A Few Fun Facts about the EVIL DEAD Series

The Evil Dead (1981)

-The film was shot in Michigan and Tennessee on a budget of $350,000, raised over a period of years with numerous breaks in shooting. Despite beginning production in 1979, it didn’t make it into theatres until 1983.

-The original title of the film was Book of the Dead, but their agent, Irving Shapiro, convinced the group to change it to The Evil Dead.

-Joel Coen (of the Coen Brothers) edited the shed sequence. Joel and Ethan Coen would subsequently co-write with Sam Raimi on his follow up film, Crimewave. Director Sam Raimi would appear as an actor in Joel and Ethan Coen’s Miller’s Crossing and would later co-write The Hudsucker Proxy with them.

-The film was screened at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. Positive response and an endorsement from Stephen King (who was present at the screening) led to New Line Cinema picking up distribution rights.

-The uncut version was difficult to see in many parts of the world and the flick was released unrated in the US. It was one of the first movies to be labeled a “video nasty” in the UK and numerous attempts were made to have it banned. The film was heavily edited in Finland and in Germany, where it wasn’t released in its uncut form until 2001.

-The film was a modest success in North America ($600,000) but massive hit internationally (nearly $2 million). The film’s success at the box office and huge popularity on home video led to…

Evil Dead 2 (1987)

-Director Sam Raimi was initially hesitant to make a sequel. However, after a horrendous experience making the film Crimewave (to make matters worse, it was barely released and flopped at the box office), he relented and began working on a follow-up.

-Budgeted at $3.6 million, the sequel was produced by Dino De Laurentiis and filmed in North Carolina and Michigan. According to some reports, De Laurentiis was convinced to fund the film by Stephen King (who was directing Maximum Overdrive for De Laurentiis at the time).

-Sam Raimi’s brother Ted Raimi (Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys) has an early role in this film. He was cast as Possessed Henrietta, a part that required him to wear a full prosthetic body suit. Conditions were so hot on set that pools of sweat are visible pouring out of cracks in the suit in the film.

-This film was also released unrated, and as a result was only a modest success at the box office, grossing almost $6 million in the US. On video, it was a massive success and, like the first movie, gained cult status.

Army of Darkness (1992)

-The film was produced by Dino De Laurentiis with Universal Pictures for $12.7 million, and shot in California. Major studio Universal was eager to work with Sam Raimi again after Darkman, which was a sizable hit (grossing nearly $50 million worldwide on a $15 million budget). They agreed to finance half of the budget.

-Actress Bridget Fonda makes a brief cameo. Raimi would later cast her in the film A Simple Plan.

-Cinematographer Bill Pope would later go on to film The Matrix trilogy for The Wachowskis and the Spider-Man trilogy for Sam Raimi.

-Universal Pictures disliked the original ending and asked Raimi to film something more upbeat. Years later, a DVD was released through Anchor Bay containing both endings. Reportedly, Raimi enjoys both versions for different reasons.

-Filmed in 1991, it didn’t get a wide release until the beginning of 1993 due to a vitriolic battle between producer Dino De Laurentiis and Universal Pictures. This had nothing to do with the movie, but the character of Hannibal Lecter. De Laurentiis owned the rights to Lecter, and following the surprise success of The Silence of the Lambs, Universal were eager to produce a sequel. When they couldn’t come to an agreement, Laurentiis claimed that Universal used Army of Darkness as ransom, refusing to pay their side of the production bill and release it. The matter was settled and the film eventually released, albeit slightly later than expected.

-the film only grossed 21.5 million worldwide, but once again, was a massive hit on home video.

Evil Dead (2013)

-Filmed in Auckland, New Zealand and Detroit, Michigan on a budget of $14 million.

-A 1973 Delta 88 Oldsmobile (featured in all of the Evil Dead films and the majority of Sam Raimi’s movies) makes an appearance.

-Sam Raimi hired director Fede Alvarez to make a feature length version of his Panic Attack! short, a viral hit on the internet. The short depicted giant robots invading Alvarez’s home town of Montevideo, Uruguay. When the project stalled in development, young director pitched his idea for an Evil Dead remake.

-Inspired by the original series, Alvarez wanted to emphasize practical make-up effects work as much as possible. While shooting a sequence in which actress Jane Levy was buried under the ground with a plastic bag over her head, the special effects team used an oxygen hose running through the back of the bag and behind her ear while she was buried.

-A brief sequence after the end credits gives a nod to the original series.

-At the Wondercon convention, producer Bruce Campbell and Fede Alvarez joked that both parties plan to make sequels to their Evil Dead films, and then merge the two series together and combine the surviving characters into a seventh film.