The Evil Dead Groovy Collection is now available!
The Lionsgate set combines The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, and all three seasons of the Ash vs. Evil Dead series to 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray + Digital in a groovy big box set stuffed with extras. Army of Darkness is not included for contractual reasons. Special features:
The Evil Dead 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray special features:
Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Sam Raimi, producer Robert G. Tapert and Star Bruce Campbell
The Evil Dead DVD special features:
One by One We Will Take You: The Untold Saga of The Evil Dead
The Evil Dead: Treasures from the Cutting Room Floor
Life After Dead: The Ladies of The Evil Dead
The Ladies of The Evil Dead Meet Bruce Campbell
Unconventional
At the Drive-In
Reunion Panel
Discovering The Evil Dead
Make-Up Test
Trailer
TV Spots
Evil Dead II 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray special features:
Bloody and Groovy, Baby! — Tribute to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II
Audio Commentary with Writer-Director Sam Raimi, Actor Bruce Campbell, Co-writer Scott Spiegel, and Special Makeup Effects Artist Greg Nicotero
Blu-ray™ Special Features:
Swallowed Souls: The Making of Evil Dead II
Cabin Fever: Behind the Scenes of Evil Dead II
Road to Wadesboro: Revisiting the Shooting Location with Filmmaker Tony Elwood
Evil Dead II: Behind the Screams
The Gore the Merrier
Still Galleries
Audio Commentary
Ash vs. Evil Dead The Complete Collection: Blu-ray special features:
Season 1:
Inside the World of Ash
How to Kill a Deadite
Best of Ash
Audio Commentaries
Season 2:
Season 2 First Look
Inside the World of “Ash vs Evil Dead”
Up Your Ash
Women Who Kick Ash
Puppets Are Cute
Dawn of the Spawn
Bringing Henrietta Back
The Delta
How To Kill a Deadite
Fatality Mash-Up
Audio Commentaries
Season 3:
Season Overview
Inside the World of “Ash vs Evil Dead”
Audio Commentaries
Meanwhile, here’s our coverage of this horror classic:
‘The ultimate experience in gruelling terror’
The Evil Dead is a 1981 American supernatural horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi and executive produced by Raimi and Bruce Campbell, who also stars alongside Ellen Sandweiss and Betsy Baker.
The Evil Dead focuses on five college students holidaying in an isolated cabin in a remote wooded area. After they find an audiotape that releases a legion of demons and spirits, members of the group suffer from demonic possession, leading to increasingly gory mayhem.
Five Michigan State University students: Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell, Bubba Ho-Tep, Maniac Cop) and his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker, 2084, Witches’ Night), accompanied by Ash’s sister Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss, Satan’s Playground, The Dread), their friend Scotty (Richard DeManincor), and his girlfriend Shelly (Theresa Tilly), venture into the Tennessee hills to relax in an isolated cabin during their spring break.
The journey quickly escalates from small-talk to a near-crash and then a portentous collapse of the bridge leading to their destination just as they’ve crossed it. That night, while Cheryl is making a drawing of a clock, her hand becomes violently possessed by a mysterious entity, causing her to draw a picture that looks like a deformed, evil face. She fails to mention the incident to the others, dismissing it as her imagination.
When the trapdoor to the cellar mysteriously flies open during dinner, Ash and Scotty go down to investigate and find the Naturon Demonto, a Sumerian version of the Book of the Dead, along with a tape recording of incantations – unable to resist, they play the tape and though finding the recording unnerving think little more of it, though the audience is now very aware that the recitation of the words has unleashed something within the woods outside.
Cheryl becomes hysterical when a tree crashes through the window, and retires to her room but is soon awoken by voices beyond the cabin. She goes outside to investigate but away from the cabin and out of earshot, she is attacked and carnally assaulted by demonically possessed trees. Returning to the cabin after the ordeal, the others do not believe her story but Ash agrees to drive her to the town where she can find a place to stay for the night, only to find that the bridge connecting the cabin to the rest of the world has been destroyed.
Back at the cabin, a card game takes an unexpected twist when Cheryl becomes possessed, telling them that demons will kill them, stabbing Linda in the ankle with a pencil – they see little option but to lock her in the trap-doored cellar.
