The Evil Dead is an American horror film franchise created by Sam Raimi. The films revolve around the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, a fictional Sumerian text which wreaks havoc upon a group of cabin inhabitants in a wooded area in Tennesee. The protagonist, Ashley J. "Ash" Williams, played by Bruce Campbell, is the only character left alive by the end of the series. The original series includes The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness (1992). The franchise has since expanded into other formats such as video games and comic books. A musical opened in Toronto in 2003 containing material from all three films, and a remake of the first film is currently in development and due for release in 2013.
Development
Within the Woods
In January 1979 Bruce Campbell was a
college dropout who had just quit his job as a taxicab driver. Sam Raimi was studying literature
at Michigan State University with Robert Tapert finishing his
economics degree. While putting the finishing touches on It's Murder! Tapert suggested doing a
feature length film to Raimi. Raimi felt it to be impossible citing that they
could never pull off the funding. Campbell did not mind stating that "I could
always move back home." Tapert was fearing that he would become an expert in fisheries/wildlife while Raimi was afraid that he
would go back to work at his dad's home furnishing store. These were the
practical reasons that convinced the three to put forth a feature length
film.The three were
highly supportive fans of the comedy genre, though they decided not to do such a
film as they felt "a feature-length yuck fest just didn't compute". To do the
film as a horror was put forth after they were inspired by a well noted scene
from It's Murder. This moved Raimi to write the short film Clockwork. The three felt the end
result was very effective and represented a new direction that their films could
take, that of a semi-successful horror film.
This would later lead
to research of low-budget horror films at the local drive-in theater. The many films that they watched
were the "two films for two dollars", allowing them the chance to document the
behavior of what would become their target audience. Campbell quoted, "the
message was very clear: Keep the pace fast and furious, and once the horror
starts, never let up. 'The gorier the merrier' became our prime directive."
Films that were witnessed amongst them included Massacre at Central High and
Revenge of the Cheerleaders. The idea to do a "prototype" was
commissioned, to prove not only to themselves, but also to potential investors
that they were capable of doing a full length horror film. The same year, at
Michigan State, Raimi had been studying H. P. Lovecraft and was most impressed with Necronomicon, or simply The Book of the
Dead. From these rough concepts, he concocted a short story where a group of
four friends unwittingly dig up an Indian burial ground and unleash horrific
spirits and demons.In the spring of
1979 filming of Within the Woods started over a three day weekend on a
budget of $1,600.
Within the
Woods, as well as serving as a prototype, had impressed the filmmakers. For
a marketing strategy a screening was arranged at their former high school, with
a positive response.
Financing
Filming was first commissioned for the summer of 1979 in Michigan. In order to organize the budget, Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell bought a few "how to make an independent film" guide publications. The budget was originally centered on $150,000 while shooting with a Super 8 camera. However, due to technical difficulties, it was decided to move it up to 16 mm format, as they wanted to film the project in the style of the many low-budget films at the time that had come out in the 1970s. Since they had little experience in the film industry, the three felt they should buy business suits and briefcases as a means to convince investors that they "had all the answers." A man named Andy Grainger, who was a friend of Tapert and owner of a series of movie theaters, was the first primary investor. He stated, "Fellas, no matter what, just keep the blood running." As a tribute to him, there's a scene in the finished film where an old film projector whirs to life and "projects" blood running down the screen.
Most importantly,
Grainger provided the name of a distributor in New York City whom they could approach for
possible distribution. The company was Levitt-Pickman Films, who most recently
was famous for Groove
Tube, starring a very young Chevy Chase. The filmmakers took a train at $40
each, as they knew none of their cars could make an entire round trip road trip.
One of Campbell's old girlfriends named Andrea allowed them to stay at her
apartment. Campbell slept with her while Raimi and Tapert were in the living
room. Andrea's cat fell asleep on Raimi's face without even disturbing him.
Raimi, who is allergic to cats, had his eyes swollen shut.
Evil Dead (2013
film)
has been confirmed
that a remake would be made of The Evil Dead. It will be produced by Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi, but will not include the
Ash character. It was also said that the movie would be about a group of
teenagers that go to the cabin and find the book, and the similarities with the
original would end there.
However, in August
2007, Bruce Campbell revealed in a radio interview that the proposed remake was
"going nowhere" and "fizzled" due to extremely negative fan reaction.
2013 EVIL DEAD REMAKE
In April 2011, Bruce
Campbell did an AskMeAnything interview on Reddit.com, saying "Newsflash: We are
remaking Evil Dead. The script is awesome. I will be one of the producers
and possibly play the milk man". He added "In all
honesty, we would all love to make another Evil Dead movie. When that
will happen? Who can say – we're all working on other jobs right now. We're not
trying to dodge anybody's questions, there just isn't that much to talk about.
