SAM RAIMI INTERVIEW
BY ALAN JONES.
1987 STARBURST MAGAZINE (UK)
( VISUAL IMAGINATION LTD.)
DIRECTOR SAM RAIMI INTERVIEWED
EVIL DEAD 2 : DEAD BY DAWN
STARBURST FEATURE BY ALAN JONES
Continued from page
1
Shot on 16mm
The Evil Dead was shot on 16mm with a very low budget and Raimi relied
more on friends rallying around than practically anything else.
" It was very tough to make that picture, so in many ways Evil Dead 2 was a
dream come true. We had the money to hire professionals which made a great
difference and we could afford to do lots of special effects I'd never been
able to do before. Bruce Campbell was not only the star but the co-producer
and that's the sole reason why he is alive in this picture, because he had extra
pull! Actually I felt sorry for the actors on this picture because although we
wanted good performances we also needed the actors to perform their own
stunts and take a lot of physical bashing . It is basically Man versus Monster
and the fact they all pull off convincing performances amidst such absurd
circumstances says a lot about their stamina in withstanding the trials and
tribulations I put them through. It was a killing schedule. We shot for 11
hours a day during the nine and a half weeks and it was very hot on the
North Carolina locations."
Filming of Evil Dead 2 began on 10th May 1986. The first three and a half
weeks were spent on the same location used in The Color Purple and then
switched to a dilapidated high school. He continued,
" We used the school gymnasium as a sound-stage and built the cabin set there.
The locker rooms were turned into costume and make-up rooms and it worked
out perfectly. The only promise we had to fulfil under our agreement was to fix
the leaky roof which we did at a cost of $2,000. So the community got a
repaired school and we got enormous production use out of it
This way all the spare money went on the 250 special effects we required.
All our post production was done in Detroit but we had to go to Los Angeles
for the sound recording and optical facilities. We could have done that in
Ferndale but we got a better price in L.A .It's all very well giving money
to young Detroit film-makers but if they can't afford to use the facilities
what's the point?".
Why bother recapping?
When most people see Evil Dead 2 the first question which seems to arise
is why bother recapping the first film using newly filmed footage? Raimi
explained." Firstly I don't have the Rights to The Evil Dead and therefore
could not legally use anything from it. I thought of reassembling the old
actors but when I gave a dinner party for them to see how viable it was,
I was horrified at how fat the original Linda had become. So few people
had seen the first movie I thought I'd better retell it simplifying the
process. The investors of the first movie were a group of doctors who
had retained the rights in America. Overseas it was Palace Pictures
and Thorn EMI who had the video rights. The first film wasn't profitable
for me at all you know. I went about $40,000 in debt because of that
picture. I was 21 and I'd never even seen a thousand dollars let alone that
amount and I had to repay it which is why I wanted a sequel made in the
first place as I had promised the investors I could make a horror movie
as good as they were showing at the local drive-in but for a third of the
cost. It meant peanuts to the original investors as it was all pocket
money they probably would have gambled away in Las Vegas.
In a nutshell people acted unfairly because no-one apart from Palace
returned any profits. Obviously I can't name names but morally I still
owed these people and I wanted the debt repaid for my own piece of
mind as much as any other reason. So we made Evil Dead 2 to break
even. It's strange because all the magazine articles at the time of the
first film and the media coverage fooled us all into thinking we had
a blockbuster. Some people have made a fortune out of it but it wasn't
us unfortunately. The sequel has paid off all my debts plus the interest
and now I even have a little money in the bank."