{"id":752302,"date":"2026-07-09T09:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-09T09:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/752302\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T09:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-09T09:42:10","slug":"evil-dead-burn-star-souheila-yacoub-i-tried-to-watch-the-second-film-and-it-was-too-much-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/752302\/","title":{"rendered":"Evil Dead Burn star Souheila Yacoub: \u2018I tried to watch the second film and it was too much\u2019 \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Souheila Yacoub had never watched a single frame of the Evil Dead franchise, Sam Raimi\u2019s<\/a> long-running horror sequence in which Deadites \u2013 humans possessed by demons \u2013 wreak havoc, until recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m someone that\u2019s pretty easily scared,\u201d says the actor, who is now the star of Evil Dead Burn, the newest instalment in the series. \u201cI have a very big phobia of broken bones and jump scares. When I discovered that I was going to be part of Evil Dead, I needed to do my research. But I tried to watch the second film, and it was too much.\u201d<\/p>\n

A friend came to the rescue with a special PG edition to help Yacoub get up to speed with Deadite lore. \u201cHe made a cut that took out all the gore scenes and replaced them with pictures of puppies and kittens while he explained what happened during those missing scenes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Having made it through the Paris premiere of Evil Dead Burn, watching sometimes through her fingers, Yacoub, a star of Gaspar No\u00e9\u2019s Climax<\/a> and Denis Villeneuve\u2019s Dune: Part Two<\/a>, has a new appreciation for the legacy. <\/p>\n

Forty-six years ago, when he was 20, Raimi and his collaborators Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert headed to rural Tennessee to begin shooting the proof of concept for The Evil Dead. It was anything but a continuous production. Working with a shoestring budget, the young film-makers repeatedly stopped for months at a time, trading cameras for suits and briefcases as they knocked on investors\u2019 doors to raise enough money to keep going.<\/p>\n

While the shoot stopped and started, the legacy it subsequently created has never paused. The scrappy 1981 horror film, made with homemade practical effects, gallons of improvised fake blood and relentless ingenuity, became one of independent cinema\u2019s defining success stories, proving that ambition could outmatch resources. <\/p>\n

Its influence stretches far beyond its infamous cabin in the woods, spawning the sequels Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, various video games, comic books, a 2013 remake, the three-season television series Ash vs Evil Dead and a 2003 musical.<\/p>\n

Along the way, it helped establish the careers of Raimi and Campbell, gave Joel Coen an early editing credit and established a blueprint for guerrilla film-making that continues to inspire creatives decades later. Few films have turned so many production hardships into such an enduring \u2013 and chainsaw-happy \u2013 cinematic mythology.<\/p>\n

Evil Dead Rise, made by the Irish director Lee Cronin<\/a> and released in 2023<\/a>, was the first of three standalone adventures for Raimi\u2019s Deadites. Francis Galluppi\u2019s Evil Dead Wrath will hit cinemas in 2028. In the meantime, S\u00e9bastien Vanicek has delivered Evil Dead Burn, in which Yacoub\u2019s heroine must weather the death of her abusive husband alongside his surviving family. To make a bad situation worse, one by one, her in-laws are transformed into Deadites.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was really involved in the process of writing the character,\u201d the Swiss actor says. \u201cThat was a beautiful thing from S\u00e9bastien. He said he wanted to do a feminist movie, and I needed to know what he meant by that. Because if it\u2019s just because the subject is domestic violence, then I don\u2019t care about that. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said, \u2018If you want to do a feminist movie, let\u2019s write a complex and nuanced final girl\u2019. Because I didn\u2019t want to portray just a badass or just a victim. I wanted to be more than that. I wanted people to believe that Alice was at some point in love with the guy who abused her. We really took a long time to get her character right.\u201d<\/p>\n

[\u00a0Olivia Wilde: \u2018My family is all in Ireland right now. We still have the same house\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

