollywood who give a chance to new filmmakers to do such big movies…they give us this huge franchise, and they trusted them.”
While there’s at least one other Hollywood franchise, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, that also plucks indie directors out of a hat and gives them a studio directing gig, the homogenous nature of the MCU’s house style often irons out those directors’ specific styles and idiosyncrasies. Raimi and his team seem determined to take the opposite approach, giving their filmmakers free rein to approach the world of Evil Dead as they see fit rather than forcing them to conform to the predetermined plans of a cinematic universe.
Ultimately, Raimi seems to be looking for filmmakers that remind him of himself: young, scrappy filmmakers who scrounge together what money they can to put their passion projects out into the world. By taking this approach, Sam Raimi has crafted one of the most consistent and enduring horror franchises, and it will be thrilling to see just how much the world of Evil Dead has left in store for audiences with these new directors at the wheel.
The first five Evil Dead movies are now available to watch on digital and on demand. Sébastien Vaniček and Francis Galluppi will direct the next two instalments in the franchise, with Vaniček hoping to release the first sequel in time for Halloween 2025.
