In 1978, a 19-year-old aspiring filmmaker named Sam Raimi and his childhood friend, 20-year-old Bruce Campbell, wanted to team up to make a horror film. The duo had no idea how difficult it would be to bring their project to fruition.
The short film.
In order to make their dream a reality, Raimi and Campbell managed to raise $1,600 to shoot a 30-minute short film titled “Within the Woods,” starring Bruce Campbell and Ellen Sandweiss. In the short film, a group of friends goes to spend a weekend at a cabin far from the city, located near Native American lands that have been cursed for centuries, where one of them ends up being possessed by an evil spirit that turns him into a zombie determined to kill his friends.
Raimi managed to convince a theater owner to screen his film as a double feature with “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” But despite its moderate box-office success, Hollywood wasn't knocking on his door, so Sam, his brother Ted Raimi, and their colleagues Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell decided to risk their savings by turning it into a feature-length film.
The feature film.
The positive reception of “Within the Woods” prompted Sam Raimi to move forward with the feature film adaptation, which began shooting during the freezing winter of 1979 in Tennessee.
Funding.
The harsh weather conditions and lack of funding threw the shoot into a bit of chaos. Both Raimi and Bruce Campbell (who put up his family home as collateral), with the help of producer Robert Tapert, ended up taking out several loans and asking friends and acquaintances for financial assistance; they even called local businesses to sell them shares in the film.
Sam Raimi knew that to direct his film he would need a budget of $100,000, which he eventually secured with the help of his friends. Even so, he also knew that to carry out various tasks he would need to continue relying on all his close friends and acquaintances.
The fake basement.
Due to budget constraints, the cabin where “Evil Dead” was filmed didn't have a basement. That's why they had to improvise: they cut a door-shaped opening and dug a hole deep enough to fit half a staircase, into which Ellen Sandweiss, who played Cheryl and her demonic, possessed character, could fit.
To film the scenes inside the basement, other locations were used that were quite far from the set and made the already complicated filming process even more difficult, such as the garage at Sam Raimi’s parents’ house and producer Robert Tapert’s basement.
Homemade SteadyCam and practical effects.
The shots in "The Evil Dead" where the camera races through the woods, becoming the point of view of the demonic threat lurking in the forest, are legendary. Without the budget for a Steadycam, the type of camera used to shoot this kind of footage, Sam Raimi and his team opted to strap a camera to a wooden board, which was held by two crew members running like mad through the woods.
Another trick the director employed, and it is said that this is what allowed him to avoid the dreaded X rating due to the film’s high level of graphic violence, was to mix fake blood (corn syrup, coffee creamer, and red food coloring) with milk. This toned down the reddish hue and produced the distinctive color that the film’s creatures and victims exude.
For the zombies’ guts (the green ones), the main ingredient was green-colored corn cream. The foam coming from the possessed characters’ mouths, finally, was made from low-fat milk. During the filming of one scene, several bottles filled with these fluids were knocked over onto a camera, damaging it and, in the process, turning it into a viscous, unspeakable mess.
A horrific rape.
In the final script for “Evil Dead,” the scene in which Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) is raped by the trees, which was shocking for its time, did not appear as such, as it merely stated that the forest attacked her. It was during filming, as producer Robert Tapert stated, that they drew inspiration from Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” and the moment when the Forest of Birnam moves with an army hidden within it, just as the three witches had predicted.
Destroyed cabin and time capsule.
Once filming was completed, the cabin was reportedly destroyed, and a fire completely gutted it, leaving leaving only part of the chimney intact. Both Raimi and Campbell, along with the rest of the crew, confirmed that the reports of the fire were true. One theory suggests that lightning may have started the fire, but most film location researchers agree that it was the work of vandals or locals who frequented the area. Some suggest it may have been an accidental fire caused by people seeking shelter or curious onlookers who entered without permission.
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| Cabin remains. |
The cabin legend was further amplified when Campbell shared that the entire crew had helped create a time capsule containing items from that era, which they buried in the surrounding area. This capsule had been regarded as an urban legend for decades.
Finally, in 2011, YouTube user Dane Sears found, dug up, and stored the time capsule, which was confirmed as authentic by Sam Raimi himself at the 2019 Texas Frightmare Weekend in Dallas, and its contents were revealed in 2023.
Post production.
On October 23, 1980, after spending a whopping 12 weeks lost in the woods, unable to shower, burning furniture to stay warm, and at the mercy of a deranged director, the creators of “Evil Dead” realized that filming was over and that they could finally go home.
Both Raimi and Campbell found themselves with a huge amount of footage to edit, so Raimi went to a Detroit editing suite owned by Edna Paul. At the time, her assistant was a young Joel Coen, who ended up working on the film’s final edit, gaining the experience needed to assist his brother Ethan Coen during the shooting and editing phases of their debut film, “Blood Simple.”
While reviewing the footage, the Raimi and Campbell brothers realized they needed to reshoot several takes, so they called their former co-stars, only to find that the latter had no desire whatsoever to work with them again. To solve the problem, the filmmakers used the “fake shemp” technique, appearing themselves as body doubles for the dropouts, filming from different angles and without showing their faces. Of course, the use of wigs and padded bras was essential to impersonate the girls.
Title change.
At first, both Raimi and Campbell were convinced that the film would be called “Book of the Dead,” as a tribute to H.P. Lovecraft, whose work fascinated the director. It was on the advice of a producer that the title was changed to “The Evil Dead,” as it sounded much more commercial.
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Premiere.
On October 15, 1981, “The Evil Dead” premiered; for the first screening, Sam Raimi chose the Redford Theatre in Detroit, Bruce Campbell's cinematic home. At that first screening, the audience seemed enthusiastic about the film, and one producer even told the director that they had expected a horror film rather than a black comedy, so they would likely need to re-edit it. However, word of mouth turned “Evil Dead” into a huge hit in the area, and little by little they saw how every showing sold out and the audience was more than enthusiastic. That’s how the idea of re-editing it disappeared.
Months later, Raimi took the film to the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, where it was screened out of competition at a screening attended by Stephen King himself, who wrote a positive review of the film for USA Today. One of the quotes used to promote the film internationally was taken from that review: “The most ferocious and original horror film of the year.”
