October 30, 2025 • 39 mins
Happy Halloween!
Evil Dead II was not the sequel to The Evil Dead that Sam Raimi intended. With a bigger budget, and more experience, he essentially remade the first film with a comedic twist. Released in 1987, Evil Dead II became the perfect bridge between horror and comedy.
Ash Williams transforms from every man survivor to wisecracking action hero. Campbell's physical comedy is next-level; the guy gets beaten up by his own possessed hand. His performance became so iconic, it launched an entire franchise and Ash as a cult hero. Practical effects, makeup, and prosthetics created some truly memorable (and gross) moments.
Evil Dead II helped define the horror-comedy genre and influenced countless filmmakers. It became a cult classic that's still celebrated decades later, leading to Army of Darkness and eventually the Ash vs Evil Dead TV series. Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi became legends in genre filmmaking.
Evil Dead II proved you could be terrifying and hilarious at the same time. It's a masterclass in creative filmmaking on a budget, and proof that sometimes the best sequels are the ones that aren't afraid to reinvent themselves.
Groovy.
I would love to hear your thoughts on Evil Dead II !
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(01:26):
Hi everyone, I'm Em andwelcome to Verbal Diorama, Episode
319, Evil Dead 2. This is apodcast that's all about the history
and legacy of movies you knowand movies you don't that's somehow
backing the Cabin in the woodsfrom last episode, but with a new
Linda and now some random oldlady in the basement who definitely
wasn't there before. Welcometo Verbal Diorama, where you're a
(01:49):
brand new listener, whetheryou're a regular returning listener.
Thank you for being here.Thank you for choosing to listen
to this podcast. I'm so happyto have you here for the history
and legacy of Evil Dead 2. Andas always, if you are a returning
listener, thank you so muchfor continuing to listen and support
this podcast. It means so muchfor your continued support. And this
(02:09):
is the Verbal Diorama entryfor Halloween and it's a doozy. After
last week's episode on theEvil Dead, I plan to take this week
off, mostly due to theIndependent Podcast Awards and being
down in London. I simply tookmy laptop down to London and worked
on this episode during thedowntime that I had. And I've worked
on it whenever I had a sparemoment to do so, because what else
(02:32):
do you do? For one of thegreatest sequels ever made and one
of the most fun horror moviesof all time. Groovy. Here's the trailer
for Evil Dead 2.
(04:09):
Ash Williams takes hisgirlfriend Linda to a secluded cabin
in the woods where he playsback Professor's tape recorded reciting
of passages from the Book ofthe Dead. The spell conjures up an
evil force from the woodswhich turned Linda into a monstrous
Deadite and threatens to dothe same to Ash. When the Professor's
daughter and her entourageshow up at the cabin. The night turns
(04:30):
into a non stop, grotesquelycomic battle with Chainsaw and Shotgun
on one side, demon horde andFlying Eyeball on the other. Let's
run through the cast. We haveBruce Campbell as Ash Williams, Sarah
Berry as Annie Knowby, DanHicks as Jake Kassie Wesley as Bobby
Jo, Denise Bixler as Linda,and Richard Domeier as Ed Getley.
(04:55):
Evil Dead 2 was written by SamRaimi and Scott Spiegel and was directed
by Sam Raimi in the lastepisode on the Evil Dead. Go listen
if you haven't yet. The storywas mostly about a young, scrappy
team of filmmakers with alimited budget making something that
in the end became a bit of anightmare production. I insist you
(05:15):
listen, because a lot of thestory goes straight into this one
and a lot of the team reprisetheir roles on the crew, and it is
worth knowing the backgroundto the story. But even during post
production on the Evil Dead,Irvin Shapiro, the guy who masterminded
the distribution and release,suggested the idea of a sequel to
Sam Raimi, who mulled it overand decided he didn't want to do
(05:37):
another Cabin in the woodsmovie. And working with screenwriter
Sheldon Lettich, Raimi settledon a story in which ash was sucked
through a time portal tomedieval times to fight Deadites
in the year 1300. If thatsounds a little familiar, the resulting
screenplay was called EvilDead 2, Evil Dead and the army of
Darkness, and Shapiro even putan ad in the trades announcing it
(06:00):
was in production in May 1984.But both Universal and 20th Century
Fox passed on the idea, so itwas shelved in favour of Crimewave.
Crimewave wasn't a hit,though. It struggled both critically
and commercially, and SamRaimi didn't want to be known as
that horror guy. But work iswork and their careers were lagging
(06:23):
after Crimewave made no waves.Evil Dead 2 would be the perfect
movie to cushion theircareers. Raimi, Bruce Campbell and
Rob Tapert as RenaissancePictures contacted Crimewave's distributors,
Embassy Home Entertainment, tohash out a deal, but that stalled
for five months. So theydecided to interview potential cast
and crew, one of whom was alsoworking on Maximum Overdrive. And
(06:47):
just like Last Episode,Stephen King swoops in to save the
day because Maximum Overdrivewas his directorial debut and it
was being Filmed at the DeLaurentiis Studios in Wilmington,
North Carolina for DEG, the DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group headed
by of course, Dino DeLaurentiis. King had a multi picture
(07:08):
deal with De Laurentiis, andKing advocated for the Renaissance
Pictures team on their EvilDead sequel to De Laurentiis. The
Renaissance Pictures team knewDe Laurentiis was Italian and that
the Evil Dead had been huge inItaly. So they collected information
on the Italian box office andtook it with them to the meeting
they had arranged with Dino DeLaurentiis. It took 20 minutes to
(07:31):
secure a deal for the secondEvil Dead movie with Dino De Laurentiis,
a $3.6 million deal, a littleless than the team wanted, but De
Laurentiis stipulated hewanted a movie like the Evil Dead
and not Raimi's army ofDarkness idea, and the Evil Dead
sequel had to be R rated. Butat least this time they wouldn't
(07:53):
be flying by the seat of theirpants not knowing where their next
chunk of money was comingfrom. They had $3.6 million and Raimi
set to work on a script withhis longtime friend and within the
woods co star Scott Spiegel.Sam Raimi at the time lived in Silver
Lake, Los Angeles with Joeland Ethan Cohen, Frances McDormand,
Kathy Bates and Holly Hunter.And that is basically a who's who
(08:18):
of Hollywood. And those arethe sorts of remains that you want.