The remake's gonna kick ass – you have my word".On July 13, 2011
it was officially announced, via a press release, that Ghost House Pictures
would be producing the upcoming remake of The Evil Dead, with Diablo Cody in the process of
revising the script and Fede Alvarez chosen as the director. Actor Shiloh Fernandez is
reported cast as the main lead role of David.Bloody Disgusting
has reported that Lily
Collins is in the lead role as Mia who is a female version of Ash, but on
January 24, 2012, Collins has dropped out of the role. On February 3,
2012 it was announced that actress Jane Levy, star of the television series Suburgatory would be replacing Collins in the
lead role as Mia. Lou Taylor Pucci, Elizabeth
Blackmore and Jessica
Lucas have joined the cast for the horror film.
On August 1, 2012, it
was announced that in honor of the remake due out in 2013, The Evil Dead
is coming to the world's largest Halloween event, Knott's Berry Farm's "Halloween Haunt" in
Buena Park, CA, also known as Knott's Scary Farm. Knott's has a large
log flume ride that goes in and around a large mountain, where the movie will be
created for guest to experience the terror firsthand.
An official trailer for the film was released on October 24, 2012. Many
familiar elements of the original film are revealed, such as the possessed arm
and the infamous tree rape scene, as well as new scenes involving blood-rain and
one of the possessed characters splitting their tongue with a utility knife. The
trailer was given a red-band status for its excessive use of gore and
profanity.
The Evil Dead 1981
The Evil
Dead is a 1981 American horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi, starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, and Betsy Baker. Raimi produced his earlier
short film Within the Woods
as a "prototype" to build the interest of potential investors. After asking a
wide variety of investors, Raimi secured $90,000 to produce The Evil Dead. The film was shot on
location in a remote cabin located in Morristown, Tennessee, a filming process
which was very unconformable and difficult for a majority of the crew. The film
is a story of five college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in a wooded
area. Their vacation becomes gruesome when they find an audiotape that releases
demons, who one by one
possess each member of the group, leading to increasingly gory mayhem.
The low budget horror
film attracted the interest of producer Irvin Shapiro, who helped screen the film at the
1982
Cannes Film Festival. Author Stephen King gave a rave review of the film, which
generated the interest of New Line Cinema who helped distribute the film.
While a meager commercial success domestically, the film made its budget back
through world wide distribution. During its theatrical run the film grossed $2.4
million. Contemporary critical reception was positive, though years later the
film built a much larger reputation. It currently holds a 100% positive rating
on Rotten Tomatoes
and has developed a reputation as one of the largest cult films. It has been cited
amongst the greatest horror films of all time.
The film has spawned a
media franchise, beginning with two
sequels directed by Raimi; Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992). It has received a
video game and comic book franchise, and the film's
protagonist, Ash Williams,
has become a cult icon. A direct remake, with no involvement with Raimi, is
planned for release in 2013. The Evil Dead launched the careers of
Campbell and Raimi, who would collaborate on several films together throughout
the years, including Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. A fourth sequel
has been rumored for years, but Campbell has often denied plans to continue the
franchise
Development
Director Sam Raimi had
grown up with Bruce Campbell, the two of them forming a friendship at a very
young age. The duo
directed several low budget, Super 8 mm film projects together. Several of the
films they worked on were comedies, including Clockwork and It's Murder!. Shooting a
suspense scene in It's Murder! inspired Raimi to approach a career in the
horror genre, and after doing some research of horror cinema at drive-in theaters,
Raimi was set on directing a horror film. His first was the short film Within the Woods, which was a "prototype"
to help attract the interest of potential investors.The idea was
to shoot a short film first, which would attract the interest of producers, and
then use the money gained from that to shoot a full length project.Within the
Woods was produced for $1600
dollars, but for The Evil Dead, Raimi needed over $100,000.
To generate funds for
the film, Raimi approached Phil Gillis, a lawyer to one of his friends.Raimi
showed him Within the Woods, and though Gillis was not impressed by the
short film, he offered Raimi legal advice on how to produce the film. With his
advice in mind, Raimi asked a wide variety of people for donations, and even
eventually "begged" some people.Campbell had
to ask several members of his own family and Raimi asked every individual he
thought could have been interested.He eventually
raised enough money to produce a full length film, though he had not generated
the full amount that he initially had wanted.
With enough money to
produce the film, Raimi and Campbell set out to make the movie, at the time
titled Book of the Dead, inspired by Raimi's interest in the writer HP
Lovecraft. The
film was supposed to be a remake of their prior film Within the Woods,
with higher production values and with a full length running time. Before
shooting began, Raimi had just turned 20, and he considered the project as his
"rite of passage
Pre-production
Raimi asked help and
assistance from several of his friends and past collaborators to make The
Evil Dead.To
acquire actors for the project, an ad in the The Detroit News was placed. Betsy Baker was one of the actresses who
responded to the ad, and Ellen Sandweiss, who appeared in Within the
Woods, was also cast.
Campbell was cast as the main character Ash Williams, and the crew consisted almost
entirely of friends and family or Raimi and Campbell. The make-up adviser for
Within the Woods, Tom Sulivan, was brought on to compose the effects
after expressing a positive impression of working with Raimi.
