‘Evil Dead Rise’ director reveals the other iconic horror franchises that would pique his interest

Evil Dead Rise is officially out in theaters, and let’s just say this ain’t no Army of Darkness. Where the Evil Dead pendulum has historically enjoyed swinging between comedy and horror, Evil Dead Rise has no interest in identifying itself with anything but sheer terror, much to the varyingly-welcome detriment of our nervous systems.

Evil Dead Rise follows the trials and tribulations of Beth, who seeks to reconnect with her estranged sister Ellie, who’s also a mother of three. But when Ellie succumbs to some form of demonic possession and becomes deathly violent towards her family, Beth and her nieces and nephews go into survival mode as they try to rescue her without being skinned alive themselves.

With an 89 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, it sounds like writer and director Lee Cronin has struck gold with his sophomore feature film effort, and we wouldn’t be surprised if his name starts popping up in horror spheres more often from here on out.

If Cronin has his way, however, there’s one franchise that we can count on him joining for sure. In an interview with ComicBook, Cronin mused on what other properties he’d be interested in joining, naming A Nightmare on Elm Street as his number one hope as far as horror goes.

“But then back in the horror world, the one that I would find really … and I find it really hard to pass up the opportunity would be something in the A Nightmare on Elm Street universe.”

And the stars just might align for Cronin, too; though we haven’t heard anything out of Wes Craven’s estate since 2019 regarding those Nightmare on Elm Street pitches, it also likely means that they have no directors in mind for such a film. With Cronin having thrown his fedora into the ring for taking on Freddy Krueger, we think this could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.