'Evil Dead Burn's Most Talked-About Scene Was Done with an Actual Sex Doll

[Editor's note: The following contains spoilers for Evil Dead Burn.]Evil Dead Burn’s Luciane Buchanan was overjoyed to meet franchise legend Jane Levy on the red carpet of this year’s Independent Spirit Awards, not only because she loves her work in 2013's Evil Dead, but also because so few out there can fully understand what's required of an actor to make an Evil Dead movie. As Buchanan explained, “I feel like we have an understanding that a lot of people don't, of how physical these jobs are. The prosthetics, the emotional energy.” Just as Levy went above and beyond bringing Mia’s experience to screen in Fede Álvarez’s film, now Buchanan follows in her footsteps, taking it to the max in a multitude of ways in Sébastien Vaniček’s movie.

With Evil Dead Burn now playing in theaters nationwide, Buchanan swung by the Collider Ladies Night studio to revisit cornerstone moments of her journey as an actor thus far, including finding her agent, booking The Night Agent, and working on Chief of War. After that, she broke down all of her character’s most extreme moments in Evil Dead Burn — and there are a lot of them.

Buchanan plays Thya in the movie. When her boyfriend Joseph’s (Hunter Doohan) brother, Will (George Pullar), is killed in a tragic accident, she must get together with his family at their secluded home in the woods to mourn. Little does Thya know, Will’s death triggers a chain of events that brings evil to their door, and she’s one of the first to be consumed by it.

The Scene That Was Too Violent for an R Rating

"I had something like 35 hits in the head ... that's why the censorship was like, 'Oh, that's a bit too much.'"

After poor Thya is impaled by a car seat headrest by Edgar (Erroll Shand), drinks hot candle wax, tumbles down the stairs and lands in a scorpion, and then some, she hits her epic big finish. Joseph manages to peel himself off of the dishwasher filled with knives and forks, and then he takes that dishwasher door and uses it to kill deadite Thya once and for all. It’s brutal. So brutal, in fact, that it’s the scene that had to be trimmed in order for Evil Dead Burn to score its R-rating. As Vaniček explained:

“The scene was way longer than that. I had more close-ups, and it was even more intense than that. But nobody will notice because the scene is pretty horrible in the movie right now. In the first cut, I had something like 35 hits in the head and close up, and it was very long and silent, and so that's why the censorship was like, 'Oh, that's a bit too much.'"

Even trimmed down, the scene is still extremely brutal and wildly effective, in large part thanks to the stellar creativity and craftsmanship that went into pulling it off.

The Movie Magic Required for That Dishwasher Door Head Smash

A head cast is par for course. The next piece of the puzzle? That's more unusual.

That scene called for Buchanan to have a head cast made. “I fell asleep because of the pressure on the eyes, because it's quite heavy.” She continued:

“One guy was meant to be helping, but he just had to hold my head. And then I kind of woke up and I was like, 'Oh, it's hot.’ And I did ask them, I was like, ‘If, for whatever reason, I panic, what happens?’ They were like, ‘We take it off, but we still have to go again and get it.’”

While Buchanan was itching for the cast to be removed during the last five minutes of the process, she made it through and walked away with this advice for any other actor having one made for the first time:

“Whatever you can do to stay calm. Like, go to your happy place. I guess it's like scuba diving. Have you ever done that? There is a point where you're like, ‘Oh my god, I’m so deep under the ocean,’ and you just have to ride it out. Like, ‘I'm in safe hands.’”

Head casts are frequently used for horror movie magic. For the rest of Thya’s body, however, the Evil Dead Burn team took a less traditional approach.

While looking back on the scene when Joseph's face is forced into Thya’s remains, Buchanan laughed and explained:

“Hunter really gave it to me. I was like, ‘Do you need me to be an eyeline? I don't know what you need.’ And he was like, ‘No, no, no. It's fine. Just sit over there.’ I think I sat at the monitors and everyone's like, ‘Are you okay with this?’”

What exactly was doubling for Buchanan while she sat at the monitors? Buchanan continued:

“The funniest thing, I probably shouldn't share this, but my body is actually a sex doll. It's cheaper than doing a full cast of my body. So you can buy sex dolls, clearly, online, and they use it for different things. But because of that, she had really perky boobs, and they were like, ‘Cut. Her tits are like this.’ And I'm like, ‘Leave it! Leave it! They’re perfect!’”

Looking for even more wild behind-the-scenes stories from the set of Evil Dead Burn from Buchanan, including how that unforgettable backbend at the bottom of the stairs came to be and what it was like filming that denture scene with Maude Davey as Polly? Be sure to check out her full Collider Ladies Night interview in the video at the top of this article!