Without any formal
assistance from location scouts, the cast had to find filming locations on their
own. The crew initially attempted to shoot the film in Raimi's hometown of Royal Oak,
Michigan, but instead chose Morristown, Tennessee, because it was the
only state which expressed enthusiasm in the project.They quickly
found a remote cabin located several miles away from any other buildings.During
pre-production, the 13 member crew had to stay at the cabin, leading to several
people sleeping in the same room. The living conditions were notoriously
difficult, with several arguments breaking out between crew members.
Steve Frankel was the
only carpenter on set, which made him the only contributor to the art
direction. For exterior
shots, Frankel had to produce several elaborate props with a circular saw.
Otherwise, the cabin mostly remained the way it was found during production. The
cabin had no plumbing, however phone lines had been set up
Filming
Because of the
inexperienced nature of the crew, filming was a "comedy of errors".The very
first day of filming lead to the crew getting lost in the woods during a scene
shot on a bridge.Several
members of the crew ended up getting injured during the shoot, and because of
the remoteness of the cabin, it made securing medical help very difficult.One
notably gruesome moment on set involved the ripping off of Baker's eyes lashes
during the removal of her face-mask.Because of
how low the budget was, in order to achieve an infect involving "demonic eyes",
contact lenses as thick as glass had to be applied to the actors.The lenses
took 10 minutes to apply, and could only be left on for about 15 minutes because
eyes could not "breath" with them applied. Campbell
later commented that to get the effect of wearing these lenses, you had to put
"tupperware" over your eyes.
Raimi quickly developed
a sense of mise en
scène, coming up with ideas for scenes in a fast rate.He had
drawn several crude illustrations to help him break down the flow of scenes. The
crew was surprised when Raimi began utilizing dutch angles during shots to build atmosphere
during scenes.In order to
to accommodate Raimi's style of direction, low budget rigs had to be produced.
One involved the "vas-o-cam", which relied on a mounted camera which could be
slide down long wood platforms to create a more fluent sense of motion. Since
the crew could not afford a camera dolly, several elaborate, low-budget rigs
had to be built
Another less elaborate
effect had to be done by mounting the camera to a piece of wood and having the
camera-man sprint around the swamp. During scenes involving the unseen "force"
in the woods watching the characters, Raimi had to run through the woods with
the camera strapped to a piece of a wood, jumping over logs and stones.This often
proved difficult, because of mist in the swamp. The final scene of
the film was shot with the camera mounted to a bike, while it was quickly driven
through the cabin to create a seamless long take. The scene was highly difficult to film
safely, and it ended with Campbell being run over with the bike. Reportedly he
suffered a life long injury on his chin when the bike crashed into him.
Because Raimi had been
a big fan of the The Three
Stooges franchise during his youth, it inspired him to use "fake shemps"
during production. In any scene that
required a background shot of a character, to save time he would use another
actor to substitute if the original actor was pre-occupied. During a close-up involving Richard DeManicor's
hand opening a curtain, Raimi used his own hand in the scene since it was more
convenient. His brother Ted
Raimi was used as a substitute in many scenes when the original actor was
either busy or preoccupied.
Raimi famously enjoyed
"torturing" his actors. He believed that
to capture pain and anger in his actors, he had to abuse them a little at times,
lamenting "if everyone was in extreme pain and misery, that would translate into
a horror." Producer Robert Tapert agreed with
Raimi, commenting that he "enjoyed when an actor bleeds." While
shooting a scene with Campbell running down a hill, he tripped and injured his
leg. Raimi
enjoyed poking Campbell's injury with a stick he found in the woods. Because of
the copious amounts of blood in the film, the crew had to produce gallons of
fake blood with karo syrup. So much
blood had been used during filming, that Campbell took hours to remove the
substance from him, which was also sticky.Several of
the actors had inadvertently been stabbed or thrown into objects during
production.
On the last few days on
set, the conditions had gotten so poor that out of desperation the crew began
burning furniture to stay warm. Since only exterior shots needed to be filmed at
that point, they burned nearly every piece of of furniture left. Several
actors went days without showering, and because of the freezing cold conditions,
several of them caught colds and other illnesses. Campbell later described the
filming process as nearly "twelve weeks of mirthless exercise in agony", though
he mused that he did manage to have fun while on set. On January
23, 1980, filming was finished and almost every single member of the crew left
the set to return home, with Campbell staying with Raimi. While
looking over the footage that had been shot, Raimi discovered that a few pick-ups were
required to fill in missing shots. Four days of reshoots were then done to
complete the film. The final
moment involved Campbell having "monster-guts" splattered on him in the basement
Editing
After the extensive
filming process, Raimi had a "mountain of footage" that he had to put
together. He chose a
Detroit editing association to cut the film, which is where he met Edna Paul.
Paul's assisiant was Joel Coen of the Coen brothers, who helped with the editing of the
film.Paul
edited a majority of the film, although Coen notably edited the shed sequence.
Coen had been inspired by Raimi's Within the Woods and liked the idea of
producing a prototype film to help build the interest of investors. He utilized
the concept to help make Blood Simple, and him and Raimi became friends
following the editing process.
