Movies
‘The Evil Dead’ Gets Very Specific With More Story Details!
Yesterday we learned that Ghost House/Mandate Pictures and Sony/FilmDistrict would be headed to New Zealand in March to begin filming Evil Dead, the remake of Sam Raimi’s 1981 The Evil Dead. Fede Alvarez directs from his own screenplay co-written with Rodo Sayagues. Revisions were done by Oscar-winning writer Diablo Cody (and I’m willing to bet her contributions were significant – you don’t pay that kind of money for a cosmetic touch-up).
The story centers on five friends holed up at a remote cabin where they discover a Book of the Dead with a demonic force unleashed possessing each until only one is left to fight for survival. As we exclusively reported, there is a drug subplot.
Now, we have even more details. Hit the jump to be slightly spoiled! Or more than slightly spoiled! There’s quite a bit you may want to avoid if you want to go in cold. A whole bunch of new info hit regarding the character dynamics of the group, and the vaguest of plot outlines is beginning to shake out from all of the disparate details.
First off the tone is apparently not quite as campy as before. This is apparently going for more straight-up scares a la The Shining.
What’s more? Here’s more.
Per Moviehole, “Mia and David, estranged siblings who have recently lost their mother (Mia’s taking it the hardest being that she’s the one who spent most days at the hospital watching her mother deteriorate) have reunited, along with some old friends and his David’s fiancee, for an intervention at THAT old cabin. As reported by Bloody Disgusting this week, It’s here that the near rehabilitated Mia (who has apparently already been cast) will also toss the last of her drugs down the well and finally go cold Turkey.
A big storm sets in. Everyone heads to the cabin. The book of the dead is found, and arrogant Eric (one of the friends along for the trip) takes the most interest in transcribing passages from it. Always the dicks that bring the trouble, right?
Meanwhile Mia struggles with her newly sober self — BIG TIME. She was going slightly loopy anyway from a recent overdose (one in which she technically died from but was brought back) so no surprise that Mia is the first and worst to go bananas. And no surprise either that nobody believes her crazy claims of coyote dogs and trees attacking her!”
There’s more to the story, so head over to Moviehole to check it out!
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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