Here's Ash with a shotgun...except there was no shotgun in EVIL DEAD. |
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[What follows is my attempt to integrate NaNoWriMo and Matchflick column...hope it works.]
Biv was still so disgusted with the whole situation with Rentch and the zombie, even after downing his shot of Jack, that he decided to nurse his Bud Light while going over his friend's movie column. This kid wrote for some website called Matchflick, and was one of those annoyingly pedantic movie geeks. You know the kind: the guy who gets his panties in a twist if you call Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD by its US title THE GATES OF HELL. That kind of thing. But still, he was a decent enough guy. Roy had to admit that Paul had gotten his back several times over the years, including that time Roy had to go undercover in Mexico to free his mom from her obligation to a Oaxaca drug lord/pimp. Paul took a bullet in the shoulder, but never held it over Roy's head. Well, not until this column nonsense began. The guy was so damned insecure, he needed a level of constant validation that only an emotionally damaged puppy could match. And whenever he asked Roy to look a piece over, he made sure to "unconsciously" rub his shoulder.
Biv looked at his bottle and realized it was empty. He guessed he hadn't been so good at nursing it after all. He motioned to the bartender, an easy on the eyes dish named Zara, and ordered another beer. After a moment's pause, he added another shot of Jack to the tab as well. The column was about six pages long: he'd need to get a little fuzzy to get through it all. He woofed the shot, rolled the dewy amber bottle across his forehead (he not so secretly thought that Zara kept the place so hot on purpose, to sell more booze...as if such a tactic was needed in a neighborhood like this one), and sighed loudly as he settled in for the long haul.
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It has recently been brought to my attention, both from people I know and incredulous stories I have been told by friends and family members, that there are still people in this day and age who are not familiar with the EVIL DEAD film series. This is unacceptable, and needs immediate rectification. I will resist the urge to salivate all over the films' star Bruce Campbell as much as possible, but I'm not promising anything (there are also people who don't know who Bruce Campbell is, which sounds like science fiction, but is actually true – I know – the horror!).
It all started way back in 1979, when a group of Michigan film geeks decided to make a movie. The guys included BC, of course, BC's eventual partner on THE MAN WITH THE SCREAMING BRAIN, Dave Goodman, Scott Spiegel (INTRUDER), Sam Raimi (SPIDER-MAN), Rami's long time producing partner Rob Tapert, and Josh Becker (LUNATICS: A LOVE STORY). Of course, none of the films these guys would be known for had happened yet: at that point most were still in college, and had a long history together of filming super-8 movies all throughout high school. Like, several dozen of them. But when Raimi met Tapert in college, Tapert, an economics major, urged him to think about doing an actual feature. The guys had been involved in making Three Stooges-esque shorts for years, how much different could it be?
As it turns out, much different.
The first thing they needed to do was select a genre. Even though the drive-in era was on the wane, horror was still a big seller. So they attended some grindhouse screenings, and took notes on what worked and what didn't. That research culminated in the script for Book of the Dead. With a script and crew (themselves) in place, the next logical step seemed to put together yet another short, sort of a teaser to get investors interested, to show what the boys could do. That calling card ended up being the legendary 32 minute piece WITHIN THE WOODS, in which Bruce played the guy who gets possessed by the Candarian demons and torments and wreaks grievous bodily harm upon his friends.
The next step was to secure funding. Which turned out to be a mouthful too much for the boys to chew. With the help of a lawyer they drew up a limited partnership, and hit up friends, family, friends of family, friends of friends of family, and placed many cold calls. Eventually they had sort of enough money to start shooting (oddly enough, most of their investors were dentists – go figure), and away they went.
Away to rural Morristown, Tennessee, that is.
*Ironically, they decided to film farther south to avoid a Michigan winter, and it ended up being balmy that season back home and wickedly cold in Tennessee.*
The shoot proved to be long and hard. As with most low budget, first time features, just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong. Starting with the weather, and ending with most of the cast and crew dropping like flies during the production. It probably didn't help that Raimi, while being a gifted director, is also supremely technical and exacting in his style. Some of his camera innovations are quite fascinating (for details and pictures, you should pick up BC's book, If Chins Could Kill), if not actor friendly.
All in all, Book of the Dead took about three years to film, including reshoots and pick up shots done back in Michigan – including all of the cellar scenes: the cabin had no cellar. What you see in the film is a six foot hole dug in the ground, with a few stairs mocked up and a door thrown on top. Ah, the magic of movie-making!