The first cut of the
film ran at around 117 minutes, which Campbell commented was an impressive
achievement because the screenplay itself was only 65 minutes. It was then
edited down to a more marketable 85 minutes.One of the
most intricate moments of editing was the stop motion sequence where the corpses "melted",
which took hours to cut properly.The film
had unique sound requirements which required extensive recording from the
crew. Several
sounds were not recorded properly during shooting, which meant that several
sound effects had to be redone in the editing rooms. Dead chickens needed to be
stabbed to replicate the sounds of mutilated flesh, and Campbell had to scream
into a microphone for several hours. Raimi was
inspired by the fact that Brian De Palma was editing his own film Blow Out with John Travolta at the same sound facility.
Much like Within the
Woods, The Evil Dead needed to be blown up to 35mm in order to be
played at movie theaters.35mm was
the industry standard at the time, though this was a much simpler process than
it was on Within the Woods because of a larger budget to develop the film
properly
Promotion and
distribution
With the film
completed, Raimi and the crew decided to celebrate with a "big premiere." They
chose to screen the film at the Redford Theatre in Detroit, which was a theater
that Campbell had visited often as a child.Raimi
opted to have the most theatrical premiere that he could, using custom tickets,
wind tracks set in the theater, and ordering ambulances outside of the theater
to build atmosphere.The premiere was
inspired by horror director William Castle, who would often attempt to scare
his audiences utilizing gimmicks. Local turnout for the premiere exceeded the
expectations of the cast, with a thousand patrons showing up. The audiences
responded enthusiastically to the premiere, which lead to Raimi's idea of
"touring" the film around to build hype.
Raimi showed the film
to essentially anyone who was willing to watch it, booking meetings with
distribution agents and anyone with experience in the film industry. Eventually
Raimi came along Irvin
Shapiro, the man who was responsible for the distribution of George A. Romero's Night of
the Living Dead and various other famous horror films. Upon first viewing
the film, he joked that while it "wasn't Gone with the Wind", it had
commercial potential and expressed an interest in distributing it.It was his
idea not to use the then-title Book of the Dead, because it made the film
sound boring. Raimi brainstormed several ideas, eventually going with The
Evil Dead which was deemed the "least worst". Shapiro also
gave the advice to distribute the film worldwide to garner larger income, though
it required a further financial investment by Raimi, who managed to scrap
together what little money he had
Shapiro was one of
founders of Cannes Film Festival, and allowed Raimi to
screen the film at the 1982 festival out of competition. Stephen King was present at
its screening gave the film a rave review. USA Today released an article about King's
favorite horror films; the author cited The Evil Dead as his fifth
favorite film of the genre.The film
had a severe impact on King, who commented that while watching the film at
Cannes, "he was registering things he had never seen in a movie before".He became one
of the film's largest supporters during the early parts of finding a
distributor, eventually describing it as the "most ferociously original film of
the year", which was used in promotional pieces for the film. The comments by
King attracted the interest of critics, who likely otherwise would have
dismissed the low budget thriller.
The film's press
attracted the attention of Stephen Woolley, a British film distribution
agent. Though he
considered the film a big risk, he decided to take on the job of releasing the
film in in the United Kingdom.The film was was
promoted in an unconventional manner for a film of its budget, receiving
marketing that usually only larger budget films received. Dozens of
promotional pieces including film posters and trailers were widely showcased in
the United Kingdom; such heavy promotion which rarely would have been expended
on a low budget film. Woolley was
impressed by Raimi, who he called "charming", and was actually an admirer of the
film, which lead to him taking more risks with the promotion of the film than he
normally would have.
Fangoria started covering the film in late 1982,
writing several articles about the long production history of the film. Early
critical reception at the time was very positive, and along with
Fangoria, King, and Shapiro's approval, the film generated an impressive
amount of interest before its commercial premiere. New Line Cinema was one
of the distributors who took an interest in the film, and after negotiations,
the company agreed to distribute the film domestically.The
film had several "sneak previews" before its commercial release, including
screenings in New York and Detroit. Audience reception at both screenings was
widely enthusiastic, and enough interest was being built for the film that wider
distribution was being planned. New Line Cinema wrote Raimi a cheque large
enough to pay off all the investors, and decided to release the film in a unique
manner. It was
supposed to be released simultaneously into both cinemas and onto VHS, and received substantial domestic promotion
Commercial release
Because of a large
promotional campaign, the film performed above expectations at the box
office.It
grossed a total of $2,400,000 worldwide, nearly eight times its production
budget. In its first
week of release, the film made £100,000 in the UK, and quickly became the best selling
video release of its week. It became the largest video seller in the country
that year, out grossing large budget horror releases like The Shining. The
initial domestic gross was described as "disappointing."It opened
in 15 theaters and grossed $108,000 in its opening weekend.Word of
mouth later spread, and the film became a "sleeper hit", making over $600,000 domestically and
nearly two million overseas. Its
impressive European performance was chalked up to its heavy promotion there and
the more open minded nature of audiences.
