The Evil Dead was shot in a number of locations over the two years it was in production. The main body of shooting was over seven weeks in Tennessee from November 1979 to January 1980. Then Between January to November 1980 there were a number of additional shoots & reshoots around the Detroit and Michigan area. This page details some of those locations. A number of the photos were taken personally for this website during a visit from the UK to the USA in December 2012, including the cabin site.
The location videos below have been edited from over 4 hours of raw footage shot, filmed personally in 16:9 1080i HD with a JVC GZHM445 PAL Camcorder, which was downscaled to SD 16:9 25p PAL and encoded to DVD. If any media production companies are interested in licensing this footage for use in their own DVDs, then please get in contact via email at
The Cabin
The cabin from The Evil Dead is located in the town of Morristown, Tennessee. Although the bridge was in a separate location some 30 miles away, the lonely trail leading in, and the cabin & workshed area layout existed pretty much as shown on screen. Many people reading this will know the famous tale Sam Raimi tells of the creepy history of the cabin. You can read it as written in the Book Of The Dead 1981 Detroit première program below. Unfortunately none of that is true. The reality is far less sinister, and is told here courtesy of Robin, a nephew of the current owner.
The land on which the cabin once stood is part of a large area formerly owned by a local man; T.L. Shockley, who passed away in 2016.
The cabin itself was built in the late 1960's by T.L. & his father Ridley Shockley, to be used as a hunting cabin. It was originally smaller than was shown on screen, just being two rooms (basically what comprises the main room area in The Evil Dead), with no rear extension. The first room was for eating and sleeping, the side room was for hunting supplies & stretching furs. They also used it to brew corn liquor to sell to make it through the winter if trapping season wasn't too good.
Gary Holt arranged the lease of the cabin to Renaissance Pictures in November of 1979, the only stipulation being that they had to leave the cabin in the same condition they found it. By that point it was just used off season for hunting. Other than that, T.L. just saw it as some people working on his land, and then leaving before the following September. He never visited the production, and didn't really care about the film itself, he just wanted the money.
Knowing that the existing cabin wasn't going to be big enough, Renaissance Pictures contracted the Hearthstone Lumber Company out of Newport, to build an extension at the rear. The owner of the Lumber yard at that time didn't want the contact at first because of his religious beliefs. Apparently he thought movies such as this corrupted young people. He passed away just a few years ago.
The final page in the Book Of The Dead première program (1981)
Soon after filming wrapped, the cabin became a magnet for kids. This was still in the years before The Evil Dead was theatrically released in the USA, but the whole of Morristown knew, actually, most of East Tennessee knew! It was a big deal for their little town to see a big director picking a spot in the valley to tell their story, and people were regularly trespassing to visit it.
T.L. had no idea of the amount of visiting fans the film would generate, and was always upset by people trespassing onto his land. He'd become quite bitter about the whole experience and feels it wasn't worth what he had had to deal with. He used to enjoy hunting there, but after kids started turning up, he was afraid of accidentally shooting someone. Further to that, the whole area was littered with animal traps and it was never properly cleared. He'd even caught many people on the property over the years, escorting a good few back to the road with his shotgun to make them think twice about coming back.
The cabin was burned down in the middle of the night in the Spring of 1982, around the end of April, by T.L. and his son. It was burned down without permission from the local county, because there were so many people coming onto the land to see it. They did it in Spring so the fields and surrounding trees would not catch fire, and the police wrote it off to kids and it was just forgotten about. They tore down the rest of the house but left the old brick fireplace in hopes of rebuilding it, or using it as an outdoor fireplace that could be used during camping. Some of the wood was salvaged and used to make fence posts on T.L.'s farm.
Robin and his cousins used to hold camping trips there after The Evil Dead was released, telling each other ghost stories after going to a local fall and Halloween fair; the Rose Center's Mountain Makins.
A Polaroid taken by Bruce Campbell of The Evil Dead's burned down & overgrown cabin location in Morristown Tennessee (1983)
In 2019, there was an Evil Dead exhibition hosted at the Bearded Lady’s Mystic Museum in Burbank California. It featured various screen-used & original trilogy props, along with some replica items, and extensive original photos. One interesting Polaroid stood out, labelled Tennessee Location E.D '83. It appears to show the cabin's chimney stack (and no cabin) among a now overgrown forest area. Bruce said "That's my handwriting. I took the pic. I was down there conducting some follow up Evil Dead business". You can see three of the best available photos of that Polaroid below. If a proper scan or better photos becomes available, this will be upgraded.