The year of 1983 came along and saw the boys hook up with Irvin Shapiro, a sort of all around film promotion guy. The first thing he did was advise the boys on a name change. After bandying about some choice titles (my favorite of which is 101% Dead), they settled on EVIL DEAD. All in all, a damn wise movie, in my opinion. The next thing Shapiro did was have his company front the boys some money for sound editing and foley work, not to mention putting together the proper press kit and paraphernalia to take with them to the various film markets. They hit pay dirt in Cannes, when Stephen King, who happened to be in town for CREEPSHOW, caught EVIL DEAD and loved it. He lent his name to the now famous blurb (which you'll just have to get the movie to see), and that pretty much cemented the success of the film. It was sold in various markets and eventually, in 1985, six years later, all of the investors made their money back.
Now, you would think that with hassles like that, and all the odious business stuff that comes along with making a "legit" film, that the quality would suffer. Well, you'd be wrong. The movie happens to be one of the most effective horror films I have ever seen (don't listen to those pikers who do reviews at Netflix). For all the hectic quality of the shoot, the film keeps an almost somber tone, even when all monster hell breaks loose.
As way of a synopsis, five college kids are on a break from school, and looking to get away from it all in a rented cabin in the woods, real rustic style. Things start to go wrong immediately, except only Cheryl (played by super 8 short veteran Ellen Sandweiss) is hip to it. She experiences a little weirdness as soon as the enter the cabin, but nothing compared to being the first one to be possessed when the gang plays the tape recorder Ash (BC) and super-dick Scotty (Richard DeManincor) find in the basement. Because the playback contains translations from the book of the dead as recited by the archaeologist who'd 
The Ladies of EVIL DEAD: proud of the movie...now that Sam Raimi is famous. |
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resided in the cabin previously. From that point on, it's pretty much no holds barred monster mayhem. Chop up a possessed friend? No problem, they'll just keep coming after you. Wait, I'll stab one with this flint dagger! F*ck The Omen, that didn't work either! How does poor, embattled Ash save the day? Watch the movie to see! Even if you don't like horror, per se, the trademark Raimi POV shots, twisted camera angles, insane camera placements, and sheer balls of everyone involved is more than worth a viewing.
Two interesting notes: the tagline of the film is, "The most grueling experience in terror." I am willing to bet that that tagline was meant more for the production than for the film itself. Also, the editor on the film was Edna Paul...but her assistant at the time was Joel Coen. If that name sounds familiar, it's because ended up being quite fine filmmakers themselves (BLOOD SIMPLE, RAISING ARIZONA, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, FARGO, O' BROTHER WHERE ART THOU, need I go on?). Joel and Ethan and the boys became fast friends, and have worked with each other several times (in fact, Sam Raimi and Joel Coen can be seen briefly in cameos in John Landis's underappreciated Dan Akroyd/Chevy Chase vehicle SPIES LIKE US).
Now, the boys had made their investors' money back, and had made a name for themselves. What next? Well, BC bummed around, acting as much as he could, until he got the call from Raimi that he was needed to co-produce and star in his next film, which went through various title permutations but we shall refer to as CRIMEWAVE for the sake of simplicity. CRIMEWAVE, while obviously not an EVIL DEAD film, still needs to be mentioned, for reasons that will become clear. First and foremost, since it was a studio film, Raimi did not have full control of the film. The first thing to go was BC as the star (he ended up with the smaller role of Renaldo the Heel, though he did Shemp his way into one scene as a television reporter). The second thing to go was any semblance of sanity. From all accounts from the people involved, it was a complete nightmare. The studio micromanaged Raimi, the shoot went overlong and over budget, and the studio yanked the film right out of Raimi's hands, almost literally, before he had a chance to finish editing it.
The lessons they had learned on CRIMEWAVE stayed with them (assistant director John Cameron, another Super 8 alumnus, hence forth referred to any sense of impending doom as "The Crimewave factor"), and they decided to hedge their bets and assert their dominance over filmmaking in the form of a sequel: EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN. Spiegel and Raimi wrote the script, and in the case of this film there was no way anyone could tell them they couldn't have BC as its star. When the financial negotiations for the film got sluggish, fate stepped in again in the form of Stephen King. Apparently a prospective crew member for the ED2 shoot somehow happened to meet King while he was filming MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE (a goddamn fine film in its own right, no matter what anyone else tells you). When this young woman happened to mention that funding for an EVIL DEAD sequel wasn't going well, King got on the horn with Dino De Laurentis, and as quick as you can say blood soaked sequel, ED2 was funded and ready to go.
The cast and crew of EVIL DEAD 2 set up shop in an old, crumbling high school not far from the Wadesboro, North Carolina, property that contained their new cabin (the original cabin had long since burned to the ground) and got to work. Two story sets were built in the gymnasium, the library was the production office, and the food was served, well, in the cafeteria. BC had a gym set up for him in a classroom, and worked out with a trainer for two hours every day of the shoot, to get him into buff hero mode. Since the film was shot out of sequence, the astute viewer can watch BC bounce from toned to not so toned and back again.
