Evil Dead Rise director Lee Cronin says families are a horror movie

polygon.com:

As the first Evil Dead film in 10 years, Evil Dead Rise has no problem reinventing Sam Raimi’s iconically gonzo horror franchise. Lee Cronin’s new standalone take on the storied franchise is a smart, snappy blend of the original films’ over-the-top mayhem and the 2013 remake’s relentless horror, but it’s also a personal film for the Irish horror auteur.

Ahead of Evil Dead Rise’s premiere, Cronin spoke to Polygon about the inspirations for his radically different yet extremely faithful take on Raimi’s Evil Dead films, and his own very wholesome relationship with his family — which inspired him to create some truly messed-up fictional families.

Polygon: You’re only the third person to make an official Evil Dead movie. What’s Evil Dead to you?

Lee Cronin: Evil Dead is part of my childhood, and part of my culture and understanding of horror movies, from when I was very young and started to really enjoy the genre. But Evil Dead is also a kind of pure, unfiltered energy through both the gruesome aspects and the terror, but also the pure, exciting filmcraft of it all. It’s something that carries this really exciting, independent streak that always motivated me when I was younger. Like, Hey, I can make movies too. So it’s also been a little bit of a guidebook to me in terms of how to go about making a movie, and how to be motivated to keep on pushing and make something happen.

There are a lot of parallels between Evil Dead Rise and your debut, The Hole in the Ground . You’ve talked in the past about how you’re attracted to telling stories about family — why do you think that is, and what makes Evil Dead good for that?

I think it’s the ultimate universal theme. Recently, [I thought] about the things I’m working on,