SHOOTING IN ITALY OF THE FILM "JOIN THE EVIL 2" BEGINS

JOIN THE EVIL II

After “JOIN THE EVIL I – THE COTTAGE”, released on 6 June 2022 in Romagna cinemas and after a continuous crescendo of the film on youtube that exceeded 23 thousand views (And constantly growing), produced at low budget by the Romagna production Long Black Veil Production and directed by the Meldolese director Davide Santandrea, the production is already at work for the realization of the second chapter of the saga.

JOIN THE EVIL is a film saga written and directed by director Davide Santandrea which is largely inspired by the original American saga Evil Dead by director Sam Raimi. The story has been completely changed: Professor Pedro Caranza (inspired by the real archaeologist Venustiano Caranza) discovers the ancient Sumerian tablets of Kutu in the caves under the temple in the city of Kut-Al-Amara. Take them to his cottage in the hills and he translates them by writing the translations in a book he will call the book of kutu.

Rereading the translations, especially the Sumerian rituals contained in the tablets, he awakens the demon Azathoth who takes possession of his body. The professor’s youngest son, Eric, also an archaeologist, finds more Sumerian tablets and brings them to his father in the cottage to have them translated. He finds no trace of his father but finds the book written by him and reading it is attacked by the spirit of Azathoth and also transformed into a possessed being.

The professor’s elder brother, Vincent Caranza, called by his friends “Vincent Ax” because of his work as a lumberjack with an ax always in hand, goes to the cottage, alarmed by a phone call from his brother who had not heard from him for days. their father. Arriving at the cottage Vincent finds himself facing both his father and brother possessed by the spirit of Azathoth at the same time. After the defeat of the two demons, Vincent decides to hide Kutu’s book in the cottage so that no one can read it anymore and awaken hellish creatures and spirits.

So far the plot of the first film that is getting a good success. The second film, which will start shooting immediately from 8 October 2022, the story continues where it left off in the first film: With the death of the professor and his brother, Vincent and his sister Shelly inherit the cottage and Vincent immediately decides to give it in. rent to two women, an elderly mother named Mary with her daughter Abigayl who move there. During a stormy night Abigayl has nightmares in his sleep and dreams of the place where the book of Kutu is hidden in the cottage. She wakes up with a start and remembering the dream she finds the kutu book.

Reading the contents of the book awakens the spirit of Nyarlathotep who immediately takes possession of the body of Abigayl’s mother first killing her then transforming her into a being possessed by the demon. Abigayl terrified of what happened, she escapes into the woods chased by a supernatural force. A year passes and Vincent has no more news of the two women to whom he had rented the cottage. Suspicious, he decides to investigate what happened.

Then he arranges a reunion with his longtime hippie friends: Bruce, Scoot, Rick, Sharon, and girlfriend Sandy. Vincent’s sister Shelly also joins the company. On board an old ramshackle camper, events happen halfway that portend bad times. Due to a distraction of Bruce behind the wheel, the camper did not put under an old man (played directly by the director of the film) who, emerged from nowhere, was crossing the road.

As the elderly man, almost in the grip of madness, warns the boys in the camper that they would all die within the night. Once again in the direction of the cottage, the camper breaks down after a few km. Eventually, after several misfortunes, including a wasp sting on Vincent’s penis while he was peeing in the woods, which turns out to be Nyarlathotep in his multiple transformations, the friends finally arrive at the cottage.

And here real hell breaks loose on earth. All of Vincent’s friends are faced with pure terror, while Vincent – and here is the comedy of the film and the main character – is faced with his own crazy and possessed “pea” that he can no longer keep under his trousers, so much so that he decided to cut it, just like Ash did with his hand in Evil Dead 2.

Vincent, however, had already thought of everything: he would cut his possessed penis, he would keep it in the fridge, he would kill the demons and then he would go to the emergency room to have it stitched up. Despite having planned everything, everything goes wrong and against Vincent’s plans. Without spoiling the ending, we can say that it is an unexpected and absolutely comical ending.

The JOIN THE EVIL saga is made up of a trilogy of films entitled: “THE COTTAGE” (IL COTTAGE), “THE DEMON’S WOOD” (IL DEMON DEL BOSCO) AND “THE BOOK OF KUTU” (THE BOOK OF KUTU), inspiration mainly from the myths of Lovecraft (hence the names of the demons Azathoth, Nyarlathotep, Yog-Sothoth) and the Evil Dead saga. It alternates between moments of pure horror and gore with absolutely comical moments. It is that slapstick comedy that reigns supreme in the movies.

The hero of the saga is VINCENT, the eldest son of the archaeologist professor Pedro Caranza, who however did not want to follow in his father’s footsteps, like his brother Eric, and settled down to live in the mountains as a lumberjack. Thanks to his inseparable ax, his friends call him Vincent Ascia. Raw as ever and always with a joke ready, Vincent likes only two things: money and sex.

He faces demons and possessed beings in his own way and does so with irony and utter comedy. Unforgettable and now become a smash among fans of the first film, his memorable joke when Azathoth gives him a sissy: “Filthy sissy bastard to me? I who beat my pussy three times a day, one in the morning, one at noon and one in the evening, as my doctor said “dear Vincent if you want to live for 100 years, three times a day you have to do it!”.

The first film, “JOIN THE EVIL – THE COTTAGE”, although shot with economy of means and with an old Sony Nex VG20 camcorder, is obtaining an unexpected success that not even the production and the director expected, precisely due to the poor means that they had available for that first film.

Although distributed independently in the cinemas of Emilia Romagna, it allowed the production to receive the proceeds that were invested in the purchase of professional cinema equipment with which to shoot the second film.

This also goes to show that if there are valid contents within a film, a story that pleases and attracts attention, the right comedy with the aftertaste of fear, even a film made with poor means can have its success.

Despite this, given the success it is achieving, the production hopes that a distributor will capture the attention that the film is receiving and decide to distribute the film saga consisting of the three films: “The Cottage” (Already produced), The Demon’s Wood ( currently in production) and “The Book of Kutu” (in production in 2023)

Just like it was with Sam Raimi’s first Evil Dead. The Join The Evil saga has all the cards on the table to become a successful saga especially among fans of these genres of films. The director’s hope is that one day Sam Raimi will be interested in this saga and see her as the “daughter” of Evil Dead. Because after all JOIN THE EVIL owes a lot to EVIL DEAD to which she was inspired, however, changing much of the story.