The thing I hear most often when people discuss ED2 (if they discuss ED2 at all) is the question of is it a sequel or a remake. This has always struck me as quite a bizarre question: do people familiar with the first film honestly think Ash went back to the cabin a second time, with another girl named Linda, and played the goddamn tape recorder AGAIN? I mean, it boggles the mind. So for those who haven't seen the films, and those without two brain cells to rub together, let me break it down for you:
As already stated, Raimi and co. wanted to make a sequel to EVIL DEAD. However, they couldn't get the rights to use footage from the first film, and also as already stated, the original cabin was nothing but so much cinder and ash (pardon the pun). So they needed to recap the proceedings of the first film in some other way. This problem was served by simply remaking the first film: in seven minutes and eight seconds. Everything before that minute mark in ED2 is remake. They stripped it down to just the two characters of Ash and Linda, got them to the cabin much faster, left the tape recorder lying about so they didn't have to waste time stumbling across it, and got the Candarian demon action happening, post haste. At that magical seven minute and eight second mark, there is a scene that is an exact replica of the very final scene in EVIL DEAD. Boom! At that point, you're watching a sequel. Make sense? Of course it does.
I should also point out the new and improved Sam-O-Cam that was used in the shot mentioned above. In the first EVIL DEAD, the Sam-O-Cam was simply a cantilevered device that poked in through the window and allowed two off camera Shemps to raise and lower Cheryl so as to cause her to appear to float when possessed. Well, the new and improved version was actually a giant iron cross cantilevered to a crane. BC was strapped to the cross, and Sam Raimi sat in the seat of the crane with a joystick. As the crane propelled forward through the woods, and the camera rolled, Raimi used the joystick to make Bruce spin around and around, and backwards, at whatever speed he desired. This shot that only lasts a few seconds on screen took an entire day to shoot. Torturous for BC, but man, it looks fabulous in the finished version.
EVIL DEAD 2 resembles a stage play, with the sort of flat look it has, and the obviously fake scenery. This was all done to affect, as far as I can tell. The film was intended to have a goofier, more Looney Tunes aspect to the violence, as opposed to the darker and more serious original film. It seems at first as if it is simply going to be Bruce against the Demons, but that would get boring after a while, so the script offers up some more characters later on for the demons to play with. The daughter of the cabin's previous inhabitants, Professor Knowby and his wife, as well as the daughter's boyfriend and the two townies they hired to take them to the cabin. They mistake Ash for the Knowbys' killer when they first come upon him, and lock him in the fruit cellar...unbeknownst to them already occupied by the possessed Henrietta Knowby. Henrietta was played by Sam's brother Ted (familiar to most people from his role as Joxer on Xena, but he has been in beaucoup films, baby). Ted was completely encased in a form fitting "heinous horror hag" costume, and in one memorable scene you can clearly see a huge rip in the ass of the suit, and in another scene you can clearly see sweat literally pour out of a vent in the ear of his 
Sam Raimi and one of "the boys" Josh Becker. What's that in the background? |
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suit. Those kinds of grueling conditions really separate the wheat from the chaff.
*On THE MAN WITH THE SCREAMING BRAIN's commentary, BC says, "When all else fails, cut to Ted."*
The end result is what is a psychotic, gore streaked, and eminently quotable thrill ride. And I don't slip into magazine reviewer speak for just any old film. From the headless corpse of Linda attacking Ash with a chainsaw, to geysers of blood from every color of the rainbow soaking as many actors as possible, to that chick from that soap opera forcibly swallowing a demon eyeball, this film has a little something for everyone. Well, actually, I guess it doesn't. It has a little something for all of us sick puppies who prefer viscera to romantic expository dialogue (suppository dialogue, I like to call it). And as if there needed to be any more proof of the sequel angle, at the end of the credits can be seen the line, "A sequel to the most grueling experience in terror." What. You don't watch all the credits? Jesus, I don't why I bother with you people sometimes. Hmph.
Some interesting notes on the film: Raimi decided to have a torn THE HILLS HAVE EYES poster in the basement of the cabin in EVIL DEAD, as a way of ribbing Wes Craven for having a torn poster of JAWS on display in HILLS. Wes Craven responded by having Nancy watching EVIL DEAD in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and Raimi further responded by judiciously placing a Freddy glove over the doorway inside the work shed in EVIL DEAD 2. I think the contest ended there, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. (A similar back and forth occurred between SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ and 28 DAYS LATER and 28 WEEKS LATER).
Another things is that on the ED2 shoot, respected FX man Mark Shostrom was in charge of the job...but three of the guys he hired to assist happened to be Bob Kurtzman, Howard Berger, and Greg Nicotero. It was the first time the three guys met, and they got along so well they decided to form their own FX company, a little house known as KNB effects. For any horror geeks, you will surely recognize that name as being ubiquitous ever since the late 80's. Quite simply, those boys are the go to guys in horror.