Evil Dead 2 aka Evil Dead 2Dead by dawn is part remake, part
sequel. A recall, if you will,simultaneously recaps the first movie
whilst also following on fromit. Originally the plan was to reuse
the footage from the Evil Deadwith Ash and Linda, plus Cheryl,
(08:41):
Scott and Shelley included,but there was a problem with the
rights. Because the Evil Deadwas sold by Irvin Shapiro's company,
Films around the World toaround 50 different distributors
around the globe. They wouldneed to obtain clearance from each
one for that territory. Somehad gone out of business in the preceding
four years, so it was easierand cheaper to reshoot the recap
(09:05):
and reduce the number ofcharacters to just Ash and his girlfriend
Linda. Betsy Baker wascontacted and they met with her to
reprise the role of Linda.However, she was pregnant with her
first child at the time, soinstead they decided to recast the
role. Linda was also recast inarmy of Darkness with none other
(09:25):
than Bridget Fonda, so theseries remains inconsistent on Linda
as well as inconsistentbetween recollections of events because
the recap isn't the same asthe Evil Dead. But again, this isn't
a series known for itscontinuity. Ash destroys the Book
of the Dead at the end of theEvil Dead in a fire, but it's remarkably
burn free in this movie. Notto mention the sudden appearance
(09:48):
of Henrietta Knowby in thecellar. While the budget was much
higher than they had for theEvil Dead, it was decided to keep
the recap as brief as possibleand keep some of the wackier ideas
restricted. The earlier draftsof the script were written during
production of Crime Wave andwere more comedic, with the horror
played to more laughs thanscares. In a similar vein to their
(10:10):
early 8mm comedy films. It wasagreed that Evil Dead 2 should lean
more towards comedy than itspredecessor, if only to achieve the
desired and required R rating.Once Raimi and Spiegel were happy
with their script, theyauditioned a new cast including Denise
Bixler replacing Betsy Bakeras Linda. The character of Bobby
(10:32):
Jo was written for Raimi'shousemate Holly Hunter in mind. But
Hunter didn't end up takingthe part. Apparently she wasn't pretty
enough. According to RobTapert, Bruce Campbell would obviously
be back as Ashley and hereally wanted to bulk up and get
more of a hero physique.Campbell worked out for two hours
a day, six days a week with astrict diet for 12 weeks during pre
(10:55):
production, which continuedinto filming. John Casino was his
stunt double for the extremestunts, but Campbell wanted to do
the majority himself. HavingDino De Laurentiis involved meant
potentially having access tothe De Laurentiis' own studio in
Wilmington next to hisoffices. It had 11 sound stages,
(11:16):
editing and screeningfacilities and prop shops. But after
the studio interference onCrimewave, the filmmakers decided
to stay away from the studiosand away from the interference. Not
to mention, De Laurentiis hadoffered them the use of his studio
for full price and it would bemuch cheaper elsewhere. The decision
not to use his studiosoffended De Laurentiis, who when
(11:40):
they found out they hadlocation scouted in Wadesboro three
hours drive away, called RobTaper to a meeting at his offices
just to prove to them how faraway they were and just to give them
a hard time. But the locationthey'd selected was perfect and De
Laurentiis reluctantly agreed.The production's budget couldn't
(12:00):
afford hotels for the cast andcrew, so they rented local bank foreclosed
homes for the duration of theshooting rather than use a pre existing
cabin night on the Evil Dead.This time around, the cabin was built
especially for the production.With the cabin cellar and workshed
interior sets built in the gymof the local J.R. Faison Junior High
(12:22):
School. The cabin was built onthe land belonging to a local farmhouse
owned by Harry Huntley, whoalso became their local fixer. The
farmhouse served as theirproduction base and it's the same
farmhouse Steven Spielbergused for The Color Purple. They paid
J.R. Faison Junior High $500 amonth to use its facilities and the
(12:43):
gym was used to house a twolevel set, the ground floor being
the fruit cellar and the firstfloor the ground floor of the cabin.
The exterior was a short drivefrom the farmhouse and they built
this set from scratch, makingthe interior set a little larger
than the exterior house, thenpurposely gave the house tilted windows
(13:03):
and door frames to add to thericketiness of it. Unlike the last
movie, which was filmed in aharsh Tennessee winter where it was
the coldest in decades, thismovie was filmed in the summer in
Carolina and it was hot. Thetemperature outside was over 100
degrees Fahrenheit, which is37 Celsius. But inside the school
(13:25):
gym, with the added tungstenlights, it often breached 110 Fahrenheit
or 43 degrees Celsius. Thismade it incredibly uncomfortable
on set, but especially foranyone in makeup or prosthetics.
They had cast Lou Hancock toplay the unpossessed Henrietta Knowby.
She was 62 years old at thetime and no one wants to put a 62
(13:48):
year old woman through that.For the possessed version of the
character wearing a heavy suitand makeup. To get around this, Sam
Raimi cast his younger brotherTed Raimi as possessed Henrietta.
The suit would be filled withlitres of his sweat during filming,
but at least he would get intothe Screen Actors Guild. Due to the
(14:08):
role, A complete body cast ofTed Raimi was taken on which the
main portion of Henrietta'srotting body could be sculpted as
one of separate head, arm andleg moulds to sculpt each part respectively.
A suit with pouches full oflentils were added underneath to
give the outer skin weight andmovement, although this did make
the makeup much heavier andundoubtedly a lot more uncomfortable.
(14:33):
To get that important Rrating, it was decided to have as
little blood as possible anduse quick cuts and character reactions
rather than blood and gore.Bodily fluids were green, black and
yellow. When they did use redblood, it was the same recipe as
last time with the sticky Karocorn syrup. Principal photography
on Evil Dead 2 commenced inMay 1986 and Tim Philo was contacted
(14:58):
about reprising the role ofcinematographer that he had for the
first movie. But as he'd Nevershot a 35mm picture, he felt the
task was beyond his skills.Eugene Schlugleit was hired as a
cinematographer. He'd workedwith Ramey on the crime wave reshoots
and he came with his own crewand equipment. But due to Raimi's
(15:18):
erratic filmmaking ways, thenumber and frequency of setups started
to grade on Schlugleit's crew,who stopped working and were eventually
asked to leave the movie. TimPhilo was once again offered to be
cinematographer and he againdeclined. Peter Denning was then
brought on board as thereplacement cinematographer because
(15:39):
Eugene Schlugleit had alreadycompleted the exterior night footage.
And then Peter Denning came onboard to complete the rest. Denning
was credited as the directorof photography with Eugene Schlugleit
as the director ofphotography. Knight Exterior photography.
Tim Philo was eventuallypersuaded to return as director of
photography second unit, andhe assisted for the final portion
(16:02):
of filming, Assisting VerneHyde, who was in charge of general
physical and mechanicaleffects on things like the Ram-o-cam,
which was a heavy 20 foot ironpole attached in the center to a
western dolly so it couldpivot like a seesaw with a camera
fixed at the front end of thepole and six crew members pushing
it from the back. This wasused where the force punches through
(16:24):
the windows of the Delta 88automobile, which had to be done
three times to get the finalshot. On the sequence featuring Ash
being propelled through theforest by the demon force. Bruce
Campbell was strapped to theSam-o-cam made up of a cast iron
X with boots bolted to the endof two of the limbs and wrists strapped
(16:44):
to the end of the other twolimbs. This X was connected at center
to a motor which allowed therig and Campbell to spin 360 degrees
from 1 to 20 RPM. It wasattached to a Chapman Crane arm 15ft
off the ground, mounted ontothe back of the truck so it could
be driven along. The shot tooka day to achieve and was filmed just
(17:07):
outside of Cheraw, SouthCarolina. Once shooting in North
Carolina had wrapped inSeptember 1986, they returned to
Michigan. But there was stillfootage that needed to be reshot.
Tim Philo oversaw some of thereshoots in a warehouse studio just
outside of Detroit. And theschedule was kept fairly tight with
(17:27):
three sets and two cameras inthe space along with a special effects
area. While one set was used,another was being prepped so there
was no waiting around betweensetups. Many of the more complicated
shots and special effectsanimation were created here, Such
as Headless Linda attackingBruce with a chainsaw. The climactic
vortex sequence created usingthe Sam-o-cam X rig with a blue screen,
(17:51):
and the blood flood scene,which took three attempts. They tried
twice in North Carolina andthen once again during the reshoots
in Detroit. A portion of theset was constructed sideways with
the camera tilted vertically.Bruce Campbell lay horizontally flat
on a diving board type rig afew feet off the floor and above
(18:11):
him was a 55 gallon drum offake blood with a plug in the bottom.
The plug was pulled out and hewas hit with the full force of the
liquid. Also asked to returnfollowing his work on the Evil Dead
was Tom Sullivan for thespecial effects work, the task of
which would include the makeupeffects and the stop motion animation.
(18:32):
For Evil Dead 2. Sullivan feltthe task was too huge, so he opted
to take a reduced role,producing some of the stop motion
animation and some of theprops instead. Mark Shostrom was
hired as the supervisor of themakeup effects team and Dave Kindlen
managed the mechanical effectsspecifically used inside the makeup.
(18:53):
Prep for the makeup team hadbegun in Pasadena, California at
the start of March 1986, tenweeks before the start of shooting.
Shostrum had just come offmakeup effects work on A Nightmare
on Elm Street 2, Freddy'sRevenge, prior to starting Evil Dead
2, and he took the opportunityto hang a Freddy glove he owned in
(19:13):
two of the sets through thecourse of the movie. Sullivan also
created a brand new Book ofthe Dead, bigger than the original
and more elaborate. He createdfour new books. One hero copy with
all the pages hand paintedwith watercolors, and three stunt
books. He also made five setsof identical lost pages, including
(19:35):
the Hero from the sky madefrom a rehearsal photo of Bruce Campbell.
