It’s hard to believe that after so much chatter and so many promises, the remake of “The Evil Dead” is actually happening. Indeed, the project is set up at Sam Raimi‘s Ghost House Pictures, with on-the-rise director Fede Alvarez (“Panic Attack!”) at the helm with none other than Oscar winning screenwriter Diablo Cody doing some final touchups on the script. This won’t quite be the ‘Evil Dead’ we all know and love, rather, something promisingly different, but there will be one very, very familiar chin popping up in what is a pretty no-brainer cameo.
In an interview with Spanish paper El Pais (via Dread Central) director Alvarez hints the cast will be made of unknowns…well, except for one guy. “Because we are fans of the original, we realize that nobody wants to see a celebrity in a remake like this,” he said. “The only recognizable face will be that of Bruce Campbell, and he will be in a cameo toward the end of the film. We are going to change the characters and some story details, while keeping the basic outline of friends who are beleaguered by demons in a cabin alone.”
Now before some of the spoiler babies start crying, let’s not pretend that everyone pretty much expected this to happen. With Campbell forever talking about this movie, it was inevitable he would be part of it in some way. However, it’ll be interesting to see what approach Alvarez takes with the material as he reveals, “Sam Raimi says there’s a fine line between horror and comedy. The original ‘Evil Dead’ was intended as a ‘straight horror’ movie with scenes of extreme gore directly designed to shock the viewer. I rented the movie with a friend from a video store at just thirteen years old, and that was a big mistake! The film scared the life out of us.”
“We realize the mistakes not to make,” Alvarez also said. “As fans of the original, we know we are going to offend those who are also fans just by taking this job. We’re going to honor the original film along with the existing fans and hope to bring in a new audience as well.”
So does honoring the original film mean going for a much more traditional horror pic interjected with laughs? With Cody writing, we presume that will be the case. There’s no word if Campbell will reprise his role as Ash or if he’ll play another character altogether, but let’s hope it’s the former. It would actually be kind of interesting for some kind of parallel story or prequel to play out before the events of the first film. Production begins soon and we guess we can look for this next Halloween.