Its release was met
with controversy. When the film was being filmed by Raimi, he made the film as
gruesome as possible with no interest or fear in censorship. This lead to the
film receiving the X rating and
being cited as a video
nasty.Films
labeled as a "video nasty" were often highly violent and disturbing films that
were widely controversial, a title often held by pornographic films and other X rated
films.While The
Evil Dead was not pornographic in nature, it was considered one of the most
violent films of its time and censors had issues with the content of the film,
which impacted some of its commercial potential. The film was
called the "number one nasty", because while it was labeled as a video nasty, it
also was the best selling video release of the year, and the most notorious film
on the list.Along with Cannibal
Holocaust and I Spit on Your Grave, writer Bruce
Kawin described The Evil Dead as one of the most notorious splatter film of its
day.The film was
banned on video in some countries, however, it was never officially banned
outright.
Evil Dead II 1987
Evil Dead
II (referred to in publicity materials as Evil Dead 2: Dead by
Dawn) is a 1987 American
horror
comedy directed by Sam Raimi
and a sequel to the 1981 film The Evil Dead. The film was written by Raimi
and Scott Spiegel,
produced by Rob
Tapert, and stars Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams. Raimi and Spiegel wrote the script
during production of Crimewave.
Filming took place in
Michigan and North Carolina in 1986 and the film was released in the United
States on March 13, 1987. It was a minor box office success, achieving just
under $6 million. As of July 26, 2006[update],
the total US box office gross is $10.9 million. It also received critical
acclaim. Watchers praised Raimi for the direction and Campbell for his role in
the film. Evil Dead II was eventually followed by the 1992 film Army of Darkness.
Production
The concept of a sequel to The Evil Dead was
discussed during the location shooting on the first film. Sam Raimi wanted to
toss his hero, Ash, through a time portal, back into the Middle Ages. That notion eventually led to the
third installment, Army of
Darkness.
After the release of
The Evil Dead, Raimi moved on to Crimewave, a cross between a crime film and a comedy produced by Raimi and Joel and Ethan Coen. Irvin Shapiro, a publicist
who was primarily responsible for the mainstream release of The Evil
Dead, suggested that they next work on an Evil Dead sequel. Raimi
scoffed at the idea, expecting Crimewave to be a hit, but Shapiro put out
ads announcing the sequel regardless.
After Crimewave
was released to little audience or critical acclaim, Raimi and Tapert, knowing
that another flop would further stall their already lagging careers, took
Shapiro up on his offer. Around the same time, they met Italian movie producer
Dino De
Laurentiis, the owner of production and distribution company DEG. He had asked Raimi if he
would direct a theatrical adaptation of the Stephen King (written under his Richard Bachman
pseudonym) novel Thinner. Raimi
turned down the offer, but De Laurentiis continued to be interested in the young
filmmaker.
The Thinner
adaptation was part of a deal between De Laurentiis and King to produce several
adaptations of King's successful horror fiction. At the time, King was directing
the first such adaptation, Maximum Overdrive, based on his short
story "Trucks".
He had dinner with a crew member who had been interviewed about the Evil
Dead sequel, and told King that the film was having trouble attracting
funding. Upon hearing this, King, who had written a glowing review of the first
film that helped it become an audience favorite at Cannes,
called De Laurentiis and asked him to fund the film.
Script
Though they had only recently received the funding necessary to produce the film, the script had been written for some time, having been composed largely during the production of Crimewave. Raimi contacted his old friend Scott Spiegel, who had collaborated with Campbell and others on the Super-8 films they had produced during their childhood in Michigan. Most of these films had been comedies, and Spiegel felt that Evil Dead II should be less straight horror than the first. Initially, the opening sequence included all five characters from the original film, but, in an effort to save time and money, all but Ash and Linda were cut from the final draft.
Spiegel and Raimi wrote
most of the film in their house in Silver Lake, Los Angeles,
California, where they were living with the aforementioned Coen brothers, as
well as actors Frances McDormand, Kathy Bates, and Holly Hunter (Hunter was the primary inspiration
for the Bobby Jo character). Due both to the distractions of their house guests
and the films they were involved with, Crimewave and Josh Becker's Thou Shalt Not Kill...
Except, the script took an inordinately long time to finish.
Among the many
inspirations for the film include The Three Stooges and other slapstick comedy films; Ash's fights with his
disembodied hand come from a film made by Spiegel as a teenager, entitled Attack of the Helping Hand,
which was itself inspired by television commercials advertising Hamburger Helper. The
"laughing room" scene, where all the objects in the room seemingly come to life
and begin to cackle maniacally along with Ash, came about after Spiegel jokingly
used a gooseneck lamp to visually demonstrate a Popeye-esque laugh. Scott Spiegel's humorous influence
can be seen throughout the film, perhaps most prominently in certain visual
jokes; for instance, when Ash traps his rogue hand under a pile of books, on top
is A Farewell to
Arms.