And of course I would be remiss in not speaking at least a little on the subject of the third and final (?) EVIL DEAD film, everyone say it with me now, ARMY OF DARKNESS. What? You didn't know AOD was the third in the EVIL DEAD series? I'm not surprised. One of my favorite stories is of being so excited to see it in the theater, since I didn't have that option with the other films, and only finding out once I got there that none of the people I was with had any idea it was part of a trilogy. I was livid. But I had a good time anyway, because hell, it was BC and the boys.
AOD is not my favorite of the three films, and wouldn't register on any top ten list of mine anyway. But I liked it just fine, and it does seem to be a big favorite among people who wouldn't exactly affiliate themselves with us horror geeks. I will concede that it is the most quotable of the films. To me, it seems like a bit of poking fun at the whole ED thing. Of course, I have nothing to back this up, but it is certainly no secret that Ash is not BC's favorite character he has played, and he has gotten irksome in the past for predominantly being known only for it: I remember seeing him refer to himself several times over the years as Bruce "Don't Call Me Ash" Campbell." And it is also no secret that Sam Raimi had been looking for a while to break into more "mainstream" pictures (hello, FOR THE LOVE OF THE GAME – just because you put the "Classic" in it doesn't mean I'm going to watch it).
So with that in mind, watch AOD again with different eyes. The first thing you will notice is the ramped up slapstick, a more than obvious nod to the Three Stooges, probably the single biggest influence on Raimi. The second thing you will notice is that Ash, having gone from milquetoast in the first film to buff hero in part 2, is now pretty much a complete jackhole. He huffs and puffs his way through the film, and only begrudgingly helps to defeat the Deadites. The whole thing smacks of send-up to me; I'm not necessarily saying that is a bad thing. I'm just saying.
I don't really have a whole lot of geek info on this film. I saw it in the theater, and on tape and the Sci-Fi channel a few times, and once I caught it on DVD just so I could see the mythical "slept too long" ending. It always rankles me when people call it an alternate ending. It isn't an alternate ending: it was the one originally shot, which they were forced to change because it was deemed "too dark" by the studio. Once again, I'm not complaining. I actually like the S-Mart ending better. Who wouldn't? Not only does it have Bridget Fonda (who lobbied for a role, because she is a fan of the EVIL DEAD series), but it gives Ted Raimi a fourth role in the film, and it also gave birth to the most famous Ash line, and with good reason: after he blows away a she-bitch, the camera careens in for a close-up, and Ash deadpans the line, "Shop smart: shop S-Mart."
I will also say that the scene where we see the "Classic" drop from the sky is footage culled from the ED2 shoot...because when they attempted to recreate that shot for AOD, the cable snapped, sending the car plummeting to the ground too early, and then the whole damn crane toppled over and slid down into a ravine. Too bad they didn't get it on film.
*I'm not going to do a synopsis for AOD, because this one I know everyone and his/her mother has seen*
In closing (oh thank God, he's finally going to shut up!), let me take this opportunity to urge you to see all three films, preferably in order. But beware: there are many different DVD versions. In fact, I am even confused over which one is best. As far as I can tell, opt for the "Book of the Dead" version of EVIL DEAD, the one where the DVD case is actually a foam replica of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis. Can't go wrong with that conversation piece. As far as AOD, go for Bruce Campbell vs. The Army of Darkness: The Official Bootleg Edition. It isn't the best looking transfer of the film, but is has the best special features. And for ED2, go for the special edition, the one with the foreign poster showing Sarah Berry's character of Annie Knowby as a Deadite, something that never happens in the film. There is also a special collector's edition featuring the first two films together, both in different versions of the foam Book of the Dead cases. But you're gonna plunk down fifty bones for that sucker.
So why are you still reading this? Go watch the movies, and then branch off and get familiar with the rest of the films by Raimi, the Coen brothers, and all of BC's multitudinous genre offerings. It's either that, or I'm gonna come back here and write another column about them!
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Biv swept a clean swath through the many empty beer bottles on the table and plunked down the hefty manuscript. Zara had evil eyed him enough for him to get the point that he should move to the back of the bar, and so he had. He looked at the very blurry face of his watch, and dismay dimly rang somewhere in the back of his mind that he was stinking drunk at four in the afternoon. No matter: he had made it through the entire column, and only fell asleep once or twice. The kid was a decent enough writer, he had to give him some credit.
But he still wasn't going to watch the movies.
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| Agent Provocateur |
Every other Sunday
Eating the flesh of lesser film geeks since '72.
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| Zombie Boy |
Zombie Boy is not a Hollywood insider, just a movie
geek with a big mouth and a strong desire to spew
opinions. His column will concentrate on the things he
feels you need to know about less mainstream cinematic
issues, but probably don't. He strongly encourages
interaction from his readers, just be sure to not put
any digits too close to his mouth.
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