- "Evil Dead Rise" director Lee Cronin told Insider about the "blood meth lab" he had on set.
- He said that the crew ended up recycling fake blood because they used so much of it.
Sam Raimi's "Evil Dead" franchise has always been a wildly gory affair with Bruce Campbell's Ash Williams front and center, but director Lee Cronin's 2023 sequel pushes the blood-soaked franchise even further with the help of a brand new cast.
The film follows Beth (Lily Sullivan) who visits her sister, Ellie (Alyssa Sutherland), and her kids in Los Angeles as she grapples with a personal revelation. Unfortunately for the family, it isn't long before the Deadites are unleashed and all hell breaks loose throughout Ellie's apartment building.
Cronin doesn't hold back with the violence, and Insider's review dubbed the movie "gloriously gory."
Speaking to Insider, Cronin explained that the set had its own "blood meth lab" because of how much fake plasma was needed for the movie.
"There was a lot of blood. The volume we needed to create required this kind of cookhouse. It was like a blood meth lab. And it was 6½ thousand liters of blood that we used, and we used it all," the filmmaker said.
—Insider Entertainment (@insiderent) April 22, 2023
The Irish director recalled how the crew had to recycle the blood because they started to run out of it during certain scenes.
He explained: "In fact, I think in the end, we started to have to recycle some blood that was kind of used because we were running out of the red resource. And it's, it's always a tricky one to handle because it's so messy and it's so hard to kind of clean up. But yeah, we kind of really went for it and it was important in a movie like this that there was a lot of blood on screen."
Cronin added that there was never a moment that was deemed too violent or gory in the film, but he could've made the story even more disturbing.
"There are things and themes in the movie that I could have pushed in different directions or gone further that would have been too far, more in story terms," he said.
But I think in terms of the kills and the entertainment value… this might be something Sam said back in the day, but like, 'the gore the merrier,' and I think that is actually true of this movie as well."
The "Hole in the Ground" director went on to say that he's pleased that audiences have been so receptive to his violent take on the "Evil Dead" franchise.
"This is a movie to go watch in the cinema and just have a good time," said Cronin.
"Evil Dead Rise" is in theaters now.