Filming
With the script completed, and a production company secured, filming could begin. The production commenced in Wadesboro, North Carolina, not far from De Laurentiis' offices in Wilmington. De Laurentiis had wanted them to film in his elaborate Wilmington studio, but the production team felt uneasy being so close to the producer, so they moved to Wadesboro, approximately three hours away. Steven Spielberg had previously filmed The Color Purple in Wadesboro, and the large white farmhouse used as an exterior location in that film became the production office for Evil Dead II. Most of the film was shot in the woods near that farmhouse, or J.R. Faison Junior High School, which is where the interior cabin set was located.
The film's production
was not nearly as chaotic or strange as the production of the original, largely
because of Raimi, Tapert and Campbell's additional film making experience.
However, there are nevertheless numerous stories about the strange happenings on
the set. For instance, the rat seen in the cellar was nicknamed "Señor Cojones"
by the crew ("cojones" is Spanish slang for "testicles").
Even so, there were
hardships, mostly involving Ted
Raimi's costume. Ted, director Sam's younger brother, had been involved in
the first film briefly, acting as a fake Shemp, but in Evil Dead II he gets the
larger role of the historian's demon-possessed wife, Henrietta. Raimi was forced
to wear a full-body, latex costume, crouch
in a small hole in the floor acting as a "cellar", or on one day, both. Raimi
became extremely overheated, to the point that his costume was literally filled
with liters of sweat;
special effects artist Gregory Nicotero describes pouring the fluid
into several Dixie
cups so as to get it out of the costume. The sweat is also visible
on-screen, dripping out of the costume's ear, in the scene where Henrietta spins
around over Annie's head.
The crew also sneaked
various in-jokes into the film itself,
such as the clawed glove of Freddy Krueger, the primary antagonist of the A Nightmare on Elm
Street series of slasher films, which hangs in the cabin's basement
and toolshed. This was, at least partially, a reference to a scene in the
original A
Nightmare on Elm Street where the character Nancy Thompson (portrayed by
Heather
Langenkamp), watches the original Evil Dead on a television set in
her room. In turn, that scene was a reference to the torn The Hills Have Eyes poster
seen in the original Evil Dead film, which was itself a reference to a
torn Jaws poster in The Hills
Have Eyes.
At the film's wrap party, the
crew held a talent contest, where Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell sang The Byrds' "Eight Miles High",
with Nicotero on guitar.
Release
Box office
Evil Dead II opened on March 13, 1987 to a weekend gross of $807,260. At this time, it was only in 310 theatres, resulting in its smaller gross. However, after spending a little over a month in theatres, the film ultimately grossed $5,923,044 domestically. Since then, the film has reached an estimated total of $10,900,000 in box office revenues.
Critical reception
Evil Dead II holds a 98% approval rating on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, slightly less than The Evil Dead, which holds a 100% rating.On a similar website Metacritic, it holds a score of 69/100 (generally favorable) with a user rating of 9.2/10. Empire magazine praised the film saying "the gaudily gory, virtuoso, hyper-kinetic horror sequel/remake uses every trick in the cinematic book" and confirms that "Bruce Campbell and Raimi are gods" and Caryn James of The New York Times called it "genuine, if bizarre, proof of Sam Raimi's talent and developing skill." Leonard Maltin originally rated the film with two stars, but later increased the rating to three stars.
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film a three star rating (out of four) describing it as "a fairly sophisticated satire." He praised the film's sense of surrealism, comedic timing, and "grubby, low-budget intensity." Ebert states that "if you know it's all special effects, and if you've seen a lot of other movies and have a sense of humor, you might have a great time at Evil Dead 2." Richard Harrington of the Washington Post wrapped up his review stating that "the acting is straight out of '50s B movies. The exposition is clumsy, the sound track corny, the denouement silly. Then again, who said bad taste was easy?"Conversely, Pat Graham of Chicago Reader disliked the mix of horror and comedy, writing in his review that "The pop-up humor and smirkiness suggest Raimi's aspiring to the fashionable company of the brothers Coen, though on the basis of this strained effort I'd say he's overshot the mark."
Entertainment Weekly ranked the film
#19 on their list of "The Top 50 Cult Films". Sight and Sound
ranked it #34 on their 50 Funniest Films of All Time list. In 2008,
Empire magazine included Evil Dead II on their list of The 500
Greatest Movies of All Time, ranked #49.
Army of Darkness 1992
Army of
Darkness is a 1992 American comedy horror film directed by Sam Raimi. It is the third and
final installment in The Evil Dead trilogy. The
film was written by Sam Raimi and his brother Ivan, produced by Robert Tapert, and stars Bruce Campbell and Embeth Davidtz.
Continuing from Evil Dead II, Ash Williams is trapped in
the Middle Ages and battles
the undead in his quest to return to the present.
The film was produced
as part of a production deal with Universal Studios after the financial success
of Darkman. Filming took place in California in 1991.
