Henrietta

Dead By Dawn

Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn, is the second film in the cult classic trilogy. Due to the sucess of the first film, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and the rest of the Evil Dead gang were able to get more money for investors for a second film. Evil Dead 2 is basically what Sam Raimi intended for Evil Dead 1 to be. So yes you could call it a remake, but it works well as a sequel in a Sam Raimish kind of way. The story and some characters were changed, but major elements of the first were kept. New actors were hired. The only actors from the first film to stay is of course is our man Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi. Ted Raimi, who worked as fake shemp in first film comes back in the second film as the possessed Henrietta. The sets and special FXs were done by KNB Effects. This film has plenty of gore but is less gruesome than Evil Dead 1. Sam Raimi being a big Three Stooges fan, added some slaptick to film making it a horror comedy.

In Evil Dead 2, Ash returns to cabin with his girlfriend Linda for a weekend getaway. Bruce once again unleashes the Evil in the woods after discovering Professor Knowby's tape recorder. Linda is possessed by the Evil and Ash is forced to deal with her. At the same time Professor Knowby's daughter Annie and her boyfriend Ed return to cabin in search of the Necronomicon a.k.a Book of the Dead. In the mean time Ash's hand gets possessed by the Evil and is forced to saw it off at the source with his chainsaw. Eventually Annie and Ash meet up and get stuck at the cabin. After an encounter with the soul of Professor Knowby, they discover in order to survive they must retrieve the pages of the book and send the Evil back from once it came.


Interesting Facts

  • There has been some confusion through the years as to whether or not this movie is a sequel or a remake of the original Evil Dead as the beginning of the films events differ from the original movie. This was a result of the company who owned the rights to the original Evil Dead for not allowing Sam to use footage from the first film as re-cap so he had to re-film scenes from the original movie but only using Ash and Linda. So the movie actually starts from were Ash is catapulted through the air by the Evil Force.
  • Much of the early publicity posters for the movie had the subtitle as Army of Darkness as the original concept for the movie was going to have Ash sent back in time to the medieval period at the beginning of the film, this was changed due to time and budget constraints and was used for the ending and the follow up film Army of Darkness.
  • In the scene when Ash is catapulted through the tops of the forest that was actually actor Bruce Campbell strapped to 2 wooden boards which formed a cross shape which was attached to a piston which would rotate the actor 360 degrees, the equipment was then elevated and attached to a van which was driven through the forest and the footage was achieved by speeding up the frame rate. Also when watching the footage you can see Bruce actually being hit by some of the branches on the trees, this was in fact Sam Raimi hitting him.
  • As with the first Evil Dead movie there is another nod to a film by Wes Craven. In the work shed and in the cellar of the cabin scenes there is a Freddy Krueger glove hanging on the wall. This was in response too the first Nightmare on Elm Street when Nancy was watching the Evil Dead.
  • The Book "A Farewell to Arms" is placed on top of the trash can that Ash trapped his amputated possessed hand in.
  • A commonly picked up goof in the movie is when Ash enters the cellar when looking for the pages of the book of the dead, his chainsaw switches hands, this was a result of the negative being flipped by director Sam Raimi as he wanted Ash to walk the other way across the cellar.
  • In the scenes were Evil Ash attacks Annie in the cabin these scenes are almost identical to the scenes in the Sam Raimi short film "Within the Woods", which was the short 8mm film that was used to finance the first Evil Dead.
  • The severed hand scenes in Evil Dead 2 mirror the scenes from Scott Spiegel’s 8mm short "Attack of the Helping Hand" in which the same situation and events occur.
  • As with the first film Tom Sullivan created another book of the dead, the loose pages from the book and also another kandarian dagger for the film. Tom was also responsible for the effects and prop work for the opening of the movie which included the creation of an animatronic Necronomicon which eyes and mouth would open and lunge forward to swallow the camera at the beginning of the movie.
  • The interior and most of the outer cabin scenes of the film were shot on a set built inside the JR Faison Junior High School gymnasium in Wadesboro, North Carolina.
  • The cabin set was built 2 feet off the ground to allow crew to gain access to the underneath of the cabin floor for help when doing various special effects shots.
  • Evil Dead 2 was the first movie that Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Burger, the former KNB f/x group worked on together under the supervision of effects creator Mark Shostrum.
  • When Henrietta becomes possessed the full body suit created by the f/x crew would have been too much for actress Lou Hancock to endure, so Ted Raimi played the part of the possessed Henrietta, the suit that he wore in the movie which consisted of a full body suit and complete head piece got so hot under the studio lights that he would be loosing literally pints of sweat from his body each day and as a result he had to wear breathing equipment between takes to stop him from passing out.
  • The 'eye ball fly ball' scene was accomplished by attaching fishing wire to the end of the prosthetic eyeball and then the crew pulled on the wire so the eye came out of her mouth, the film was then reversed to give the illusion of the eye ball going into her mouth.
  • According to Sam Raimi the scene in which Bobbie Joe gets killed, the vines originally pulled her legs apart and she was split in half like a wishbone when she gets dragged through the forest and rammed with a tree between her legs. It was cut by the MPAA in order to obtain the R-rating.
  • Bruce Campbell did all of his own stunts in the film (except for the part were Ash is thrown through the windshield of the car were a dummy was used).

Scenes also cut from the film

  • Evil Ash eating a squirrel when he is walking in the woods.
  • When Ash is listening to the tape recording made by Prof Knowby a scene was filmed showing Henrietta sitting on the rocking chair slowly becoming possessed by the evil.
  • When Linda’s severed head is in the clamp in the cabin original she vomited black blood all over Ash.
  • When Ash shoots his severed hand and blood comes pouring out of the cabin wall was originally longer and the blood changed from Red, To Yellow and then Black.
  • A longer and far gorier take of the scene when Evil Ed is destroyed by Ash with an axe, which included a half severed head and various cut up body parts.
  • The color of the deadite blood was changed from red to shades of green, yellow and black to help the movie pass the censorship board without major cuts.
  • Both Sam and Ted Raimi played knights at the end of the film.