The Evil Dead's cabin location in Morristown Tennessee, with Sam Raimi standing in the doorway (1979)
In the early 80's, T.L. sold the land, and it was bought by a local landowner, who still owns it to this day. They have no interest in reconstructing the cabin as a local attraction, or even formalizing an arrangement whereby people can pay to 'legally' visit the existing site. So there you have it, the definitive truth about the cabin.
Bruce travelled back to the cabin roughly six months after the completion of shooting around August of 1980, finding the cabin overgrown but still intact. Some local guys partying had built a camp-fire in the centre of the wooden floor of the main room which caused some obvious damage, then in April 1982 the cabin burned to the ground. The only current evidence of its existence is a partially standing stone chimney stack, and a large amount of rusted corrugated roofing. During the spring and summer the area becomes heavily overgrown and quite hard to make out as the location seen on screen, as the chimney is the only thing that's left visible standing amongst the undergrowth. It's only in the dead of winter when the foliage has died back and the leaves have fallen; the same season in which The Evil Dead was shot, that you get the true feel of the location.
The cabin never had a cellar, Dart cut a trapdoor in the flooring, they dug a 6ft hole, and Dart built some steps to the bottom. They didn't need to build an entire cellar as they knew they could use the cellar in the Tapert family friends' farmhouse in Marshall, Michigan which had the look they wanted. Incidentally, the same cellar can also be seen in Within The Woods.
I won't post the exact location of the cabin as many fans visiting take away stones from the chimney as souvenirs, and there is so little of it left now that soon it will all be gone. The information to find the site is out there if you look hard enough. A number of people who had posted their experiences of visiting the site recently have said the town is edging closer to the area. There are also a number of accounts of visiting fans being interrupted by an angry property owner requesting they leave (in line with the above owner's account), and one strange story of a guy wearing pink UGG boots who charged a group of visitors $100 before allowing them access. In 2011, the right-hand of the two main trees seen on screen standing in front of the cabin, was blown over during a storm, although it fell away from the cabin and hasn't damaged or obstructed the rest of the site
The barbed wire across the entrance on the main road only stretches a few metres across the immediate opening. Either side, you can simply walk through the undergrowth. The trail as shown on screen starts about 50 metres in from the fence. The trail itself runs for around 150 metres from the entrance up to the cabin site, and seemingly has been kept clear to stop it becoming overgrown. It would actually still be drivable, and there are various worn paths leading into and away from the site. There is also a wire fence running across the site, roughly level with the cabin's back door. There doesn't seem to be any signs of the land being used for anything as of 2021.
With visiting fans taking away chimney stones, Each year the stack gets progressively shorter. As of February 2021, it's roughly 3ft tall, which is around 5ft shorter than it was in Fan photos taken back in 2004. The 2004 photos also show rows of stones still above the fireplace opening, which have since collapsed and disappeared completely. There is however, a surprisingly large amount of the rusted tin roofing still scattered around the site.
If driving to the location, parking directly outside the entrance will mean your car partially blocking the road, and will make it far more likely that you will be interrupted by someone. It's advisable to drive past the entrance and park up on the left-hand grass verge about 150 metres further on which will put your car out of sight of all but those driving past on the road. While a number of cars drove past in the few hours I was there, I never saw a soul.