Shelley too succumbs to possession and is decapitated by Scotty, who buries her outside. Scotty survives another tree attack whilst seeking an escape route – when he returns to the others, he finds only Ash is of sound mind, the two girls now under the control of demons but feigning innocence in a bid to be released. Ash stabs and kills Sally whilst defending himself and, after having second thoughts about dismembering her with a chainsaw, buries her too in the garden…only for her to rise again. Removing her head swiftly with a shovel, Ash finds Cheryl has been freed from the cellar, Scotty too now ‘under the influence’. Now armed with a gun, is there any hope left for Ash to survive the hoards of ancient demons?
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School friends Raimi and Campbell and harboured thoughts of The Evil Dead for some time prior to filming, eventually leading to the making of a short film, Within the Woods, an 8mm effort made for only $1600 (it set a precedent of sorts as it had never been necessary blow up the format for 35mm cinema projection). The film was used as a bargaining tool to gain funding for a full-length film along the same lines but Raimi was informed that a minimum of $150,000 would need to be raised to accomplish this. Raimi approached Phil Gillis, a lawyer to one of his friends, asking if he wanted to invest money into the production of a remake.
Gillis was unimpressed with Within the Woods but offered Raimi legal advice on how to approach further productions. Raimi approached several investors, “begging” for money and eventually acquired nearly $90,000 of the funds needed and set out to make the movie anyway. As a paean to the writer H.P.Lovecraft, the film was to be called Book of the Dead.
The cast was recruited via an advert in The Detroit News, though Campbell and Sandweiss were already in place from the previous film. The crew consisted of friends and family, including Tom Sullivan, who was in charge of makeup and effects and Joe LoDuca as the soundtrack composer, already a fixture on the local music scene. A location was found more through the process of elimination than choice, though the cabin itself was already in existence and suitably remotely situated.
It’s of credit to all involved that the budget and lack of experience were more evident to those participating than to audiences either then or now; injuries were commonplace from trips and falls to eye-lash ripping and the insertion of thick glass contact lenses to approximate demonic possession. To achieve to POV shots of the evil force hurtling through the woods, a camera was strapped to a piece of wood and two operators set off running, armed with the contraption, presumably with those watching praying they didn’t drop it.
In truth, the sound design is critical to the real success of this effect, the low, bassy rumble which seems to emanate from all angles. The cold, wet and swiftly decaying set left the actors miserable and filthy – the copious amounts of blood actually being corn syrup.
Of the three original Evil Dead films, the original relies the least on humour, the broken resolve of the actors, fast shooting schedule and original intent being overriding factors. The low budget does reduce some scenes to a somewhat comedic level of depravity but the sure relentlessness of the danger, the obviousness of their plight and the impressively claustrophobic setting is an utterly engaging watch. Importantly, it is possible to disengage your brain and watch the film as a straight-ahead horror. The acting is perfectly acceptable and if anything a step above what many slashers made around this time could muster.
In the case of the tree-assault sequence, one which was highlighted by the BBFC and informed censorship on the film for several years, it’s a scene which sounds much worse than what is seen on-screen – only three years previously, cinema audiences were being subjected to images of ferocious sexual attack in the film, I Spit on Your Grave, it would be absurd to compare the two further.
A ripped poster for The Hills Have Eyes (1977) is visible at one point in the cabin. Ostensibly, this was in reference to a ripped poster for Jaws (1975) that appeared in that film; Sam Raimi and the others interpreted this as Wes Craven suggesting that “Hills” was much more frightening than “Jaws,” thus they showed a ripped “Hills” poster because their film was to be even scarier yet.
If anything, other than time, does a disservice to The Evil Dead, it’s the two sequels and the remake, all of which, perhaps unwittingly, are in some ways at pains to suggest that you need to move on and watch another film instead. Evil Dead II is an attempt to fix alleged issues with the first with an improved budget, the third wants to create a mythology, the remake supposes we’re too dim to understand films and throws in a social angle for good measure. The end result is that two factions have appeared, those who buy into the franchise and those who despair of meddling and have reduced their opinion of the original accordingly. This is a shame as the film has a lot of heart and real invention, not to mention some effective jumps and originality.