He also included a passiveaggressive message to the guys he
shared a house with in one ofthe pages which reads, Ray is an
asshole and he can go Fhimself with a weasel now. It's true.
It's on the pages Ali islooking through. Just after Bobby
Joe's vine attack, Sullivanalso brought the Kandarian dagger
(19:59):
he created and still ownedfrom the previous movie and redesigned
the blade from a simplepointed piece of metal to a tail
like tapered set of bones. Thebrand new Book of the Dead had a
hollow wooden frame witharticulated ball and socket joint
for the face covered byflexible skin with an opening mouth.
Sullivan drew up an additionalcontract which also stipulated he
(20:22):
would retain the ownership andcopyright of any props he manufactured.
Which means he owned anoriginal Book of the Dead and the
Kandarian Dagger as well asmany of the props. And the outstanding
star of this movie isn'tHenrietta's flyaway eyeball, although
that comes a close second.It's Ash's evil disembodied hand.
(20:42):
That was achieved usingvarious mechanical and makeup effects
with stop motion animation.Some of it used an entirely fake
hand with radio controlledarticulated armature, but they also
used a real hand with asevered stomp appliance and an animated
stop motion version for thereal hand. A narrow trench was made
between the cabin'sfloorboards with one side 2 inches
(21:05):
higher than the other. So whenfilmed across a certain angle, it
looks like one continuouspiece of Wood. The scene where Bruce
Campbell as Ash is fightinghis own possessed hand is, I think,
probably everyone's favoritescene in the movie. And it's straight
out of a Looney Tunes cartoonwith the plate smashing, beating
himself up, flipping himselfover and dragging himself across
(21:27):
the floor. Again, why wasBruce Campbell not a huge star? He
did the main fight betweenhimself and his hand in one take,
apparently. But as he chopshis hand off, he needs a new appendage.
And Ash's hand chainsaw wasconstructed by Vern Hoist Crew from
a real Homelite XL chainsaw,which had its engine replaced with
(21:50):
a smaller 12 volt electricmotor so Campbell could fit his hand
inside and it would be silentenough for filming. When the chain
was still fake, exhaust smokewas fed into the saw via a tube.
That tube ran down his leg andthen 20 or so feet to a tobacco smoker
and the chain's teeth werefiled down for safety. There was
(22:12):
an unaltered, fully workingreel saw on set, but also foam rubber
and lightweight stuntreproductions. Henrietta's eyeball
was a ping pong ball. It wason a rig constructed and fixed to
the camera, with a sideways Ushaped black metal rod attached,
the camera at one end and thedisembodied eyeball on the other.
With the wire stretched awayfrom the camera, the way it flew
(22:35):
towards Bobby Joe's mouth waslike most of the movie, a Three Stooges
gag. On this movie, BruceCampbell got to wear the scleral
contact lenses during the Aschpossession scene, which rendered
him completely blind. Contactlenses had improved since they first
used them in 1979, but theprocess of insertion and removal
(22:56):
was still painful, so Campbelloften just left them in between takes,
which, as all contact lenswearers know, is very naughty. Oxygen
to the eye, Bruce. Evil Dead 2had three and a half months of post
production and the majority ofthat included all the film's animation,
which was split between TomSullivan, Larry Larson and Brian
(23:17):
Ray. Doug Beswick wasresponsible for dancing Linda in
a scene choreographed by TamG. Warner and danced by Snowy Winters.
The dance was filmedrepeatedly from multiple angles to
be able to get all the footagerequired to animate it. They sculpted
a 12 inch fully posable scalefigurine of Linda with a detachable
(23:39):
head. A scale miniature set tomatch the exterior location was built
on an eight foot squaretabletop with trees and a smaller
force perspective cabin.Beswick then painstakingly took a
month to animate Linda'scorpse, following the reference footage
as a guide rather thanmatching frame by frame. For the
(23:59):
mist, which couldn't beanimated frame by frame, they used
a motion control camera systemwhich could be programmed to match
the live action camera moveswith the previous stop motion camera
moves. The mist was filmedlive, moving at normal speed and
then composited with the stopmotion animation. They also constructed
a miniature cabin for theattacking trees which were a mixture
(24:21):
of miniature hand and rodpuppets and full sized rod and foam
puppets. The climax with thehuge demon head in the cabin was
nicknamed the Rotten AppleHead and that was constructed as
a full size mechanical effectwith genital eyes, foam rubber heads
taken from the casts of theactors to mimic the souls it had
(24:42):
collected during the movie.They struggled to make the heads
work as they wanted to, soRaimi used an anamorphic lens to
distort the image and cutaround the heads where possible.
A full size 16 foot tree handwas created to come through the cabin
window to grab ash. The armwas an aluminium frame which was
articulated and attached tocables for movement. The frame was
(25:05):
then covered in fake bark,made mattress foam which was shaped
and glued in place oncefilming was complete. Rather than
pay to have it all broughtback to Detroit, most of these effects
were just left in Wadesboroand Rotten Applehead went missing
for a while before turning upat the end of a hallway in a local
haunted house attraction.While the original Evil Dead cabin
(25:28):
became an unwitting touristattraction, the exact location of
The Evil Dead 2 cabin exteriorset was generally left unknown for
years. In 2011, on the EvilDead 2 Blu Ray, a special featurette
showed the cabin in aneglected state, but still standing.
The cabin started todeteriorate and the wood rotted and
(25:48):
by 2014 the cabin hadcompletely collapsed. The cabin and
workshed, which remainedintact at the time, was rescued by
Evildead Workshed.com's MikePasquale, who had permission from
the landowners in 2016 to totry and salvage as much from the
site as possible. Virtuallyall the wood had termite damage and
(26:10):
rot, and while they managed tosave the workshed exterior, the frame
was tilting and eventuallycollapsed. The workshed was rebuilt
with as many of the originalwooden planks as possible with a
metal canopy frame. It went ontour for a few years before being
bought at auction by theLiving Dead Museum in Edin City,
Pennsylvania. This museum grewout of a store and museum called
(26:33):
Monroeville Zombies, which wasoriginally located in the Monroeville
Mall. Why is that placefamiliar? It's where George Romero
filmed the original dawn ofthe Dead. He also filmed Night of
the Living Dead in Evans City,Pennsylvania. Everything is linked.
And despite this moviestarting as an idea for Ash to be
(26:54):
pulled into the Dark Ages, atthe end of the movie, the vortex
would pull him into a timeportal and once again the continuity
would skew between Evil Dead 2and army of Darkness. But I guess
that's for a future episode.And this is the perfect time to segue
into the obligatory Keanureference of this episode. And if
(27:15):
you don't know what that is,it's where I try and link every movie
that I feature with KeanuReeves. And as I mentioned, Ash Williams
is introduced to time travelat the end of this movie by being
pulled into the Dark Ages. Andanother character who is introduced
to time travel is Ted TheodoreLogan. And who plays Ted Theodore
Logan? Oh, it's Keanu Reeves.And that is the easiest way to link
(27:38):
Keanu Reeves to Evil Dead 2.The score for Evil Dead 2 was composed
by Joseph LoDuca, who alsocomposed the other two scores in
the Evil Dead trilogy, which Idon't think I mentioned last episode.
