Sam Raimi Tells Us The ‘Evil Dead’ Remake Will Definitely Be R-Rated

Both Sam Raimi (who will be producing) and Bruce Campbell (who will be making a cameo appearance), who are on board with the upcoming remake of The Evil Dead, are giving the film their thumbs up. The remake of the 1981 classic, will focus on “five twenty-something friends become holed up in a remote cabin where they discover a Book Of The Dead and unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the nearby woods, which possess the youngsters in succession until only one is left intact to fight for survival.” A plot that doesn’t differ too much from the original but replaces some of the characters with new ones. Raimi recently discussed the upcoming remake with Collider. During this interview he revealed that the film is really bloody and really “goes for it” and that we should definitely expect an R rating on it.

When asked if this movie will be  just as bloody as the original or it they’ve toned it down for a PG-13 release:

It’s really bloody.  It’s so bloody, it will make your head spin.  I’ve seen almost all the dailies and they’re really going for it.  It’s gonna be grisly and intense and non-stop.

Regarding the rating of the movie:

Definitely R.  Maybe worse.

On his level of involvement and what fans can look forward to:

Well, I always thought that Evil Dead was a little campfire story that you tell at a camp to kids to scare them at night.  But, I don’t think anybody thought it was a beautifully produced, theatrical experience.  It was shot in 16mm, all the effects were done for a quarter, and I always thought it could be done in a big screen movie type way that was really high quality with photographic effects.  It could still be just as gritty, but it could be done in stereo and not just mono, and it could be done in 35mm versus 16mm.  There were a lot of ways to improve it.  There could be much better writing than I was capable of, at the time, as an 18-year-old kid writing that screenplay.  And honestly, the directing could be a lot better, and the characterizations could be better.  I was very happy with it, but it was something that was crudely done and I thought deserved re-exploration.  I thought it would be fun and, in fact, it has turned out to be a tremendous amount of fun because it’s like an old melody that you write and you’ve brought in this really great, cool, young, hip jazz musician, and he’s riffing on it and showing you places it could go that you never dreamed.  It’s very exciting for me.

So, with both Raimi and Campbell being excited for this movie…are you?

Evil Dead hits theaters April 12th, 2013.