That creative process extended to stunt choreography. Throughout a gruelling three-month shoot in New Zealand, Yacoub, an alumnus of the Swiss rhythmic-gymnastics team, worked closely with the veteran stuntman Clint Elvy, whose previous credits include Game of Thrones and The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want Alice to be good at fighting,\u201d Yacoub says. \u201cWe just needed me, the actress, to be fit. The stunt co-ordinator, Clint, was amazing. As a gymnast, of course, I wanted to do as many stunts as I could, because I really enjoy it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting with Fede \u00c1lvarez\u2019s 2013 Evil Dead reboot, Evil Dead Burn is the third film in the sequence shot in New Zealand. The location, a favourite movie backdrop since Peter Jackson\u2019s Lord of the Rings trilogy, added to the general gloom.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeb warned me before we went to New Zealand that it was going to be the hardest movie I\u2019d ever done,\u201d Yacoub says. \u201cIt was a really long and exhausting process. It was summer in Europe, and when you land in Auckland it\u2019s back to winter. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe sun goes down at 4.30pm or 5pm in winter there. You\u2019re at the end of the world. It\u2019s 11 or 12 hours\u2019 difference, so it\u2019s very hard to reach your family in France or Switzerland. It took me a little bit of time not to feel lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n

Born in Geneva in 1992 to a Tunisian father and a Flemish mother, Yacoub was originally destined for elite sport rather than the screen. She competed with the Swiss rhythmic-gymnastics team at the 2009 and 2010 World Championships, after leaving school at 16 to train full time. When Switzerland failed to qualify for the Olympics, she walked away from the sport entirely. <\/p>\n

She has subsequently spoken in support of former teammates who alleged abusive coaching practices and weight control within the national programme.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I work on a character, the physicality comes first,\u201d Yacoub says. \u201cI get emotions very much from the way my body behaves, from the way my breathing behaves. This is before, sometimes, the words. It\u2019s how my body feels that can help me bring emotions.\u201d<\/p>\n

After returning from the national team, Yacoub won the Miss Suisse Romande title in 2012, a victory that earned her a scholarship to the Cours Florent drama school in Paris. She later trained at the French conservatory of dramatic art, before landing work on TV and on stage. <\/p>\n

Climax, No\u00e9\u2019s wild dance-horror from 2018, was her first film role. The largely improvised production introduced international audiences to Yacoub\u2019s uninhibited, intensely physical style.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Invite review: Problems of privilege play out in a canny comedy of toxic luxury and uneaseOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

\u201cGaspar doesn\u2019t have any script,\u201d she says. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t have anything to tell us. We come every day on set, and we have no idea what we are filming. Then he comes and says, \u2018Okay, you\u2019re pregnant, but you don\u2019t want to have a baby\u2019. I was like, \u2018What the hell?\u2019 <\/p>\n

\u201cSo it was just a lot of improvisation. Gaspar was holding the camera and he was with us the whole night, all the time. The set was gorgeous. He\u2019s the most sweet guy, even if that\u2019s nothing like his movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yacoub has subsequently crafted an impressive body of work among French film-festival favourites, including Philippe Garrel\u2019s The Salt of Tears, Rebecca Zlotowski\u2019s Other People\u2019s Children and C\u00e9dric Kahn\u2019s Making Of. Her performances have earned her a place among the C\u00e9sar Academy\u2019s R\u00e9v\u00e9lations, a spot on Unifrance\u2019s 10 to Watch, and a Hollywood break in Dune: Part Two, in which she played the formidable Fremen warrior Shishakli alongside Timoth\u00e9e Chalamet and Zendaya.<\/p>\n

\u201cDenis Villeneuve is like Gaspar,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen they\u2019re on set, they\u2019re like kids. They\u2019re enjoying so much what they\u2019re doing, and they enjoy how we actors feel. They allow you to go to crazy emotional places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yacoub is especially proud of her collaborations with young female directors, including the actor-director No\u00e9mie Merlant for the anarchic feminist comedy-horror The Balconettes, cowritten by C\u00e9line Sciamma, and Aude L\u00e9a Rapin\u2019s dystopian sci-fi drama Planet B, opposite Ad\u00e8le Exarchopoulos.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor The Balconettes, my character is naked all the time,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen it\u2019s hot, men walk around without a T-shirt. I really wanted that for my character as well. If it\u2019s hot, well, her boobs are out. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut I wanted people to treat it like it\u2019s normal. So of course, when you have a woman filming this, it\u2019s somehow easier to find the freedom in my naked body. At some point I could just walk around naked between takes, and it wasn\u2019t a problem. I felt good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Evil Dead Burn is in cinemas from Thursday, July 9th<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Souheila Yacoub had never watched a single frame of the Evil Dead franchise, Sam Raimi\u2019s long-running horror sequence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752303,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[7106,88,322587,206,80362,322586],"class_list":["post-752302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-denis-villeneuve","tag-entertainment","tag-gaspar-noe","tag-movies","tag-sam-raimi","tag-souheila-yacoub"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=752302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=752302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=752302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=752302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}