So correction, the music forthe Evil Dead was composed by Joseph
LoDuca and so was the musicfor Evil Dead 2. For a long time
(28:02):
this movie was seen as aremake, and it sort of is. In a way,
it is both a remake and acontinuation of the story. But to
avoid confusion, the endcredits State Evil Dead 2, the sequel
to the ultimate experience ingruelingruellingg terror,was in Wadesboro,
North Carolina and Detroit,USA. But despite their best efforts
(28:23):
to the Contrary, Evil Dead 2looked like it was going to get an
X rating from the MPAA. Itwould have been very difficult for
the De LaurentiisEntertainment Group to Release Evil
Dead 2 unrated because theywere a signatory of an MPAA contract
prohibiting them fromreleasing any unrated movies. So
(28:44):
DG decided to not submit thepicture for a rating, and to get
around the legal issue, theyset up Rosebud Releasing Corporation
to handle distribution andthey sold the movie to Rosebud. De
G had already booked thecinemas across the US and the advertising
and marketing material hadalready been created and paid for
(29:05):
before the movie was sold toRosebud. So the only real difference
in the situation was the nameof the distributor. Evil Dead 2 was
originally released unrated,which caused its own issues with
a deal they had for a US TVpay per view channel. The MPA, which
since 2019 is the new acronymfor the MPAA, currently rates it
(29:26):
R here in the UK. It wasoriginally rated 18 by the BBFC.
On its original release, it'snow rated 15 Evil Dead 2 opened on
13 March 1987 in 310 cinemasin the US. A fairly limited release
because many chains wouldn'tshow unrated movies. It never entered
(29:49):
the US top 10. It debuted at14 and peaked at 12 in its sixth
week. Evil Dead 2 would go onto gross $5.9 million worldwide.
Unlike the Evil Dead, EvilDead 2 had no such banning as a video
nasty here in the UK and madea killing, no pun intended, on home
video. It's been re releasedseveral times including on VHS, DVD
(30:14):
and Blu Ray. You couldn't buythe Evil Dead, but you could buy
the sequel and people did andthey loved it. It became the Evil
Dead for so many who couldn'tsee the original, and they wouldn't
until it was unbanned in 1990and released Uncut in 2001. Evil
Dead 2 returned to VHS on 16November 2023 in a special reissue
(30:39):
from Vice Press Home Video.The Collector's Edition and a Blood
Splatter Edition There wereonly 500 copies of the collector's
edition and 250 copies of theBlood Splatter Edition, so if you
have one of those you mightget your hand chopped off for it.
It's widely seen as superiorto the Evil Dead in many ways, every
(31:00):
bit as gory and horrific, butalso hilarious and silly. Evil Dead
2 has an 88% on rottentomatoes with a critics consensus
reading less a continuationthan an outright reimagining. Sam
Raimi transforms his horrortale into a comedy of terrors and
arguably even improves on theoriginal formula. Empire magazine
(31:22):
listed it as number 49 on the500 Greatest Movies of All Time and
Entertainment Weekly have itas 19th on their top 50 cult films
list. And as I mentioned lastepisode sequels. We got army of darkness
in 1992. Son Raimi returned tohorror comedy in a similar vein with
Drag Me to hell in 2009. Wehad the TV series Ash vs Evil Dead
(31:45):
from 2015 to 2018. Evil Dead 4was talked about for years, sat in
development hell until a softreboot legacy sequel called Evil
Dead was released in 2013,which features a cameo from Bruce
Campbell and then Evil DeadRise came out in 2023. Evil Dead
2 takes the best of the EvilDead and hones it and tightens it.
(32:09):
It's got a bigger budget, thesame people behind the scenes more
or less, and Bruce Campbelljust proving he can do slapstick
as well as visceral horror.The movie acts as a semi remake,
throwing continuity out thewindow and foregoing Many of the
details the first filmestablished almost as if this is
someone else's side of thestory. This is the same movie in
(32:32):
so many ways, but also so verydifferent. It's more professional,
more polished. The effectsaren't as gory, but they are ever
so much more impressive.Expertly walking that line between
comedy and horror, the end ofEvil Dead 2 also brought the end
of the renaissance picturedpartnership as we knew it. Bruce
Campbell was primarily anactor and Sam Raimi was starting
(32:54):
to make waves for his originaland interesting ideas, which probably
wouldn't also include a rolefor Campbell. Campbell moved to California
to pursue his acting careerand Sam Raimi sold a story idea to
Universal, who entered aproduction deal with Sam Raimi and
Rob Tapered. Raimi alwayswanted to make a movie about Pulp,
the Shadow, but couldn't getthe rights. Instead, he would create
(33:18):
the movie that would become acritical and commercial success and
solidify his career. And thatmovie was Darkman. Robert Kurtzman,
Greg Nicotero and HowardBerger, who worked on the special
makeup effects on Evil Dead 2,went on to form their own special
effects company, KMB EFXGroup. Kurtzman would go on to write
(33:38):
the story and be the makeupeffects supervisor Armed From Dusk
Till dawn and do the specialmakeup effects on and direct Wishmaster
and they're both previousepisodes of this podcast. This movie
undoubtedly made Sam Raimi adirector to watch, but also gave
cult horror one of its mostendearing heroes in Ash Williams.
And Bruce Campbell fullyembraced that king of horror label.
(34:01):
Ash is more fleshed out thistime around. He's an old fashioned
matinee idol, overlyconfident, wisecracking and synonymizes
the franchise so much that itnever seems to work without him.
The scene where the entitychases him around the house only
to lose sight of him and giveup shouldn't work in a horror movie.
And yet here it does. BecauseBruce Campbell is so damn good. He
(34:23):
is Evil Dead and Evil Dead ishim. Crimewave was such a huge disappointment
for Sam Raimi that Evil Dead 2was seen as a last ditch attempt
to prove himself. It wasalmost a go for broke attempt. Throwing
everything at the screen andpretty much crab everything sticking
is some sort of achievement.This was one of the first out and
(34:45):
out horror movies I ever sawand I loved it. I always say I'm
not a horror girly and yetthis is my sort of thing. The effects
hold up really well. Themakeup is great, it's funny, it's
scary enough to be scaryenough. Sam Raimi had the talent
to make the Evil Dead and thencome back and reimagine his own story
into something bigger. Honehis talents and 15 years later, get
(35:08):
the Spider man trilogy. Howdid that happen? When he's not constrained
by studio interference, hemakes great movies. Bruce Campbell
will forever be known as Ash.And that's no bad thing. He holds
a unique place in cinemahistory. A leading man with leading
man looks and charisma whocould have become a list. But he's
happy where he is, and henever took his fame for granted.
(35:32):
Sometimes movies happenbecause of luck, but sometimes it's
because something else didn'thappen. Evil Dead 2 took the small
amount of money it had andthrew everything on the screen. It's
imaginative, vibrant andcartoonish. The perfect movie to
watch this Halloween. No,actually not perfect. Groovy. Thank
(35:53):
you for listening. As always,I would love to hear your thoughts
on Evil Dead 2 and thank youfor your continued support of this
podcast. If you want to getinvolved and help this podcast grow,
you can leave a rating orreview wherever you found this podcast.
You can find me and follow meon social media at verbaldiorama.
Or you can tell your friendsand family about this podcast or
(36:14):
about this episode. And ofcourse, if you haven't listened to
the previous episode on theEvil Dead, now's the time to go and
listen to the previous episodeon the Evil Dead Next episode. We
are going from groovy togroovy, baby. Yeah. Does film history
make you horny, baby? Does amovie's legacy make you randy? Verbal
(36:36):
Diorama is shagadelic and it'sgoing into the history and legacy
of Britain's ultimategentleman spy, Austin Danger Powers.
The next episode is on AustinPowers, international man of mystery
and it is going to be groovy,baby. If you enjoy what I do for
this podcast and you want tosupport an indie podcaster who does
(36:57):
everything on her own, if youhave some spare change, you can financially
contribute to the upkeep ofthis podcast. This podcast is free
and always will be free, soyou're under no obligation to do
so. But if you want to and youhave the means, there are a couple
of ways you can help. You canmake a one off donation@verbaldiorama.com
tips or you can subscribe tothe patreon@verbaldiorama.com patreon
(37:22):
and all money made goes backinto this podcast to pay for things
like software, subscriptions,hosting, etc. Huge thank you to the
amazing patrons of VerbalDiorama. I could not do what I do
without their support. Simon,Laurel, Derek, Kat, Andy, Mike, Luke,
Michael, Scott, Brendan, Ian,Lisa, Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas
(37:45):
so, Kev, Heather, Danny, Stu,Brett, Philip M. Xenos, Sean, Rhino,
Philip K, Adam, Elaine, Kyle,Aaron and Connor. If you want to
get in touch, you can emailverbal dioramail.com you can also
go to the websiteverbaldiorama.com as well. It just
leaves for me to say HappyHalloween to you all. I hope you
(38:07):
have a very spooky time, Ihope you enjoy some very spooky movies
and I hope to see you nexttime on the podcast. And finally.
