Ash Side View

The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror

In the summer of 1979, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell collected approximately $375,000 after showing their demo real of Within The Woods to investors in the Detroit, Michigan area. They proceeded to Morristown Tennessee to shoot The Evil Dead. Originally titled Book of Dead, it starred Bruce Campbell as Ash, a witless college student who goes to a remote cabin in mountains with his friends for a weekend. Little do they know what they would unleash when they get there. One by one they get possessed by the Evil in the woods. Ash of course is the sole survivor who has to deal with them.

The film took over three grueling months to shoot. Read all about the ordeal in Josh Becker's journal. Evil Dead is the goriest of the entire Evil Dead Trilogy (besides Within the Woods) with the many depictions of body dismemberment curtesy of Tom Sullivan and Tim Philo. Evil Dead was highly successful both critically and financially. Stephen King even hailed Evil Dead as "The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror". Evil Dead was the film that introduced the world to Sam Raimi and made Bruce Campbell a cult hero and actor.



Interesting Facts

  • Within the Woods was filmed and used as a pitch to local companies and businesses to help gain financing for the Evil Dead, and many of the scenes and film shots were recycled and used in the Evil Dead.
  • The original budget for the Evil Dead was $85,000, which eventually ended up costing an estimated $350,000, the film went onto make $2,400,000 domestically and nearly $10,000,000 worldwide making it one of the highest grossing horror movies of all time.
  • The location for the movie was in a real life abandoned Cabin the woods near Morristown, Knoxville Tennessee.
  • The original working title of the movie was Book of the Dead and was changed shortly before the film went on general theater release as producer Irvin Shapiro thought that a movie with such a literature based title would put people off seeing the movie.
  • The original cabin used in the filming of the Evil Dead was destroyed by fire shortly after the film was complete and the only remaining structure is the chimney and fire were the book was burned at the end of the first film.
  • The opening sequence of the film with the evil force floating over the water was accomplished by director Sam Raimi holding and operating the camera whilst floating on a dingy and actor Bruce Campbell pushing the dingy across the water.
  • The cameras used in filming were mounted to 2 x 4 planks of wood and were operated by Sam and Bruce each holding either end of the board to create the fast moving deadite POV shots used in the film.
  • Tom Sullivan worked as special effects and prop maker on the movie and created the original book of the dead and the kandarian dagger used in the film, and was also responsible for the make up appliances and props used by the actors.
  • The necklace Ash gave to Linda was originally gold and was sprayed silver (you can see the silver paint rub off on Linda's hands) and was purchased by a crew member at a local jewelry store 'Corey's Jewel Box'.
  • Principal photography wrapped in the winter of 1980 so when it came to re-shoots most of the actors had moved onto various other productions and only Bruce Campbell was available. As a result different actors were brought in as stand-ins or Fake Shemps as they became known shots were filmed from the waste down or behind the stand-ins to help conceal this and when faces needed to be shown prosthetic masks were made from face casts of the original crew.
  • When Mike Ditz was hired as still photographer for the promotional and poster images, none of the Ladies of the Evil Dead were available to pose with Bruce Campbell so photographic model Bridget Hoffman was hired as a replacement.
  • The car owned by Ash in the movie is actually Sam Raimi's own car and is a 1973 Delta 88 Oldsmobile and has appeared in every one of Sam Raimi's feature films to date.
  • The strange look on Ash's face in the car at the beginning of the movie came from a scene cut from the movie which was to show Ash drinking the moonshine that Scotty had on him, the scene was cut but for some reason they kept the reaction Ash had from drinking it.
  • The fake blood used in the movie was Sam Raimi's own recipe and it consisted of Karo Syrup, Red Food Coloring, Water and Coffee to give it thickness.
  • According to Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert a time capsule was buried in the space that was used as the cellar entrance and it contained some messages, notes and little trinkets from the movie, to this date the time capsule as never been recovered from site and was most likely stolen or destroyed when the cabin burned down.
  • The Evil Dead was originally given an X-Rating in the UK and only had a limited release when it was pulled out of the cinemas by the BBFC, the video release was subsequently banned and it was listed as a video nasty in the early 1980's.
  • The torn up hills have eyes poster that is visible in the cellar of the basement was placed there in response to the Wes Craven film of the same name, the reason behind it was that in the hills have eyes there was torn poster of the movie Jaws, so Sam and the crew interpreted that Wes Craven was suggesting that the Hills have eyes was much more frightening than Jaws, so in return Sam was suggesting that the Evil Dead was much more frightening than the Hills have eyes by placing that poster in his film.
  • Both Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert played the two waving hitchhikers on the side of the road when the group was on their way to the cabin, and this is also mentioned in the tape recording played by Ash "Sam and Robsa Are De Hitchhikers on zeroadsa".
  • The white contact lenses used on the deadites were made from thick lens material and were extremely uncomfortable to wear; the actors could only wear them for a maximum of 10 -15 minutes as there eyes would dry over, the actors also had to be helped when acting out scenes as they could not see anything as the lens had no pupil.
  • In the scene when Cheryl is seen laughing in the cellar, actress Ellen Sandweiss refused to wear the white contact lenses again as they were too uncomfortable so as a substitute Tom Sullivan created a mask with the lenses built in which Ellen could then wear without the lenses being in contact with her eyes.
  • According to actress Betsy Baker, when the plaster which was used to create her face cast was removed she lost her eye lashes in the process.
  • Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert both acted as a stand in for the character of Shelly, Sam when the car is crossing the old bridge and Robert when Shelly is attacked and dismembered by Scotty.
  • The chainsaw used in this film was a red Homelite X-L.