The start of the trail in (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 08/12/2012)
Halfway down the trail (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 08/12/2012)
The two trees (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 08/12/2012)
The chimney & roofing (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 08/12/2012)
A panorama of the cabin site, from the cabin-rear to the left, to the trail-in on the right (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 08/12/2012)
As many will know, once location shooting was complete at the end of January 1980, Sam, Bruce, Rob & Josh put a 'time capsule' in the trapdoor hole. The items were contained in a cigar box wrapped in tape (according to Bruce) or a glass jar (according to Sam & Josh), of which a glass jar is far more plausible as the crew used Mason Jars to drink Moonshine. Either way it was reported to contain some or all of the following items; a burned out Fresnel light bulb, A piece of an It's Murder! beam, a piece of gaffer/duct tape, a spent shotgun shell, a sample of fake blood and a hand-written 'visual code' to the film. According to the person who actually dug the trapdoor hole, Josh Becker, contrary to common belief they simply "dumped a bunch of junk in the hole, including the jar Sam stuck in there, didn't fill it back in with dirt, and nailed the trap door shut". This presents an uncomfortable thought; the fire which destroyed the cabin in April 1982 probably would have resulted in burning debris dropping down into the hole either breaking, burning or melting everything in there left by the crew. The 3ft crater which exists today at the site, roughly where the cellar trapdoor would have been, wasn't the result of a fan's efforts to find the 'time capsule' as was previously thought, it's what is left of the original trapdoor hole itself. That aside, Evil Dead fan Ramsey Lawson may well have been the person who actually found the remnants of the 'time capsule'. Here is his account;
"When I visited the cabin site in the Fall of 2006 looking for it, I noticed that someone had already dug a big hole roughly where cellar should be, and I decided to dig about 3ft further back from the chimney than that, as I thought that could of been an incorrect 'guestimate' dig. I started digging a hole 2ft in diameter, when I got about 1ft down I started finding a nails so I knew at that point I was digging inside the footprint of the cabin. I continued digging, only finding dirt and granite rocks. About 4ft down, I scooped up a few shards of a glass Mason jar. I then laid on my stomach, and started to dig with my hands. Then I found the rusted lid still attached to the top of a piece of the broken jar, laid it to one side, then broke off a small branch to scrape around at the bottom of the hole. A little deeper I started to find more glass shards, as well as two metal shotgun shell ends, and put them all in the broken jar top. I went back into the hole, and scraped down to around the 5ft mark, but found nothing further. It would have taken forever to dig a wider hole with the fold-up shovel I was using, so I called it quits and filled the hole back up, laying a piece of fireplace rock on top as a marker, so if I ever returned, I knew where to dig. I put the jar top, shell ends, a couple of nails, and two fireplace stones into my backpack, and left. I took about 20 pictures with my 35mm SLR; from top of the path that leads in, to the fireplace, and the big hole, along with the one I dug. The next day, I switched rolls of film and dropped it off a week later get developed. Unfortunately it couldn't be printed due to the film having been blacked out by extreme heat as I'd left in my car to bake! Anyway I'm guessing that the pressure from burial busted the glass jar, and destroyed the contents, and I have all that's left.
In 2008 I flew out to the New Jersey Monster Mania convention where Bruce was the headline guest. I told him about my trip, and grinning he asked if I had to dodge bullets looking for it, then asked to see what I'd found. Before I could explain the condition, he said he knew by the time someone found it, the earth would of eaten it away leaving nothing left. He then signed my The Evil Dead poster, and grabbed the remaining part of the jar, inscribed the word 'Sucker!', then autographed it for free due to me wasting my time looking. Since then, he's told people at conventions not to go looking for it, because there is nothing to find."
It's worth adding a caveat to the above; The trapdoor hole sat open under the floor for over two years before the cabin fire would have buried the contents with debris, so the chances of a couple of random shells and a broken glass jar completely unrelated to the production ending up in there, is possible. That said, if this was indeed all that remains of the 'time capsule', it's contents are probably no more; the Fresnel light bulb would have also got broken and would have just mixed in with the jar's broken glass, the same goes for the sample of fake blood if it was contained in something glass, the piece of It's Murder! beam was just Styrofoam and would have quickly burned up in the heat, as would have the hand-written 'visual code' to the film (assuming it was just a piece of paper), the piece of gaffer/duct tape, and the plastic sections of the spent shotgun shells, leaving only their metal ends. So in all likelihood the shotgun shell's metal ends would have been the only 'capsule' contents which could have both survived the heat & elements, and been realistically find-able after 30 years.