Army of Darkness premiered on October 9, 1992 at the Sitges Film
Festival, and was released in the United States on February 19, 1993. It grossed
$11.503 million domestically and another $10 million outside the USA for a total
worldwide gross of $21.5 million. Critical response was positive, but with a
much lower rating than the first two films. Since its video release it has
acquired a massive cult
following, along with the other two films in the trilogy. The film was
dedicated to Irvin
Shapiro.
Production
Plans to make a third
Evil Dead film had been
circulating for a number of years, even prior to the production of Darkman. Evil Dead II made enough money internationally
that Dino De
Laurentiis was willing to finance a sequel. Director and
script writer Sam Raimi drew
from a variety of sources, including literature with A Connecticut Yankee
in King Arthur's Court and Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels and films like The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad,
Jason and the
Argonauts, and The Three Stooges. Evil Dead II,
according to Bruce
Campbell, "was originally designed to go back into the past to 1300, but we
couldn't muster it at the time, so we decided to make an interim version, not
knowing if the 1300 story would ever get made". Promotional
drawings were created and published in Variety during the casting process
before the budget was deemed too little for the plot. The working title for the
project was Evil Dead III: Army of Darkness. The title
"Army of Darkness" came from an idea by Irvin Shapiro, during the production of Evil
Dead II.This was used after
Sam Raimi was unable to use his original title "The Medieval Dead." ("The
Medieval Dead" would later be used as the film's subtitle for its UK release as
Army of Darkness: The Medieval Dead).
Screenplay and pre-production
Initially, Raimi
invited Scott Spiegel to
co-write Army of Darkness because he had done a good job on Evil Dead
II, but he was busy on rewrites for the Clint Eastwood film The Rookie. After the
good experience of writing the screenplay for a film called Easy Wheels,
Sam and his brother Ivan Raimi
decided to co-write the film together.They worked
on the script throughout the pre-production and production of
Darkman. After filming
Darkman, they took the script out and worked on it in more detail. Raimi
says that Ivan "has a good sense of character" and that he brought more comedy
into the script. Campbell
remembers, "We all decided, 'Get him out of the cabin.' There were earlier
drafts where part three still took place there, but we thought, 'Well, we all
know that cabin, it's time to move on.' The three of us decided to keep it in
1300, because it's more interesting". Campbell and
Tapert would read the script drafts, give Raimi their notes and he would decide
which suggestions to keep and which ones to discard.
The initial budget was
$8 million but during pre-production, it became obvious that this was not going
to be enough.Darkman
was also a financial success and De Laurentiis had multi-picture deal with
Universal and so Army of Darkness became one of the films. The studio
decided to contribute half of the film's $12 million budget. However, the
film's ambitious scope and its extensive effects work forced Campbell, Raimi and
producer Rob
Tapert to put up $1 million of their collective salaries to shoot a new
ending and not film a scene where a possessed woman pushes down some giant
pillars. Visual effects
supervisor William Mesa showed Raimi storyboards he had from Victor Fleming's film Joan of Arc that depicted huge battle scenes
and he picked out 25 shots to use in Army of Darkness. A storyboard
artist worked closely with the director in order to blend the shots from the
Joan of Arc storyboards with the battle scenes in his film.
Traci Lords was among the actresses auditioning for
the film, saying in 2001, "I didn't get the part but I clicked with Bruce
[Campbell]," with whom she would later work as a guest star in the TV series Hercules: The Legendary
Journeys.
Principal photography
Principal photography
took place between soundstage and on-location work. Army of Darkness was
filmed in Bronson
Canyon and Vasquez Rocks
Natural Area Park. The interior shots were filmed on an Introvision stage in
Hollywood. Raimi's use of the
Introvision process was a tribute to the stop-motion
animation work of Ray Harryhausen. Introvision
uses front-projected images with live actors instead of the traditional rear
projection that Harryhausen and others used. Introvision blended components
with more realistic-looking results. To achieve this effect, Raimi used
60-foot-tall Scotchlite front-projection screens, miniatures and background
plates.According to
the director, the advantage of using this technique was "the incredible amount
of interaction between the background, which doesn't exist, and the foreground,
which is usually your character".
The shooting for
Army of Darkness began in mid-1991, and it lasted for about 100 days. It was a
mid-summer shoot and while on location on a huge castle set that was built near
Acton,
California on the edge of the Mojave Desert, the cast and crew endured very hot
conditions during the day and very cold temperatures at night. Most of the
film took place at night and the filmmakers shot most of the film during the
summer when the days were longest and the nights were the shortest. It would
take an hour and a half to light an area leaving the filmmakers only six hours
left to shoot a scene.Money
problems forced cinematographer Bill
Pope to shoot only for certain hours Monday through Friday because he could
not be paid his standard fee. Mesa shot many of the action sequences on the
weekend.