Bye.
Hi everyone, I'm Em andwelcome to Verbal Diorama, Episode
319, Evil Dead 2. This is apodcast that's all about the history
and legacy of movies you knowand movies you don't that's somehow
backing the Cabin in the woodsfrom last episode, but with a new
Linda and now some random oldlady in the basement who definitely
wasn't there before. Welcometo Verbal Diorama, where you're a
(01:49):
brand new listener, whetheryou're a regular returning listener.
Thank you for being here.Thank you for choosing to listen
to this podcast. I'm so happyto have you here for the history
and legacy of Evil Dead 2. Andas always, if you are a returning
listener, thank you so muchfor continuing to listen and support
this podcast. It means so muchfor your continued support. And this
(02:09):
is the Verbal Diorama entryfor Halloween and it's a doozy. After
last week's episode on theEvil Dead, I plan to take this week
off, mostly due to theIndependent Podcast Awards and being
down in London. I simply tookmy laptop down to London and worked
on this episode during thedowntime that I had. And I've worked
on it whenever I had a sparemoment to do so, because what else
(02:32):
do you do? For one of thegreatest sequels ever made and one
of the most fun horror moviesof all time. Groovy. Here's the trailer
for Evil Dead 2.
(04:09):
Ash Williams takes hisgirlfriend Linda to a secluded cabin
in the woods where he playsback Professor's tape recorded reciting
of passages from the Book ofthe Dead. The spell conjures up an
evil force from the woodswhich turned Linda into a monstrous
Deadite and threatens to dothe same to Ash. When the Professor's
daughter and her entourageshow up at the cabin. The night turns
(04:30):
into a non stop, grotesquelycomic battle with Chainsaw and Shotgun
on one side, demon horde andFlying Eyeball on the other. Let's
run through the cast. We haveBruce Campbell as Ash Williams, Sarah
Berry as Annie Knowby, DanHicks as Jake Kassie Wesley as Bobby
Jo, Denise Bixler as Linda,and Richard Domeier as Ed Getley.
(04:55):
Evil Dead 2 was written by SamRaimi and Scott Spiegel and was directed
by Sam Raimi in the lastepisode on the Evil Dead. Go listen
if you haven't yet. The storywas mostly about a young, scrappy
team of filmmakers with alimited budget making something that
in the end became a bit of anightmare production. I insist you
(05:15):
listen, because a lot of thestory goes straight into this one
and a lot of the team reprisetheir roles on the crew, and it is
worth knowing the backgroundto the story. But even during post
production on the Evil Dead,Irvin Shapiro, the guy who masterminded
the distribution and release,suggested the idea of a sequel to
Sam Raimi, who mulled it overand decided he didn't want to do
(05:37):
another Cabin in the woodsmovie. And working with screenwriter
Sheldon Lettich, Raimi settledon a story in which ash was sucked
through a time portal tomedieval times to fight Deadites
in the year 1300. If thatsounds a little familiar, the resulting
screenplay was called EvilDead 2, Evil Dead and the army of
Darkness, and Shapiro even putan ad in the trades announcing it
(06:00):
was in production in May 1984.But both Universal and 20th Century
Fox passed on the idea, so itwas shelved in favour of Crimewave.
Crimewave wasn't a hit,though. It struggled both critically
and commercially, and SamRaimi didn't want to be known as
that horror guy. But work iswork and their careers were lagging
(06:23):
after Crimewave made no waves.Evil Dead 2 would be the perfect
movie to cushion theircareers. Raimi, Bruce Campbell and
Rob Tapert as RenaissancePictures contacted Crimewave's distributors,
Embassy Home Entertainment, tohash out a deal, but that stalled
for five months. So theydecided to interview potential cast
and crew, one of whom was alsoworking on Maximum Overdrive. And
(06:47):
just like Last Episode,Stephen King swoops in to save the
day because Maximum Overdrivewas his directorial debut and it
was being Filmed at the DeLaurentiis Studios in Wilmington,
North Carolina for DEG, the DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group headed
by of course, Dino DeLaurentiis. King had a multi picture
(07:08):
deal with De Laurentiis, andKing advocated for the Renaissance
Pictures team on their EvilDead sequel to De Laurentiis. The
Renaissance Pictures team knewDe Laurentiis was Italian and that
the Evil Dead had been huge inItaly. So they collected information
on the Italian box office andtook it with them to the meeting
they had arranged with Dino DeLaurentiis. It took 20 minutes to
(07:31):
secure a deal for the secondEvil Dead movie with Dino De Laurentiis,
a $3.6 million deal, a littleless than the team wanted, but De
Laurentiis stipulated hewanted a movie like the Evil Dead
and not Raimi's army ofDarkness idea, and the Evil Dead
sequel had to be R rated. Butat least this time they wouldn't
(07:53):
be flying by the seat of theirpants not knowing where their next
chunk of money was comingfrom. They had $3.6 million and Raimi
set to work on a script withhis longtime friend and within the
woods co star Scott Spiegel.Sam Raimi at the time lived in Silver
Lake, Los Angeles with Joeland Ethan Cohen, Frances McDormand,
Kathy Bates and Holly Hunter.And that is basically a who's who
(08:18):
of Hollywood. And those arethe sorts of remains that you want.
Evil Dead 2 aka Evil Dead 2Dead by dawn is part remake, part
sequel. A recall, if you will,simultaneously recaps the first movie
whilst also following on fromit. Originally the plan was to reuse
the footage from the Evil Deadwith Ash and Linda, plus Cheryl,
(08:41):
Scott and Shelley included,but there was a problem with the
rights. Because the Evil Deadwas sold by Irvin Shapiro's company,
Films around the World toaround 50 different distributors
around the globe. They wouldneed to obtain clearance from each
one for that territory. Somehad gone out of business in the preceding
four years, so it was easierand cheaper to reshoot the recap
(09:05):
and reduce the number ofcharacters to just Ash and his girlfriend
Linda. Betsy Baker wascontacted and they met with her to
reprise the role of Linda.However, she was pregnant with her
first child at the time, soinstead they decided to recast the
role. Linda was also recast inarmy of Darkness with none other
(09:25):
than Bridget Fonda, so theseries remains inconsistent on Linda
as well as inconsistentbetween recollections of events because
the recap isn't the same asthe Evil Dead. But again, this isn't
a series known for itscontinuity. Ash destroys the Book
of the Dead at the end of theEvil Dead in a fire, but it's remarkably
burn free in this movie. Notto mention the sudden appearance
(09:48):
of Henrietta Knowby in thecellar. While the budget was much
higher than they had for theEvil Dead, it was decided to keep
the recap as brief as possibleand keep some of the wackier ideas
restricted. The earlier draftsof the script were written during
production of Crime Wave andwere more comedic, with the horror
played to more laughs thanscares. In a similar vein to their
(10:10):
early 8mm comedy films. It wasagreed that Evil Dead 2 should lean
more towards comedy than itspredecessor, if only to achieve the
desired and required R rating.Once Raimi and Spiegel were happy
with their script, theyauditioned a new cast including Denise
Bixler replacing Betsy Bakeras Linda. The character of Bobby
(10:32):
Jo was written for Raimi'shousemate Holly Hunter in mind. But
Hunter didn't end up takingthe part. Apparently she wasn't pretty
enough. According to RobTapert, Bruce Campbell would obviously
be back as Ashley and hereally wanted to bulk up and get
more of a hero physique.Campbell worked out for two hours
a day, six days a week with astrict diet for 12 weeks during pre
(10:55):
production, which continuedinto filming. John Casino was his
stunt double for the extremestunts, but Campbell wanted to do
the majority himself. HavingDino De Laurentiis involved meant
potentially having access tothe De Laurentiis' own studio in
Wilmington next to hisoffices. It had 11 sound stages,
(11:16):
editing and screeningfacilities and prop shops. But after
the studio interference onCrimewave, the filmmakers decided
to stay away from the studiosand away from the interference. Not
to mention, De Laurentiis hadoffered them the use of his studio
for full price and it would bemuch cheaper elsewhere. The decision
not to use his studiosoffended De Laurentiis, who when
(11:40):
they found out they hadlocation scouted in Wadesboro three
hours drive away, called RobTaper to a meeting at his offices
just to prove to them how faraway they were and just to give them
a hard time. But the locationthey'd selected was perfect and De
Laurentiis reluctantly agreed.The production's budget couldn't
(12:00):
afford hotels for the cast andcrew, so they rented local bank foreclosed
homes for the duration of theshooting rather than use a pre existing
cabin night on the Evil Dead.This time around, the cabin was built
especially for the production.With the cabin cellar and workshed
interior sets built in the gymof the local J.R. Faison Junior High
(12:22):
School. The cabin was built onthe land belonging to a local farmhouse
owned by Harry Huntley, whoalso became their local fixer. The
farmhouse served as theirproduction base and it's the same
farmhouse Steven Spielbergused for The Color Purple. They paid
J.R. Faison Junior High $500 amonth to use its facilities and the
(12:43):
gym was used to house a twolevel set, the ground floor being
the fruit cellar and the firstfloor the ground floor of the cabin.
The exterior was a short drivefrom the farmhouse and they built
this set from scratch, makingthe interior set a little larger
than the exterior house, thenpurposely gave the house tilted windows
(13:03):
and door frames to add to thericketiness of it. Unlike the last
movie, which was filmed in aharsh Tennessee winter where it was
the coldest in decades, thismovie was filmed in the summer in
Carolina and it was hot. Thetemperature outside was over 100
degrees Fahrenheit, which is37 Celsius. But inside the school
(13:25):
gym, with the added tungstenlights, it often breached 110 Fahrenheit
or 43 degrees Celsius. Thismade it incredibly uncomfortable
on set, but especially foranyone in makeup or prosthetics.
They had cast Lou Hancock toplay the unpossessed Henrietta Knowby.
She was 62 years old at thetime and no one wants to put a 62
(13:48):
year old woman through that.For the possessed version of the
character wearing a heavy suitand makeup. To get around this, Sam
Raimi cast his younger brotherTed Raimi as possessed Henrietta.
The suit would be filled withlitres of his sweat during filming,
but at least he would get intothe Screen Actors Guild. Due to the
(14:08):
role, A complete body cast ofTed Raimi was taken on which the
main portion of Henrietta'srotting body could be sculpted as
one of separate head, arm andleg moulds to sculpt each part respectively.
A suit with pouches full oflentils were added underneath to
give the outer skin weight andmovement, although this did make
the makeup much heavier andundoubtedly a lot more uncomfortable.
(14:33):
To get that important Rrating, it was decided to have as
little blood as possible anduse quick cuts and character reactions
rather than blood and gore.Bodily fluids were green, black and
yellow. When they did use redblood, it was the same recipe as
last time with the sticky Karocorn syrup. Principal photography
on Evil Dead 2 commenced inMay 1986 and Tim Philo was contacted
(14:58):
about reprising the role ofcinematographer that he had for the
first movie. But as he'd Nevershot a 35mm picture, he felt the
task was beyond his skills.Eugene Schlugleit was hired as a
cinematographer. He'd workedwith Ramey on the crime wave reshoots
and he came with his own crewand equipment. But due to Raimi's
(15:18):
erratic filmmaking ways, thenumber and frequency of setups started
to grade on Schlugleit's crew,who stopped working and were eventually
asked to leave the movie. TimPhilo was once again offered to be
cinematographer and he againdeclined. Peter Denning was then
brought on board as thereplacement cinematographer because
(15:39):
Eugene Schlugleit had alreadycompleted the exterior night footage.
And then Peter Denning came onboard to complete the rest. Denning
was credited as the directorof photography with Eugene Schlugleit
as the director ofphotography. Knight Exterior photography.
Tim Philo was eventuallypersuaded to return as director of
photography second unit, andhe assisted for the final portion
(16:02):
of filming, Assisting VerneHyde, who was in charge of general
physical and mechanicaleffects on things like the Ram-o-cam,
which was a heavy 20 foot ironpole attached in the center to a
western dolly so it couldpivot like a seesaw with a camera
fixed at the front end of thepole and six crew members pushing
it from the back. This wasused where the force punches through
(16:24):
the windows of the Delta 88automobile, which had to be done
three times to get the finalshot. On the sequence featuring Ash
being propelled through theforest by the demon force. Bruce
Campbell was strapped to theSam-o-cam made up of a cast iron
X with boots bolted to the endof two of the limbs and wrists strapped
(16:44):
to the end of the other twolimbs. This X was connected at center
to a motor which allowed therig and Campbell to spin 360 degrees
from 1 to 20 RPM. It wasattached to a Chapman Crane arm 15ft
off the ground, mounted ontothe back of the truck so it could
be driven along. The shot tooka day to achieve and was filmed just
(17:07):
outside of Cheraw, SouthCarolina. Once shooting in North
Carolina had wrapped inSeptember 1986, they returned to
Michigan. But there was stillfootage that needed to be reshot.
Tim Philo oversaw some of thereshoots in a warehouse studio just
outside of Detroit. And theschedule was kept fairly tight with
(17:27):
three sets and two cameras inthe space along with a special effects
area. While one set was used,another was being prepped so there
was no waiting around betweensetups. Many of the more complicated
shots and special effectsanimation were created here, Such
as Headless Linda attackingBruce with a chainsaw. The climactic
vortex sequence created usingthe Sam-o-cam X rig with a blue screen,
(17:51):
and the blood flood scene,which took three attempts. They tried
twice in North Carolina andthen once again during the reshoots
in Detroit. A portion of theset was constructed sideways with
the camera tilted vertically.Bruce Campbell lay horizontally flat
on a diving board type rig afew feet off the floor and above
(18:11):
him was a 55 gallon drum offake blood with a plug in the bottom.
The plug was pulled out and hewas hit with the full force of the
liquid. Also asked to returnfollowing his work on the Evil Dead
was Tom Sullivan for thespecial effects work, the task of
which would include the makeupeffects and the stop motion animation.
(18:32):
For Evil Dead 2. Sullivan feltthe task was too huge, so he opted
to take a reduced role,producing some of the stop motion
animation and some of theprops instead. Mark Shostrom was
hired as the supervisor of themakeup effects team and Dave Kindlen
managed the mechanical effectsspecifically used inside the makeup.
(18:53):
Prep for the makeup team hadbegun in Pasadena, California at
the start of March 1986, tenweeks before the start of shooting.
Shostrum had just come offmakeup effects work on A Nightmare
on Elm Street 2, Freddy'sRevenge, prior to starting Evil Dead
2, and he took the opportunityto hang a Freddy glove he owned in
(19:13):
two of the sets through thecourse of the movie. Sullivan also
created a brand new Book ofthe Dead, bigger than the original
and more elaborate. He createdfour new books. One hero copy with
all the pages hand paintedwith watercolors, and three stunt
books. He also made five setsof identical lost pages, including
(19:35):
the Hero from the sky madefrom a rehearsal photo of Bruce Campbell.
He also included a passiveaggressive message to the guys he
shared a house with in one ofthe pages which reads, Ray is an
asshole and he can go Fhimself with a weasel now. It's true.
It's on the pages Ali islooking through. Just after Bobby
Joe's vine attack, Sullivanalso brought the Kandarian dagger
(19:59):
he created and still ownedfrom the previous movie and redesigned
the blade from a simplepointed piece of metal to a tail
like tapered set of bones. Thebrand new Book of the Dead had a
hollow wooden frame witharticulated ball and socket joint
for the face covered byflexible skin with an opening mouth.
Sullivan drew up an additionalcontract which also stipulated he
(20:22):
would retain the ownership andcopyright of any props he manufactured.
Which means he owned anoriginal Book of the Dead and the
Kandarian Dagger as well asmany of the props. And the outstanding
star of this movie isn'tHenrietta's flyaway eyeball, although
that comes a close second.It's Ash's evil disembodied hand.
(20:42):
That was achieved usingvarious mechanical and makeup effects
with stop motion animation.Some of it used an entirely fake
hand with radio controlledarticulated armature, but they also
used a real hand with asevered stomp appliance and an animated
stop motion version for thereal hand. A narrow trench was made
between the cabin'sfloorboards with one side 2 inches
(21:05):
higher than the other. So whenfilmed across a certain angle, it
looks like one continuouspiece of Wood. The scene where Bruce
Campbell as Ash is fightinghis own possessed hand is, I think,
probably everyone's favoritescene in the movie. And it's straight
out of a Looney Tunes cartoonwith the plate smashing, beating
himself up, flipping himselfover and dragging himself across
(21:27):
the floor. Again, why wasBruce Campbell not a huge star? He
did the main fight betweenhimself and his hand in one take,
apparently. But as he chopshis hand off, he needs a new appendage.
And Ash's hand chainsaw wasconstructed by Vern Hoist Crew from
a real Homelite XL chainsaw,which had its engine replaced with
(21:50):
a smaller 12 volt electricmotor so Campbell could fit his hand
inside and it would be silentenough for filming. When the chain
was still fake, exhaust smokewas fed into the saw via a tube.
That tube ran down his leg andthen 20 or so feet to a tobacco smoker
and the chain's teeth werefiled down for safety. There was
(22:12):
an unaltered, fully workingreel saw on set, but also foam rubber
and lightweight stuntreproductions. Henrietta's eyeball
was a ping pong ball. It wason a rig constructed and fixed to
the camera, with a sideways Ushaped black metal rod attached,
the camera at one end and thedisembodied eyeball on the other.
With the wire stretched awayfrom the camera, the way it flew
(22:35):
towards Bobby Joe's mouth waslike most of the movie, a Three Stooges
gag. On this movie, BruceCampbell got to wear the scleral
contact lenses during the Aschpossession scene, which rendered
him completely blind. Contactlenses had improved since they first
used them in 1979, but theprocess of insertion and removal
(22:56):
was still painful, so Campbelloften just left them in between takes,
which, as all contact lenswearers know, is very naughty. Oxygen
to the eye, Bruce. Evil Dead 2had three and a half months of post
production and the majority ofthat included all the film's animation,
which was split between TomSullivan, Larry Larson and Brian
(23:17):
Ray. Doug Beswick wasresponsible for dancing Linda in
a scene choreographed by TamG. Warner and danced by Snowy Winters.
The dance was filmedrepeatedly from multiple angles to
be able to get all the footagerequired to animate it. They sculpted
a 12 inch fully posable scalefigurine of Linda with a detachable
(23:39):
head. A scale miniature set tomatch the exterior location was built
on an eight foot squaretabletop with trees and a smaller
force perspective cabin.Beswick then painstakingly took a
month to animate Linda'scorpse, following the reference footage
as a guide rather thanmatching frame by frame. For the
(23:59):
mist, which couldn't beanimated frame by frame, they used
a motion control camera systemwhich could be programmed to match
the live action camera moveswith the previous stop motion camera
moves. The mist was filmedlive, moving at normal speed and
then composited with the stopmotion animation. They also constructed
a miniature cabin for theattacking trees which were a mixture
(24:21):
of miniature hand and rodpuppets and full sized rod and foam
puppets. The climax with thehuge demon head in the cabin was
nicknamed the Rotten AppleHead and that was constructed as
a full size mechanical effectwith genital eyes, foam rubber heads
taken from the casts of theactors to mimic the souls it had
(24:42):
collected during the movie.They struggled to make the heads
work as they wanted to, soRaimi used an anamorphic lens to
distort the image and cutaround the heads where possible.
A full size 16 foot tree handwas created to come through the cabin
window to grab ash. The armwas an aluminium frame which was
articulated and attached tocables for movement. The frame was
(25:05):
then covered in fake bark,made mattress foam which was shaped
and glued in place oncefilming was complete. Rather than
pay to have it all broughtback to Detroit, most of these effects
were just left in Wadesboroand Rotten Applehead went missing
for a while before turning upat the end of a hallway in a local
haunted house attraction.While the original Evil Dead cabin
(25:28):
became an unwitting touristattraction, the exact location of
The Evil Dead 2 cabin exteriorset was generally left unknown for
years. In 2011, on the EvilDead 2 Blu Ray, a special featurette
showed the cabin in aneglected state, but still standing.
The cabin started todeteriorate and the wood rotted and
(25:48):
by 2014 the cabin hadcompletely collapsed. The cabin and
workshed, which remainedintact at the time, was rescued by
Evildead Workshed.com's MikePasquale, who had permission from
the landowners in 2016 to totry and salvage as much from the
site as possible. Virtuallyall the wood had termite damage and
(26:10):
rot, and while they managed tosave the workshed exterior, the frame
was tilting and eventuallycollapsed. The workshed was rebuilt
with as many of the originalwooden planks as possible with a
metal canopy frame. It went ontour for a few years before being
bought at auction by theLiving Dead Museum in Edin City,
Pennsylvania. This museum grewout of a store and museum called
(26:33):
Monroeville Zombies, which wasoriginally located in the Monroeville
Mall. Why is that placefamiliar? It's where George Romero
filmed the original dawn ofthe Dead. He also filmed Night of
the Living Dead in Evans City,Pennsylvania. Everything is linked.
And despite this moviestarting as an idea for Ash to be
(26:54):
pulled into the Dark Ages, atthe end of the movie, the vortex
would pull him into a timeportal and once again the continuity
would skew between Evil Dead 2and army of Darkness. But I guess
that's for a future episode.And this is the perfect time to segue
into the obligatory Keanureference of this episode. And if
(27:15):
you don't know what that is,it's where I try and link every movie
that I feature with KeanuReeves. And as I mentioned, Ash Williams
is introduced to time travelat the end of this movie by being
pulled into the Dark Ages. Andanother character who is introduced
to time travel is Ted TheodoreLogan. And who plays Ted Theodore
Logan? Oh, it's Keanu Reeves.And that is the easiest way to link
(27:38):
Keanu Reeves to Evil Dead 2.The score for Evil Dead 2 was composed
by Joseph LoDuca, who alsocomposed the other two scores in
the Evil Dead trilogy, which Idon't think I mentioned last episode.
So correction, the music forthe Evil Dead was composed by Joseph
LoDuca and so was the musicfor Evil Dead 2. For a long time
(28:02):
this movie was seen as aremake, and it sort of is. In a way,
it is both a remake and acontinuation of the story. But to
avoid confusion, the endcredits State Evil Dead 2, the sequel
to the ultimate experience ingruelingruellingg terror,was in Wadesboro,
North Carolina and Detroit,USA. But despite their best efforts
(28:23):
to the Contrary, Evil Dead 2looked like it was going to get an
X rating from the MPAA. Itwould have been very difficult for
the De LaurentiisEntertainment Group to Release Evil
Dead 2 unrated because theywere a signatory of an MPAA contract
prohibiting them fromreleasing any unrated movies. So
(28:44):
DG decided to not submit thepicture for a rating, and to get
around the legal issue, theyset up Rosebud Releasing Corporation
to handle distribution andthey sold the movie to Rosebud. De
G had already booked thecinemas across the US and the advertising
and marketing material hadalready been created and paid for
(29:05):
before the movie was sold toRosebud. So the only real difference
in the situation was the nameof the distributor. Evil Dead 2 was
originally released unrated,which caused its own issues with
a deal they had for a US TVpay per view channel. The MPA, which
since 2019 is the new acronymfor the MPAA, currently rates it
(29:26):
R here in the UK. It wasoriginally rated 18 by the BBFC.