What's left of the trapdoor hole at the cabin location as of 2013
Burial photo from If Chins Could Kill, likely a recreation
In 2007, user Errornix posted on the Deadites.net forums that he'd dug around the site twice only finding broken glass and garbage, which fits with the above story. In that same forum post Errornix referring to the photo shown in Bruce's book; If Chins Could Kill depicting the burial of the time capsule pointed out that it didn't look like it was being buried in the cabin floor, and he'd checked on the name of the photographer and come to the conclusion that he would have been only 5 or 6 years old at the time the movie was made. Although this information is unconfirmed, given all the facts it's likely this photo was indeed a recreation for the book rather than the actual burial itself. The photographer is actually listed as Craig Sanborn, and that's not a name which has ever been associated with The Evil Dead production, so it would be unlikely that he would have been at the original burial.
The area is heavy with iron ore deposits as well as being littered with tin roof pieces, rendering a metal detector useless (especially at a depth of 6ft). Anyone searching would need to excavate the existing trapdoor hole, digging down another 4ft, along with widening the hole out to be sure of finding anything there was to find, which is an awful lot of work especially while you're trespassing.
One tantalizing aside, is an Dietz No. 2 D-lite Oil Lamp now owned by US fan Dennis Carter Jr. It's very similar to the model shown on screen, even down to the rusted colour. A friend of his went to visit the cabin site back in the spring of 2013. As Dennis recalls;
"While he was walking over to the chimney to get stones, he tripped over what he thought was a rock, but it was actually the bottom of a lantern sticking out of the ground. He dug it up to see what it was, and called me asking if I wanted it. Of course I said yes! From photos on his cellphone, it looked like it had been buried there for years, and nature over time brought it out. In his photos it was half buried in the dirt. The inside of it was full of dirt and dead bugs, and while I tried my best to clean it up, it's still quite rusty. I've never tried to light it, or properly verify if it's genuine"
As the (apparently) same lantern prop is seen on screen both inside the cabin (shot in Tennessee), and in the cellar (filmed back in Michigan months later), this would mean the production would have had to have lost or left behind one lantern in Tennessee, and bought a very similar replacement later in Michigan. The magnifying glass necklace was another 'featured' prop which was lost and replaced over the course of the production, so this situation is not that unlikely. That said, if production team went to the huge trouble of U-Hauling back sections of the cabin walls, floorboards and even a door to use in re-shoots, then they'd probably not accidentally leave a little prop like the lantern behind knowing they'd need it for the cellar sequences which had already been planned for. It's very hard to call either way.
Beyond the branding, the only particularly identifying or distinctive elements to the screen-shown lamp itself, is the colour as shown in the screenshots above; dark brown satin paint & heavy rust, with a beige/yellow fuel cap. On carefully comparing this to Dennis's, you can see some small patches of similar satin brown paint on the base, and what could possibly be beige/yellow paint around the outside threads of the fuel cap.
Don Campbell was in Tennessee for the main shoot and some of the re-shoots, and still has a few other props like the shotgun and cabin keys. Upon checking it with him, he said; "I'm honestly not sure, but as far as I recall, it didn't make it back to Michigan. If it was found buried, that would make sense since the cabin burned to the ground. I know Rob kept some souvenirs, but they were more significant props.". Josh Becker can't shed any light on it either; "I don't remember. We left in kind of a hurry with a truck full of junk and I don't recall what happened to any of it."
While it would be quite something to get a definitive confirmation, unless someone comes forward to say they own the one and only original lamp, or specifically remembers what happened it, Dennis's lamp could be either the find of a lifetime, and a fantastically rare & genuine screen used prop, or just nothing more than an interesting coincidence.
Dennis's friend also found two further items while searching; a single metal hook and a length of chain, found directly behind the cabin footprint. Comparing these items to the movie, the chain links here are a little longer than normal. The cabin porch swing uses thinner gauge chain, and the chains seen in the workshed and the trapdoor door look like standard links. It's also too long a length for the workshed door, so what these are is unclear.
The chimney stack, as of September 5, 2016 (taken by Casey Fann)
March 23, 2019 (taken by Paige Barnes)
The Production House
The production house was where the vast & crew lived, up until they were evicted late in the shooting by the owners who then turned it into a brothel. It was described by Josh Becker in his journal as an extremely large house with 6 bedrooms and 3 full baths about an hour outside Knoxville. It's location isn't too far from the cabin, and it still exists today looking almost identical. You can see recent footage of it in Ryan Meade's 2013 documentary Invaluable, and while it's location is personally known, I'm not disclosing it publicly as it's currently a family home and the inhabitants have with nothing whatsoever to do with The Evil Dead production.
