Spy: Shorty Star poised for horror movie role

Jayden Daniels is joining the popular zombie franchise.

Shortland Street star Jayden Daniels is poised to join the walking dead.

Daniels, who also stars in rugby drama Head High, was pictured on actor Mark Mitchinson's Instagram post from the set of the movie.

Evil Dead Rise, which started filming in Auckland a few weeks ago, is the fifth movie in The Evil Dead Franchise.

The franchise was started in the 1980s by the horror trio Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell.

In 2013, the fourth movie in The Evil Dead franchise was filmed in New Zealand, led by Tapert — husband of Lucy Lawless and an honorary Kiwi.

A follow-up TV series, Ash vs Evil Dead, which starred Campbell as the franchise cult figure Ash Williams, was also filmed in Auckland and screened globally from 2015 to 2018.

Raimi and Campbell are part of the executive producing team and Tapert is the producer of Evil Dead Rise. Directing is Lee Cronin, from Ireland, who debuted his supernatural horror film The Hole in the Ground in 2019. Cronin also wrote the screenplay for the latest movie, which will screen on HBO Max next year.

Daniels told Spy he was unable to comment on the role, saying announcements and confirmations had not yet been made by the production company. However, other young stars have been confirmed. They include 9-year-old Nell Fisher from Wellington, who recently filmed Kiwi post-pandemic movie Northspur in Marlborough, young Aussie actor Morgan Davies, who starred alongside Geoffrey Rush in Storm Boy, and US actress Gabrielle Echols.

Although most of the other movies in the series revolve around the demonic goings-on at a cabin in the woods, the new tale takes the corpses to the city.

US media report Evil Dead Rise tells the story of two estranged sisters, played by Aussie actresses Alyssa Sutherland of Vikings' fame and Lily Sullivan, best known for her role as Coral in Mental, whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival.