Micron
15-11-2006, 09:55 PM
Nearly 30 years ago, a bunch of college students decided to shoot a series of ultra low budget horror movies on their home Super-8 equipment, planning to show them on the campus and to make a few dollars on the side. Little did they know that they were poised to create one of the most well known of the shock horror genre. The students were Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert, and one of the movies was called "Within the Woods" -- a clear 35 minute template for the "Evil Dead". After they dropped out of college, they started to work on a project then called "The Book Of The Dead" which was essentially an expanded version of "Within the Woods". Soon the film was renamed "Evil Dead" (for fear that kids would be turned off seeing a movie with a literary reference!) and became an instant cult classic worldwide, one that made all of them successful, well-known figures in the horror genre.
The Evil Dead was filmed in a real-life abandoned cabin located in the mountains near Morristown, Tennessee. This cabin allegedly had quite a history in real life. In the 30's, a girl named Clara lived with her family in the cabin. One night, there was a thunderstorm and during the thunderstorm, the girl's parents were both brutally murdered, and she was found wandering through the forest aimlessly until her neighbors took her in. Today, Clara lives in the Morristown Manor resthome, and whenever there's a storm, she would walk back to the house looking for her parents. In fact, days before they started filming, she was found wandering about behind the house. I found this out by reading "If Chins Could Kill", Bruce Campbell's autobiography.
Total budget for the film was allegedly less than $90,000 supplied by individual investors. The investors have since made their money back many times over.
The Evil Dead was first released on October 15, 1981 in the US, even though it is dated 1982!
There was a cast and crew of 37 people. Shooting was completed in just six weeks. Shooting began November 1979 and finished in December.
Whenever you see the moon in the corner of the screen, it is a matte shot. If you look you can see the square of the matte.
When Bruce Campbell and the other actors are sitting around listning to the tape, the script suggested them to be smoking something other than tobacco. So they thought they would actually do it for real in the movie, but after they filmed it they were so utterly confused, the footage was worthless and they had to re-shoot the whole scene!
The voice of the professor on the tape recording is that of American Movie Classics host Bob Dorian.
After completing principal photography in the winter of 1979-1980, most of the actors left the production. However, there was still much of the film to be completed. Most of the second half of the film features Bruce Campbell and various stand-ins (or "shemps") to replace the actors who left.
How did they do that? Creamed corn dyed green was used as zombie guts. Raimi has his own recipe for blood: Kayo Syrup (treacle), red food colouring and water, with instant coffee mixed in for texture and thickness.
The reel-to-reel tape recorder used in "The Evil Dead" was a Panasonic recorder that was owned by Bruce Campbell's father.
In the scene where Evil Linda is being beaten by Ash, she is actually being beaten by Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi by what they call "It's Murder!" beams (used in their old Super - 8 films).
In several of the scenes in Evil Dead, you might here an eerie wind noise. This was a real wind noise. While Sam Raimi was sleeping one night, he heard the wind through his window. He went and woke up the sound guy and made him record it.
The contact lenses used by most of the cast were actually pretty hellish for them. They covered half of the eye and had to be taken out every 15 minutes to let the eye breathe.
Contrary to popular belief, the last scene in the movie (the camera roaming through the woods, through the house, and up to Bruce) was not filmed using a motorcycle. It was just Sam Raimi running with the camera. Sorry folks. Somewhere along the line, a rumor came up that Sam mounted the camera onto a motorcycle and drove full throttle towards Bruce. Amused by this idea, they decided to lie about it and confirm it to be true. It soon escalated to "the last door not opening and Sam's face planting tampered wood" and "Sam crashed into Bruce and knocked out a few teeth." During the commentary in the Evil Dead DVD, although Bruce refuses to confirm nor deny the rumor, he says "Sam is running with the camera" before hand.
That is false. If you listen to the comentary on the Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, Bruce talks about how at at the end of Evil Dead that his (arm i think? can't remember) was broken from the motorcycle scene.
During the commentary on the DVD, Campbell references Sam running at him so hard at one point, it broke Bruce's jaw. Of course, it could just be him fuelling that rumor.
When all the other characters are exposed to the demons or zombies (such as the vines, or getting stabbed with a pencil) they soon turn into zombie demons themselves, however Ash has a few similar encounters being scratched and bitten and even stabbed --yet he never succumbs to becoming a member of the evil dead?