A photo of the front of the production house as it was in 1980
A photo of the rear of the production house as it was in 1980
Bluff Road Bridge
The bridge shown at the start of The Evil Dead isn't as close to the cabin as was shown on screen, it's some 30 miles away. The production shot for a few days with the bridge intact, then used a welder & tow-truck to manipulate the north end into a knarled hand. To find the bridge site you need to take interstate 40 and get off in Newport, Tennessee, go through Newport on the 25 that will take you to Bridgeport. You will see a rail road sign and then an old barn then the new bridge. Don't blink or you will pass it. Cross the bridge and immediately on the left is bluff road at the end of the bridge. It is a one lane road so be careful. The bridge is opposite a white house on the other side of the river. There is a fork in the road towards the river that leads to the old bridge. All that exists now is one of the central pillars and the paths either side leading up.
The path to the bridge (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 09/12/2012)
A bridge support (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 09/12/2012)
Clinch River Road/Riverside Road
At the beginning of the movie you see the Oldsmobile travelling down a gravel road running along a river and narrowly missing a logging truck. This location is on Clinch River Road/Riverside Road site directly off of Highway 25E right over across the Clinch Mountain, next to the Grainger County/Claiborne County line, TN. The road is marked with a green state road sign "Clinch River Rd and Riverside Rd". The Highway 25E bridge is visible in the background of the scenes shot of the logging truck & car on the road.
Before the logging truck (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 08/12/2012)
View from the hill (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 08/12/2012)
Waving fishermen (taken by EvilDeadChainsaws - 08/12/2012)
Just after the Oldsmobile narrowly misses the logging truck on the road running along the river, Scott shouts at two waving fishermen (incidentally played by Sam & Rob). This was filmed directly below Clinch Mountain. This road is the Old Highway 25E and is accessible from Highway 11W towards Rutledge (past Bean Station) on the right or Highway 25E north on the left. Here you can see the Clinch Mountain Gap in the background, high on the mountain.
The Old Highway 25E is a small winding 2 lane road that was the original road through the mountain and is closed to through traffic near the top. It was replaced by Highway 25E, a new 4 lane highway in the 1970's. Now the Old Highway 25E is used only by local traffic.
The section used for filming was at the bottom, only a few metres from the main road. If visiting, be aware that a group of dogs usually sit out in the road outside a driveway a few hundred metres further up, and will run at any cars driving past. The bar located at the bottom end should also be avoided!
The Reshoot Locations
The reshoots between January and November 1980 were all done in various locations around the Detroit & Michigan area, including a number detailed below, as well as Bruce Campbell's family summer cabin in Gladwin, Michigan, for a week where they shot much of Cheryl's vine rape scene.
The local Detroit area covered the rest of the shooting locations, including Sam's backyard for the inserts for the vine rape scene, and Sam's garage, doubling for parts of the cabin basement.
Bullard Lake
The opening 'force' POV shot roving across a swamp, was filmed at the southwestern edge of Bullard Lake during the re-shoots, which is located on a vacant property in Hartland Township owned by Josh Becker's father. The same location was used to shoot Stryker's War incidentally.
The modern lakeside is fairly urbanized, but back in 1980 that edge of the lake was rather swampy, with a dirt road running right up to it, enabling them to drive right up with their equipment. Sam came up with the idea of putting the front end of an old car in the swamp, which sat there for years until it was finally removed by Renaissance Pictures at the insistance of Josh's father. As an aside, there are now two roads directly north of the lake called Joshua Street and Erika Lane, named after Josh and his sister, as their father built that subdivision.
Bart Pierce's house
Bart Pierce's garage & basement were used to house all the stop motion animation used in the meltdown sequence. You can see recent footage of it in Ryan Meade's 2013 documentary Invaluable. The house still exists today around six miles outside Detroit, apparently in quite a bad part of town, although Bart no longer lives there.
Sam Raimi's parent's house
Sam's parent's garage was used to double parts of the cabin cellar during the re-shoots. Given that it was the house in which Sam grew up, it also crops up as a location in a number of the Super-8 Short films. You can see recent footage of the exterior of the house in Ryan Meade's 2013 documentary Invaluable. While it still exists today and it's location is personally known, I'm not disclosing it publicly as it's still Sam's parent's home.