It was a difficult
shoot for Campbell who had to learn elaborate choreography for the battle
scenes, which involved him remembering a number system because the actor was
often fighting opponents that were not really there.Mesa
remembers, "Bruce was cussing and swearing some of the time because you had to
work on the number system. Sam would tell us to make it as complicated and hard
for Bruce as possible. 'Make him go through torture!' So we'd come up with these
shots that were really, really difficult, and sometimes they would take
thirty-seven takes".Some scenes,
like Evil Ash walking along the graveyard while his skeleton minions come to
life, blended stop-motion animation with live skeletons that were mechanically rigged, with prosthetics and
visual effects.
Soundtrack
Danny Elfman, who composed the score for
Darkman, wrote the "March of the Dead" theme for Army of
Darkness. After the
re-shoots were completed, Joseph LoDuca, who composed the music for The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, returned to score the film.LoDuca sat
down with Raimi and they went over the entire film, scene by scene. The composer
used his knowledge of synthesizers and was able to present many cues in a
mock-up form before he took them in front of an orchestra.
Post-production
While Dino De
Laurentiis gave Raimi and his crew freedom to shoot the movie the way they
wanted, Universal Pictures took over during post-production. Universal
was not happy with Raimi's cut because it did not like his original ending of
the movie and felt that it was negative. A more
upbeat ending was shot a month after Army of Darkness was made. It was
shot in a lumber store in Malibu, California over three or four
nights. Then, two months after Army of Darkness was finished, a round of
re-shoots began in Santa Monica and involved Ash in the windmill and
the scenes with Bridget
Fonda done for very little money. Raimi
recalls, "Actually, I kind of like the fact that there are two endings, that in
one alternate universe Bruce is screwed, and in another universe he's some
cheesy hero".
In addition, Raimi
needed $3 million to finish his movie, but Universal was not willing to give him
the money and delayed its release because they were upset that De Laurentiis
would not give them the rights to the Hannibal Lecter character so that they could
film a sequel to Jonathan
Demme's The Silence of the
Lambs. The matter
was finally resolved, but Army of Darkness' release date had been pushed
back from its original summer of 1992 release to February 1993.
For the movie's poster,
Universal brought Campbell in to take several reference head shots and asked him
to strike a sly look on his face. They showed him a rough of this Frank Frazetta-like
painting. The actor had a day to approve it or, as he was told, there would be
no ad campaign for the film. Raimi ran
into further troubles with the Motion Picture Association of
America over the film's rating. The MPAA gave it an NC-17 rating for a shot
of a female Deadite being decapitated early on in the film. Universal, however,
wanted a PG-13 rating, so Raimi made a few cuts and was still stuck with the
MPAA's R rating. In
response, Universal turned the film over to outside film editors who cut Army
of Darkness to 81 minutes in length and another version running 87 minutes
that was eventually released in theaters, ending up with an R rating as a
result.
Release
Box office
performance
Army of Darkness
was released by Universal Pictures on February 19, 1993 in 1,387 theaters in the
United States, grossing $4.4 million (38.5% of total gross) on its first
weekend. In total, the film earned $11.5 million in the US.
Multiple Endings
The original ending, preferred by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell themselves, in
which Ash oversleeps in the cave and wakes up in a post-apocalyptic future, was
restored to the film for the UK VHS release, which also had the S-Mart ending
put in as a post credit extra. This scene has been restored on the Army Of
Darkness: Director's Cut (MGM Edition) (HK - DVD R3), the "directors cut bootleg
edition" DVD and the double disk DVD, which also featured the S-Mart ending of
the film. The S-Mart ending was shot for the American release; the studio wanted
to end the film on a high note for the character of Ash. Raimi believed Ash to
be more of a foul, which is why he liked to torture him so much in his films;
Ash being a goof and drinking too much potion was in his character.
Critical reception
The film currently holds a 71% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 38 reviews, which made its critical reception above average but is much lower than The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, which received 100% and 98% critical approval, respectively. On Metacritic, the film holds a score of 57 out of 100, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars and wrote, "The movie isn't as funny or entertaining as Evil Dead II, however, maybe because the comic approach seems recycled". In her review for the New York Times, Janet Maslin praised, "Mr. Campbell's manly, mock-heroic posturing is perfectly in keeping with the director's droll outlook". Desson Howe, in this review for the Washington Post praised the film's style: "Bill Pope's cinematography is gymnastic and appropriately frenetic. The visual and make-up effects (from artist-technicians William Mesa, Tony Gardner and others) are incredibly imaginative". However, Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "C+" rating and wrote, "This spoofy cast of thousands looks a little too much like a crew of bland Hollywood extras. By the time Army of Darkness turns into a retread of Jason and the Argonauts, featuring an army of fighting skeletons, the film has fallen into a ditch between parody and spectacle".
Awards
Army of Darkness
won the Saturn Award for Best Horror
Film (1994). It was also nominated for Best Make-Up. Army of
Darkness was nominated for the Grand Prize at Avoriaz Fantastic Film
Festival, and won the Golden Raven at the Brussels International Festival of
Fantasy Film in 1993. The film also won the Critics' Award at Fantasporto, and
was nominated for the International Fantasy Film Award in the category of Best
Film in 1993. It was also nominated Best Film at the Sitges - Spanish
International Film Festival
"Groove
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