The film attracted the interest of producer Irvin Shapiro, who helped screen the film at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. Horror author Stephen King gave a rave review of the film, which helped convince New Line Cinema to serve as its distributor.
Though a meagre commercial success in the United States, the film made its budget back through worldwide distribution and grossed $2.4 million during its theatrical run. Both early and later critical reception were positive and in the years since its release, The Evil Dead has developed an avid following from fans and regularly appears in published lists of the greatest horror films ever made.
As mentioned, the film spawned two sequels and a remake, not to mention comic book appearances by Ash, console games, a musical, a 2015 TV series, and an unlikely, if cult, star in Bruce Campbell. Raimi is obviously now a major Hollywood director but showed with Drag Me To Hell (2009) that he still has an eye for horror.
Daz Lawrence, MOVIES & MANIA
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Other reviews:
” …one of the most ferocious, original and unrelenting horror movies of all time. Sure, it looks a little rough around the edges now […] but The Evil Dead remains an inspiration for first-time filmmakers, a testament to the power of plasticine, glue and gumption.” Tom Huddleston, Time Out
“Much of Evil Dead‘s value as a horror film arises from its surprising, unpredictable nature, particularly the manner in which it reveals information to the audience. The movie may not be surprising narratively, but let’s face it, everybody understands something bad is going to happen to these kids – but within those predictable confines of horror storytelling, Raimi lets loose and deploys the camera to express terror in revolutionary ways.” John Kenneth Muir, The Unseen Force: The Films of Sam Raimi, Applause, 2004
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Theatrical re-release:
In 2019, Grindhouse Releasing created a new 4K version of The Evil Dead and released it theatrically across the USA and Canada from October to December 2019. Now, as the pandemic lockdown is starting to wind down, Grindhouse Releasing has announced:
“We’re now releasing the original version to drive-ins – scanned from the 16mm camera negative in 2K with Joe’s original score and soundtrack. If exhibitors want to show the 4K DCP of ‘Evil Dead Reimagined’, we can supply it, so it depends on the individual drive-ins.”
The first 2020 drive-in screening of The Evil Dead is on Saturday, June 13th, at Pride’s Corner Drive-In in Westbrook, Maine.
For the 2019 re-release, Grindhouse Releasing company owner Bob Murawski – who, as an editor has worked with Sam Raimi many times over the years – went back the original 16mm camera negatives to prepare the “stunning” new transfer. Marti Humphrey and Jussi Tegelman – the audio experts behind Drag Me to Hell and Ash vs. Evil Dead – have created a new 5.1 surround mix. Plus, original composer Joe LoDuca has provided a “reimagined score” for this re-release.
Evil Dead star Bruce Campbell elucidated:
Mixing the sound for Evil Dead in the early ’80s, we were forced to shove everything into one monaural box. As a result, Joe LoDuca’s great score had to compete unfairly with Kandarian Demons, gore sound effects and lots of screaming. With this new release, Joe can finally have his dynamic composition mixed, balanced and featured properly – for perhaps the first time ever!”
Bob Murawski enthused: “With this fantastic new score, Joe LoDuca proves that he’s the Bartok of blood, the Shostakovich of shock, the Mahler of the macabre. The new music, new sound mix and new 4K restoration have elevated Evil Dead from the scary to the sublime.”
LoDuca added: “Evil Dead was my first film commission. As fate would have it, this is the movie that has the most enduring impact on generations of fans. Every few years I get a request to release the score.
The Evil Dead trilogy launched my career composing for films and television. I still get asked to write for horror/thrillers. I love doing it, because the genre has no rules when it comes to music, save the objective of building tension and sustaining dread. Today’s audience is more savvy, so I have to constantly re-examine what is scary. Keeps me on my toes.
Producers always want the popcorn to fly, and I am often afforded large orchestras to insure that happens. Yet I never seem to be able to sell the idea that intimacy conjures a bubbling cauldron of fear just as potent. With limited resources, I scored Evil Dead for a string quintet augmented by piano, hand percussion, a synthesizer and a bit of guitar – anything I could get my hands on.
So when I was last approached to reissue the score, I asked myself this question: Knowing what I now know, how would I write for that ensemble today?
I am happy that I did. So sit back in a darkened room and listen to the soundtrack to what Stephen King once called “a black rainbow of horror”.
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