The Tapert family friends' farmhouse
The production shot at the Tapert family friends' farmhouse in Marshall, Michigan, for two weeks during the re-shoots. This served for the cellar & bathroom scenes, as well as all the shots around the fireplace (which had been replicated there), and the rear of the property used for Linda's burial & decapitation. Those eagle eyed fans out there will have already spotted that the rooms in the cabin laid out exactly as shown on screen couldn't work in reality. There is no place for the bathroom to be as the side door from Scott & Shelly's room would lead out into the hallway which runs the length of the cabin from the back door to the large main room. According to Bruce the bathroom was shot in Rob's farmhouse. This was the same location as was used for Within The Woods, and the cellar is seen on screen in both.
A panoramic view of the cellar of the Tapert family friends' farmhouse as of 2013, shown in Invaluable
The farmhouse still exists today, still externally looking virtually identical to it's appearance in both Within The Woods & The Evil Dead. Apparently, there are still blood splatters on the cellar walls, over 30 years later! You can see recent footage of the exterior of the house and the cellar in Ryan Meade's 2013 documentary Invaluable. While it's location is personally known, I've promised not to disclose it publicly. It no longer belongs to the Tapert family friends', and the current owner; a farmer and his family, have no wish whatsoever to be associated with the film, or to become a local tourist trap. They just want to be left alone. Given the sad tale of the destruction of The Evil Dead's cabin as detailed at the top of this page, I doubt many readers would blame them.
The rear of the Tapert family friends' farmhouse as of 2013, shown in Invaluable
The side of the Tapert family friends' farmhouse
Evil Dead Fan Trip Of A Lifetime 4-Disc Blu-Ray Set
Discs 1-3 of the set contain 3h 50m of 1080p raw The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II locations camcorder footage, running in chronological order as shot over three days in December 2012. The locations covered include The Evil Dead's Cabin site, Bluff Road Bridge, Clinch River Road /Riverside Road, & Old Highway 25E all around Morristown Tennessee, and Evil Dead II's Cabin, Production House, Bonsal Ballast Pits, J. R. Faison Junior High School, & Anson County Airport in North Carolina. These discs don't have menus, but have chapter stops for each location visited.
Disc 4 is the 2015 The Evil Dead: A Superfan's Odyssey Blu-ray release, with additions. This includes the edited 49m version of the Locations footage (basically what's shown on this website, with a few extra minutes, start & end credits, chapter stops and subtitle intros), along with the 58m documentary which chronicles my journey as a British Evil Dead superfan. How seeing it changed my life, sparking an interest in making my own short films & experimenting with gore effects, leading me onto a career in film & TV special effects. Opening EvilDeadChainsaws.com & supplying Evil Dead: The Musical, creating BookOfTheDead.ws, making the Evil Dead - The Treasures Collection & Book Of The Dead DVDs, shooting footage at nine of The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II's locations, starting my huge Evil Dead collection, making a number of replica props, re-opening EvilDeadChainsaws.com & supplying Ash Vs Evil Dead, and much more. Lastly there are two teasers and two trailers for the 2016/2017 Book Of The Dead Evil Dead fanfilm.
The discs are region free PAL, written on single layer BD-R discs, and come in a proper 4-way Blu-Ray case, with a cover & disc art. You can order via the Paypal checkout button below.
£24.99/$35 + Shipping
Please bear in mind this website does not host advertising. All sales go toward new additions & running costs. This footage was filmed personally in 1080p with a JVC GZHM445 PAL Camcorder. If any companies are interested in licensing this footage, then please get in contact.
Please Note: As both the current & previous owners of the Evil Dead II Cabin Site did not wish to be identified or appear in any footage released to the public (for obvious reasons), 14m 16s of the total 4h 03m 38s of video which was shot, has been removed from the raw footage covering the Evil Dead II Cabin Site, Production House, Storage Barn, and The J. R. Faison Junior High School, along with blanking a couple of short portions of audio in the footage that's left too. Most of this is simply unrelated general conversation inadvertently captured by the camera while setting up and packing away at each location. The footage in the three disc DVD set still runs at 3h 49m 22s and is literally as complete as it can be without breaching their confidence.
