Credit: Warner Bros

Lee Cronin explains the origins of the ‘Evil Dead Rise’ cheese grater scene

Mon 17 April 2023 9:45, UK

Lee Cronin, the filmmaker behind the brand new horror movie Evil Dead Rise has revealed the origins of the grisly cheese grater scene that has gone viral online.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with Far Out, Cronin revealed: “Okay, well, I think we’ve all grazed our knuckles on a cheese grater and gone, ‘Oh, God, imagine if that was worse’. I wrote the film during the first wave of Covid-19 when the entire world was locked in their homes, with an evil force outside the door. We didn’t know what this thing was, so I spent a lot of time just looking at the trappings of everyday life”.

Cronin’s film continues to toy with the lore of The Evil Dead franchise, which was started by American director Sam Raimi in 1981. The story was built upon the follow-up movies in 1987 and 1992 before the Uruguayan director Fede Álvarez rebooted the franchise with a dark reimagining in 2013.

Evil Dead Rise toys with comedy a little more than the 2013 predecessor, though it still has a focus on graphic, playful special effects. “I remember, I wanted to have this fight scene that takes place in the film in a kitchen,” Cronin added: “then once I did that, I was like, I need some weapons. There’s more than just the cheese grater in that scene, there’s a couple of other pretty brutal elements and some slightly slapstick-y stuff”.

Continuing, the filmmaker adds: “There’s, like, someone smacking someone in the face with a big cooking pot. It has that levity to it. I put in a big like ‘gong’; it’s got its own tone there. But I just remember thinking I needed some sort of unique weapon in that scene, and I guess I walked into my kitchen and saw the cheese grater and thought, ‘Oh, I have not seen that enough before'”.

Take a look at the trailer for the new horror movie Evil Dead Rise below.