On its original release, it'snow rated 15 Evil Dead 2 opened on
13 March 1987 in 310 cinemasin the US. A fairly limited release
because many chains wouldn'tshow unrated movies. It never entered
(29:49):
the US top 10. It debuted at14 and peaked at 12 in its sixth
week. Evil Dead 2 would go onto gross $5.9 million worldwide.
Unlike the Evil Dead, EvilDead 2 had no such banning as a video
nasty here in the UK and madea killing, no pun intended, on home
video. It's been re releasedseveral times including on VHS, DVD
(30:14):
and Blu Ray. You couldn't buythe Evil Dead, but you could buy
the sequel and people did andthey loved it. It became the Evil
Dead for so many who couldn'tsee the original, and they wouldn't
until it was unbanned in 1990and released Uncut in 2001. Evil
Dead 2 returned to VHS on 16November 2023 in a special reissue
(30:39):
from Vice Press Home Video.The Collector's Edition and a Blood
Splatter Edition There wereonly 500 copies of the collector's
edition and 250 copies of theBlood Splatter Edition, so if you
have one of those you mightget your hand chopped off for it.
It's widely seen as superiorto the Evil Dead in many ways, every
(31:00):
bit as gory and horrific, butalso hilarious and silly. Evil Dead
2 has an 88% on rottentomatoes with a critics consensus
reading less a continuationthan an outright reimagining. Sam
Raimi transforms his horrortale into a comedy of terrors and
arguably even improves on theoriginal formula. Empire magazine
(31:22):
listed it as number 49 on the500 Greatest Movies of All Time and
Entertainment Weekly have itas 19th on their top 50 cult films
list. And as I mentioned lastepisode sequels. We got army of darkness
in 1992. Son Raimi returned tohorror comedy in a similar vein with
Drag Me to hell in 2009. Wehad the TV series Ash vs Evil Dead
(31:45):
from 2015 to 2018. Evil Dead 4was talked about for years, sat in
development hell until a softreboot legacy sequel called Evil
Dead was released in 2013,which features a cameo from Bruce
Campbell and then Evil DeadRise came out in 2023. Evil Dead
2 takes the best of the EvilDead and hones it and tightens it.
(32:09):
It's got a bigger budget, thesame people behind the scenes more
or less, and Bruce Campbelljust proving he can do slapstick
as well as visceral horror.The movie acts as a semi remake,
throwing continuity out thewindow and foregoing Many of the
details the first filmestablished almost as if this is
someone else's side of thestory. This is the same movie in
(32:32):
so many ways, but also so verydifferent. It's more professional,
more polished. The effectsaren't as gory, but they are ever
so much more impressive.Expertly walking that line between
comedy and horror, the end ofEvil Dead 2 also brought the end
of the renaissance picturedpartnership as we knew it. Bruce
Campbell was primarily anactor and Sam Raimi was starting
(32:54):
to make waves for his originaland interesting ideas, which probably
wouldn't also include a rolefor Campbell. Campbell moved to California
to pursue his acting careerand Sam Raimi sold a story idea to
Universal, who entered aproduction deal with Sam Raimi and
Rob Tapered. Raimi alwayswanted to make a movie about Pulp,
the Shadow, but couldn't getthe rights. Instead, he would create
(33:18):
the movie that would become acritical and commercial success and
solidify his career. And thatmovie was Darkman. Robert Kurtzman,
Greg Nicotero and HowardBerger, who worked on the special
makeup effects on Evil Dead 2,went on to form their own special
effects company, KMB EFXGroup. Kurtzman would go on to write
(33:38):
the story and be the makeupeffects supervisor Armed From Dusk
Till dawn and do the specialmakeup effects on and direct Wishmaster
and they're both previousepisodes of this podcast. This movie
undoubtedly made Sam Raimi adirector to watch, but also gave
cult horror one of its mostendearing heroes in Ash Williams.
And Bruce Campbell fullyembraced that king of horror label.
(34:01):
Ash is more fleshed out thistime around. He's an old fashioned
matinee idol, overlyconfident, wisecracking and synonymizes
the franchise so much that itnever seems to work without him.
The scene where the entitychases him around the house only
to lose sight of him and giveup shouldn't work in a horror movie.
And yet here it does. BecauseBruce Campbell is so damn good. He
(34:23):
is Evil Dead and Evil Dead ishim. Crimewave was such a huge disappointment
for Sam Raimi that Evil Dead 2was seen as a last ditch attempt
to prove himself. It wasalmost a go for broke attempt. Throwing
everything at the screen andpretty much crab everything sticking
is some sort of achievement.This was one of the first out and
(34:45):
out horror movies I ever sawand I loved it. I always say I'm
not a horror girly and yetthis is my sort of thing. The effects
hold up really well. Themakeup is great, it's funny, it's
scary enough to be scaryenough. Sam Raimi had the talent
to make the Evil Dead and thencome back and reimagine his own story
into something bigger. Honehis talents and 15 years later, get
(35:08):
the Spider man trilogy. Howdid that happen? When he's not constrained
by studio interference, hemakes great movies. Bruce Campbell
will forever be known as Ash.And that's no bad thing. He holds
a unique place in cinemahistory. A leading man with leading
man looks and charisma whocould have become a list. But he's
happy where he is, and henever took his fame for granted.
(35:32):
Sometimes movies happenbecause of luck, but sometimes it's
because something else didn'thappen. Evil Dead 2 took the small
amount of money it had andthrew everything on the screen. It's
imaginative, vibrant andcartoonish. The perfect movie to
watch this Halloween. No,actually not perfect. Groovy. Thank
(35:53):
you for listening. As always,I would love to hear your thoughts
on Evil Dead 2 and thank youfor your continued support of this
podcast. If you want to getinvolved and help this podcast grow,
you can leave a rating orreview wherever you found this podcast.
You can find me and follow meon social media at verbaldiorama.
Or you can tell your friendsand family about this podcast or
(36:14):
about this episode. And ofcourse, if you haven't listened to
the previous episode on theEvil Dead, now's the time to go and
listen to the previous episodeon the Evil Dead Next episode. We
are going from groovy togroovy, baby. Yeah. Does film history
make you horny, baby? Does amovie's legacy make you randy? Verbal
(36:36):
Diorama is shagadelic and it'sgoing into the history and legacy
of Britain's ultimategentleman spy, Austin Danger Powers.
The next episode is on AustinPowers, international man of mystery
and it is going to be groovy,baby. If you enjoy what I do for
this podcast and you want tosupport an indie podcaster who does
(36:57):
everything on her own, if youhave some spare change, you can financially
contribute to the upkeep ofthis podcast. This podcast is free
and always will be free, soyou're under no obligation to do
so. But if you want to and youhave the means, there are a couple
of ways you can help. You canmake a one off donation@verbaldiorama.com
tips or you can subscribe tothe patreon@verbaldiorama.com patreon
(37:22):
and all money made goes backinto this podcast to pay for things
like software, subscriptions,hosting, etc. Huge thank you to the
amazing patrons of VerbalDiorama. I could not do what I do
without their support. Simon,Laurel, Derek, Kat, Andy, Mike, Luke,
Michael, Scott, Brendan, Ian,Lisa, Sam, Jack, Dave, Stuart, Nicholas
(37:45):
so, Kev, Heather, Danny, Stu,Brett, Philip M. Xenos, Sean, Rhino,
Philip K, Adam, Elaine, Kyle,Aaron and Connor. If you want to
get in touch, you can emailverbal dioramail.com you can also
go to the websiteverbaldiorama.com as well. It just
leaves for me to say HappyHalloween to you all. I hope you
(38:07):
have a very spooky time, Ihope you enjoy some very spooky movies
and I hope to see you nexttime on the podcast. And finally.
Bye.
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