This page is divided
into two sections, first we will deal with production of the film,
including f/x information and a whole host of problems that the
cast and crew had to deal with. It's also laid out in bullet points
dealing with snippets of info which I thought were pretty interesting.
The production process
for 'The Evil Dead' was fairly rigorous and turned into a full
time three year project .
Shooting:
Scheduled for 6 weeks
extended to 12 in 1979 under the original title 'The
Book of the Dead '. Shooting began November
1979 and finished in December 1980 (inc re-shootos) Origin intention was
to shoot the movie close to Michigan during the summer. Factors
such as financing delayed shooting and eventually Michigan became
too cold. Filming was moved to Tennessee on the notion that it would
be warmer during the fall or winter season. Ironically Michigan
experienced its mildest winter that year and Tennessee it's worst. Raimi and the crew
were shocked by the help they recieved from the Tennessee
State Film Commission . "I'm not
entirely sure they knew how low-budget we were, " says
Raimi. "We told them we were making a
picture, they said great, and put us in touch with a gentleman named
George Holt, who was very helpful in finding those locations. About
a month into the picture, some members of the commission came down
to the location and, to say the least, they were shocked. We had
a road leading to the location that you couldn't drive down, because
it had been raining steadily; they came in suits and dresses and
high heels and had to walk down a half-mile of mud. Then when t
hey saw the place, it looked like a neutron bomb had gone off in
there -- karo syrup blood covering every inch of the floor, everything
destroyed, a shotgun lying around... I think they thought we were
part of the Manson family. "
Location:
Remote woodland Morristown
near Knoxville, Tennessee USA. The crew made 'friends'
with a local fella named
Gary Holt (click for pic.) ,
a Vietnam veteran who had a network of contacts in Knoxville (and
a penchant for dwarf-tossing). He helped the guys out massively
and even gets an 'Associate Producer' credit on the final film.
One night the boys were wrapping up a days shoot when a drunken
Holt showed up and wanted to be In the film, Sam was in no mood
to put him in the actual movie so he directed him in a scene frmo
their super-8 short 'the Happy Valley Kid'. Holt was happy and teh
footage remains lost to the sands of time....The cabin originally
selected for the shooting was unavailable when the crew arrived.
Raimi found another shack close by. The new Cabin was located in
a small valley around half-a-mile from the nearest public dirt road,
"People would stand up on the ridge over
the cabin and watch what we were doing .", explained
producer Rob Tapert in a 1982 magazine interview, "Once,
we were away from the cabin for about 10 minutes -- when we came
back, all the power tools were gone. That was a little unsettling.
But just about everybody we had personal contact with down there
was very nice to us; we were down there for Thanksgiving and Christmas,
and a family prepared us these tremendous Southern meals that we'd
never seen the likes of ." However, the new cabin
was far from ready for the shoot and the set department or staff
had alot of work to do, the cabin had no windows, heat or electricity,
a porch and a general disinfection process of the interior was needed
after local wildlife had used it for a lavatory. The new location had
to have a cellar door built into it. A door was built along with
a staircase that led down into a six-foot hole dug beneath the cabin.
The cellar footage was filmed 6 months aftre principal photography
finished in Tennessee in January 1980. The set was located at a
farm house owned by Tapert's family. The same location was used
to film 'Within the Woods '. The cellar
was decorted with 'gourds' the nickname for the cellar set became
'The Gourd Zone!'. Pick-up shots of the cellar where shot in Raimi's
basement. By the end of the
shoot the main cast and crew had left the location. For the films
climax all that remained were Campbell, Raimi and Tapert and young
Ted Raimi, who acted as stand-in for any shots featuring the zombified
remains of Scott or Cheryl. Campbell became the 'make-up f/x guy'
to some extent by applying the scleral contact lenses.
Special
Effects and X-Acto blades!
The f/x were handled
by MSUSCF member Tom Sullivan and by Detroit native Bart Pierce
- handling mainly the mechanical effects involved in the Deadite
meltdown sequence! Scleral contact lenses
were used for the 'possessed' actors and 'shemps', lenses which
Sullivan described as "[taking] a bent
quarter and sticking it in your eye. " These lenses could
only be worn by the actor for 15 minutes before they had to be removed Plaster casts of actors
faces were made by applying plaster directlty to their faces without
any use of alginate - a protective substance which prevents the
plaster sticking to the faces of the actors. Actress Betsy Baker,
who plays Linda, got plaster stuck in her hair and on her forehead
which Sullivan had to remove with an X-Acto blade. Bart Pierce came up
with 'Do-it-yourself' blood bags. Pierce used 'cling film' or Saran
wrap to cover a styrofoam cup, using fishing line attached to a
construction staple which was connected via an elastic band and
string. When the string was pulled the staple would pierce the cup
and the contents within would pour out. A mannequin was used
as a substitute for actress Ellen Sandweiss for a sequence near
the films conclusion. The mannequin was painted and a wig was stapled
to the head. Scott Spiegel provided a set of ribs from the shop
where he worked which was taped to the mannequins body along with
a series of blood bags. The scene required Ash to shoot the possessed
Cheryl with a shotgun blast to the body. The crew used an actual
shotgun to shoot the mannequin for the scene that was filmed in
Raimi's basement. The blast was so powerful the originally white
interior of the garage turned pink under the force of the liquid
shrapnel. Raimi has his own
recipe for blood, Kayo Syrup (treacle), red food colouring and water,
with instant coffee mixed in for texture and thickness. Raimi edited out a
scene from the films conclusion that showed large quantities of
blood, bile, cockroaches and snakes bursting from the decomposing
remains of Scott and Cheryl. His reason? Too extreme. The car used in the
film was Raimi's actual car. His Oldsmobile 88 was used in every
movie he made up until 'The Quick and the Dead' in 1995. It was
used briefly in his 1998 movie 'A Simple Plan' and in 2002's 'Spider-Man'.
Post-production:
Recording Engineer
Mel Zelniker had previously worked on 'Reds', 'Raging Bull' and
'Blow Out'. Money kept running
out so the boys had to take various odd jobs to keep the cash coming
in. These included waiters, taxi drivers and office workers! The whole process
lasted three years from script to screen! Pick-up
shots were filmed in the basement of the Raimi family home in Detroit,
Michigan USA .
Raimi's pet dog Montgomery stole a prop arm filled with meat from
a butchers shop and ran outside scaring passers-by. Sullivan and Pierce
filmed most of the meltdown over 3 MONTHS back in Michigan! The meat was provided
by Raimi affiliate Scott Spiegel who worked in a local butchers
shop.. The editing, mixing
and dubbing processes were carried out in New York City. The assistant
editor was Joel Coen!