A poster of the Wes Craven film, The Hills Have Eyes, appears in the cellar. This was a joke intended for Wes Craven, who put a torn poster of 'Jaws' in the camper in 'The Hills Have Eyes'. Each director trying to tell the other director (playfully) that their film is the real horror film. Wes Craven would keep the tradition going by having Nancy watch 'Evil Dead' in 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'.
The Evil Dead was filmed in a real-life abandoned cabin located in the mountains near Morristown, Tennessee. This cabin allegedly had quite a history in real life. In the 30's, a girl named Clara lived with her family in the cabin. One night, there was a thunderstorm and during the thunderstorm, the girl's parents were both brutally murdered, and she was found wandering through the forest aimlessly until her neighbors took her in. Today, Clara lives in the Morristown Manor resthome, and whenever there's a storm, she would walk back to the house looking for her parents. In fact, days before they started filming, she was found wandering about behind the house. I found this out by reading "If Chins Could Kill", Bruce Campbell's autobiography.
Total budget for the film was allegedly less than $90,000 supplied by individual investors. The investors have since made their money back many times over.
The Evil Dead was first released on October 15, 1981 in the US, even though it is dated 1982!
There was a cast and crew of 37 people. Shooting was completed in just six weeks. Shooting began November 1979 and finished in December.
Whenever you see the moon in the corner of the screen, it is a matte shot. If you look you can see the square of the matte.
When Bruce Campbell and the other actors are sitting around listning to the tape, the script suggested them to be smoking something other than tobacco. So they thought they would actually do it for real in the movie, but after they filmed it they were so utterly confused, the footage was worthless and they had to re-shoot the whole scene!
The voice of the professor on the tape recording is that of American Movie Classics host Bob Dorian.
After completing principal photography in the winter of 1979-1980, most of the actors left the production. However, there was still much of the film to be completed. Most of the second half of the film features Bruce Campbell and various stand-ins (or "shemps") to replace the actors who left.
How did they do that? Creamed corn dyed green was used as zombie guts. Raimi has his own recipe for blood: Kayo Syrup (treacle), red food colouring and water, with instant coffee mixed in for texture and thickness.
The reel-to-reel tape recorder used in "The Evil Dead" was a Panasonic recorder that was owned by Bruce Campbell's father.
In the scene where Evil Linda is being beaten by Ash, she is actually being beaten by Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi by what they call "It's Murder!" beams (used in their old Super - 8 films).
In several of the scenes in Evil Dead, you might here an eerie wind noise. This was a real wind noise. While Sam Raimi was sleeping one night, he heard the wind through his window. He went and woke up the sound guy and made him record it.
The contact lenses used by most of the cast were actually pretty hellish for them. They covered half of the eye and had to be taken out every 15 minutes to let the eye breathe.
Contrary to popular belief, the last scene in the movie (the camera roaming through the woods, through the house, and up to Bruce) was not filmed using a motorcycle. It was just Sam Raimi running with the camera. Sorry folks. Somewhere along the line, a rumor came up that Sam mounted the camera onto a motorcycle and drove full throttle towards Bruce. Amused by this idea, they decided to lie about it and confirm it to be true. It soon escalated to "the last door not opening and Sam's face planting tampered wood" and "Sam crashed into Bruce and knocked out a few teeth." During the commentary in the Evil Dead DVD, although Bruce refuses to confirm nor deny the rumor, he says "Sam is running with the camera" before hand.
That is false. If you listen to the comentary on the Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, Bruce talks about how at at the end of Evil Dead that his (arm i think? can't remember) was broken from the motorcycle scene.
During the commentary on the DVD, Campbell references Sam running at him so hard at one point, it broke Bruce's jaw. Of course, it could just be him fuelling that rumor.
When all the other characters are exposed to the demons or zombies (such as the vines, or getting stabbed with a pencil) they soon turn into zombie demons themselves, however Ash has a few similar encounters being scratched and bitten and even stabbed --yet he never succumbs to becoming a member of the evil dead?
A poster of the Wes Craven film, The Hills Have Eyes, appears in the cellar. This was a joke intended for Wes Craven, who put a torn poster of 'Jaws' in the camper in 'The Hills Have Eyes'. Each director trying to tell the other director (playfully) that their film is the real horror film. Wes Craven would keep the tradition going by having Nancy watch 'Evil Dead' in 'A Nightmare on Elm Street'.