Bruce Campbell Has A Problem With Modern Evil Dead — And He Wants It Fixed

TL;DR

• Bruce Campbell believes the three most recent Evil Dead movies have leaned too heavily into grim horror.
• He wants future installments to bring back more humor without sacrificing scares.
• Campbell would also like brighter visuals, properly red blood and a central hero audiences can genuinely root for.
• He has high hopes for Francis Galluppi’s upcoming Evil Dead Wrath.

The Evil Dead franchise has never had trouble spilling blood. According to Bruce Campbell, however, the recent movies may have forgotten that audiences are occasionally supposed to laugh while watching it happen.

Campbell, who spent decades battling Deadites as Ash Williams and remains closely connected to the franchise as a producer, has opened up about his biggest issue with the modern Evil Dead films. While he is pleased that the series has survived without Ash, Sam Raimi behind the camera or the familiar cabin, he believes the latest entries have become too committed to grim horror at the expense of another ingredient that helped make the originals distinctive: humor.

Bruce Campbell Wants Evil Dead To Be Funny Again

Speaking with Men’s Journal, Campbell grouped 2013’s Evil Dead, 2023’s Evil Dead Rise and this summer’s Evil Dead Burn together when discussing the franchise’s tonal shift. His assessment was straightforward: “The three features have been mostly humorless.” He added that horror does not necessarily need to become relentlessly bleak in order to scare audiences.

That does not mean Campbell wants the series transformed into a straight comedy. The original The Evil Dead was considerably more frightening than the increasingly outrageous Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, and every era of the franchise has handled humor differently. His point is more about creating contrast. A laugh can make the next scare hit harder, just as an absurd moment can give audiences a brief release before another gallon of fake blood arrives.

Campbell summed up his preference simply: “A little more humor wouldn’t kill you.” Considering the average survival rate of anyone who encounters a Necronomicon, humor may be one of the safer things an Evil Dead movie can add.

Ash Was An Idiot But Audiences Wanted Him To Live

Comedy is not the only thing Campbell thinks the newer movies could use. He also wants future filmmakers to give audiences a central character they can strongly invest in.

Ash Williams was hardly the traditional heroic ideal. He could be selfish, arrogant, reckless and spectacularly stupid, but Campbell argues that viewers still wanted him to survive. That relationship between Ash and the audience became increasingly important as Raimi pushed the series toward more elaborate physical comedy and cartoonish violence.

The newer movies have intentionally moved away from trying to create another Ash. Fede Álvarez centered the 2013 film on Mia Allen, Lee Cronin built Evil Dead Rise around a family trapped inside a Los Angeles apartment building, and Sébastien Vaniček’s Evil Dead Burn again placed family trauma at the center of the Deadite carnage. Campbell has previously supported the franchise abandoning its old formula, arguing that Evil Dead Rise proved the movies could succeed without Ash, Raimi directing or another trip to the cabin.

His newest comments suggest that moving forward does not necessarily require abandoning every lesson the old movies learned. A new protagonist does not need to imitate Ash, but Campbell clearly wants someone audiences will emotionally latch onto while the supernatural chaos escalates around them.

He Also Wants Horror Movies To Stop Looking So Gray

Campbell’s criticism extends beyond storytelling. He also took aim at the muted visual palettes that have become common in contemporary horror, joking about filmmakers giving movies the gray-green appearance of garages and hospital rooms. He understands that the desaturated look is a creative choice; it simply is not the choice he would make.

His alternative is much more mischievous: make everything look beautiful before unleashing something horrible inside it. That contrast is familiar territory for Sam Raimi, whose movies frequently use exaggerated colors, expressive lighting and inventive camera movement instead of assuming horror needs to visually announce its misery in every frame.

Campbell even has a rule for one of the franchise’s most important visual ingredients. Whatever filmmakers decide to do with their cinematography, the blood should actually look red. It sounds obvious, but grading a movie toward colder tones can turn fake blood muddy, brown or nearly black. For a franchise that has practically measured its production value in gallons of blood since 1981, Campbell apparently considers that unacceptable.

Evil Dead Burn Already Moved Slightly In That Direction

Campbell’s comments come shortly after the release of Evil Dead Burn, which continued the franchise’s modern preference for brutal standalone stories rather than returning to Ash. Reviews noted that director Sébastien Vaniček did find more opportunities for dark humor than Evil Dead Rise, even while pushing the gore into particularly extreme territory. The Guardian described the movie as still operating within a much grimmer formula than Raimi’s films, but acknowledged several sequences where the comedy begins creeping back into the carnage.

That distinction is important because Campbell is offering a preference rather than declaring the newer films failures. The post-Raimi movies have deliberately chosen a different tone, and they have found an audience doing it. Campbell himself previously pointed to the commercial success of Evil Dead Rise as proof that the franchise could survive after removing many of the elements once considered essential.

What he seems to want now is another evolution: keep the new filmmakers and new characters, but let some of the franchise’s weird personality back into the room.

Campbell Has High Hopes For Evil Dead Wrath

The next filmmaker with an opportunity to decide how much of that advice to follow is Francis Galluppi. The director behind The Last Stop in Yuma County is helming Evil Dead Wrath, another standalone chapter currently scheduled for 2028. Charlotte Hope, Jessica McNamee, Zach Gilford, Josh Helman, Ella Newton, Ella Oliphant and Elizabeth Cullen are among the announced cast.

Campbell already sounds encouraged. He told Men’s Journal that he has seen Galluppi’s previous film and came away impressed by how intelligently it was constructed, saying that having a filmmaker who understands what they are doing is already “half the battle.”

That praise carries some weight considering Campbell has become increasingly hands-off with the franchise. Earlier this year, he explained that he had grown tired of sitting through the studio development process and debating story choices, preferring to let Raimi, Rob Tapert and the next generation of directors handle the details while he focuses on his own projects.

That Does Not Mean Ash Is Coming Back

Campbell wanting the movies to rediscover some of their old personality should not be mistaken for another Ash Williams comeback tease. He continues to insist that his days of physically playing the character are behind him.

Part of that decision is refreshingly practical. Campbell told Men’s Journal that he no longer wants to be an older actor attempting the same punishing physical work he performed decades earlier. After years of chainsaws, stunt work, blood rigs and prolonged shoots, he would rather leave audiences with the Ash they remember than force another live-action appearance simply because nostalgia makes it possible.

The franchise has already demonstrated that it does not need him standing in front of the camera to continue. What Campbell can still provide is perspective from someone who watched The Evil Dead grow from a tiny independent production into a studio horror property capable of supporting entirely new casts and filmmakers.

The Next Evil Dead Does Not Need Another Ash

Perhaps that is the most interesting part of Campbell’s criticism. He is not asking filmmakers to remake Evil Dead II, drag everyone back to the cabin or find a younger actor capable of doing an Ash Williams impression.

He wants balance.

Make the Deadites horrifying, but allow them to be funny. Cover people in blood, but let the blood actually look red. Create terrible situations without making the entire movie visually miserable. Most importantly, give audiences somebody they desperately want to see make it out alive.

The modern Evil Dead movies have already proven the franchise can live without Ash Williams.

Bruce Campbell just wants them to remember that surviving the Deadites used to be a little more fun.