Director Lee Cronin explains how he was inspired to turn an ordinary kitchen utensil into a horrific weapon.
Warning: This article contains spoilers fromEvil Dead Rise.
The most disgusting moment in writer-director Lee Cronin’s just-released, gore-drenchedEvil Dead Riseoccurs with a typical kitchen accoutrement.
Lily Sullivan in ‘Evil Dead Rise’.Warner Bros. Pictures
It’s enough to put you off Parmesan for life!
“I knew people would enjoy it.
Cronin knew he wanted to stage a horrific fight scene in a kitchen setting.
‘Evil Dead Rise’.Warner Bros. Pictures
I just knew that I was missing something.”
[I] probably paused lunch and went back and wrote a version of what that could be like.
I do remember thinking, ‘Where’s the gnarliest place that this could be used?’
There was something about the back of the calf that felt particularly icky.
It’s that thing of looking for familiarity with me.
Everybody has scuffed their knuckles on a cheese grater before.
Cronin says actually shooting the scene was tough but enjoyable.
“We had it very, very well rehearsed,” he recalls.
“It’s one of those scenes where it’s in a tight space between two characters.
There’s obviously a variety of beats of performance and action, and attack and defend.
It looks quite simple: someone’s at a counter, someone walks in, someone gets down.
Sullivan considers her on-screen niece turning her calf into meat linguini one of the highlights of the whole shoot.
“Gaby she’s a brilliant actress, she’s a dancer crawled down, fell onto her wrists.
That was all her.
No harness work,” she says.
“That was such an incredible dance with all the domestic utensils of the kitchen.
It was a right laugh.
Actually throwing the objects, we had to choreograph that a lot.
It felt like a dance that one.
I actually can’t.
There’s something in your body that weirdly stopped me from doing it.
I was just like, ‘We’re going to go for pig to the slaughterhouse, everyone!
Squealing pig!'”
Cronin is content that the result was worth all the effort.
“It’s going to be etched on my gravestone,” he says.
“I should start my own cheese grater brand!”
Evil Dead Riseis now playing in theaters.
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