A Bloody Good Time 4.16.09: Evil Dead Franchise Breakdown

Posted by Joseph Lee on 04.16.2009

Before he made Spider-Man, Sam Raimi gave the world Ash.

Welcome to A Bloody Good Time.

Last week we talked about movies that were "based on a true story". I had some lovely feedback. I'll reply to the comments that matter.

Commander Hill showed up and had one thing to ask: No Blair Witch Project?

I feel like I've covered this film extensively in previous columns, but yes it's certainly an example. The marketing was completely built around it being true, when, in fact, it wasn't. What an offensive gesture! In all seriousness, it exists because it works, and The Blair Witch Project is a fine example of that. It was, at one point, the highest grossing independent film ever. It may still be, I'm not up to date on that.

Mario had the following to say: I think you could probably do a column on the various movies supposedly based on Ed Gein alone. TCM, Psycho and Silence of the Lambs, etc. Looking forward to next weeks column! Keep up the Groovy work!

Yeah, an "Ed Gein" related column would be fun. But writing about those three movies has been done ad nauseum, not just here, but in other writings on the internet. I don't think I have anything new to contribute.

Guest#7459 wrote: re: "Haunting in CT". From experience I can attest there's nothing funny about an angry, drunk parent. I found this scene to be very powerful and terrifying and the few giggles in my theater were from teens who were clearly uncomfortable with the intensity. This just in: people often laugh when they're nervous. Although not perfect, I really thought this film was a cut above the recent batch of horror films.

I'm not trying to imply that that sort of issue is funny. However, that scene was, because the acting was so over-the-top. A Haunting in Connecticut is better than a lot of recent mainstream horror, but that's not saying much due to the state of Hollywood horror these days.

With all of that out of the way, what do you say we get to this week's topic?



The Evil Dead. It's probably, overall, my favorite horror franchise of all time. On my top 100 horror films list that I created last year, it was the only series in which all of the films made the list (Evil Dead at #24, Dead by Dawn at #42 and Army of Darkness at #69). There's just something about these three films that get love from horror fans everywhere. They're low budget movies with bad acting. Why do we love the Evil Dead series? There's plenty of reasons I could come up with, but the main one is simple: these movies are fun. It's why, even sixteen years after the last entry and with an aging Bruce Campbell, fans still want an Evil Dead 4. It's why there continues to be comic books and video games. There's even a musical now!

In case you haven't figured out it, this week A Bloody Good Time is journeying to a small cabin in the woods to do a franchise breakdown of The Evil Dead. Since there are only three movies, I'm going to give some love to the games and comics as well. This is a movie related column, however, so expect those mentions to be brief. Let's open the Necromonicon and get started!

The series actually began with a short film entitled Within the Woods in 1978. It was an attempt by Bruce Campbell, Robert Tapert, Scott Spiegel and Sam Raimi to create a short film to raise funding for a full-length picture. The film was shown in double billing with The Rocky Horror Picture Show and in the high school where Raimi and the others attended. A critic gave it a decent review, which is what helped to get the right people to give them a chance. It only had a budget of $1,600, but still managed to impress the right people to get funding for what would eventually become The Evil Dead. Within the Woods still isn't available on DVD, but there are several bootleg versions out there, including on Youtube.



Now that they had the proper funding (and a much higher budget of $375,000), Raimi, Campbell and Tapert began putting together the feature-length version of Within the Woods. Filming in Tennessee in a small cabin, the cast and crew went through hell when putting this together. It was shot over a period of 1.5 years and it was so bad at points that certain actors would leave. Raimi had to replace them with doubles in heavy makeup. In Bruce Campbell's book "If Chins Could Kill", he goes into extensive detail over his experience on the shoot. I highly recommend reading it.

If you don't know the plot of the first film, let me sum it up. A group of friends go to a cabin in the woods and listen to a tape reciting translations from the Necronomicon. The tape summons demons which begin to possess them one by one, leaving only one person standing. Of course that person ended up being Ashley J. Williams, or Ash. While Campbell wouldn't quite make the character his own yet, he did show glimpses of what was to come. The Evil Dead(1981) was the most horror-oriented of the series, as the others tended to veer towards comedy. However, what made The Evil Dead stands out is the massive amounts of gore and unique shots that Sam Raimi perfected using various forms of the steadi-cam.

When it was first released, The Evil Dead only received mixed reviews. Now it's generally regarded as a cult classic and was misunderstood on it's original release. Now it has a 100% on Rotten Tomatoes, out of 41 reviews with a consensus of: This classic low budget horror film combines just the right amount of gore and black humor, giving The Evil Dead an equal amount of thrills and laughs.. Financially, it didn't make much on it's release, although the small amount of the time (2.4 million) still made the budget back several times over. As of 2006, it's made $29,400,000 theatrically, and countless amounts of money in DVD sales. Sam Raimi decided to make a sequel due to the success.



This lacks some things that the original has. For example, it doesn't have as many scares. But it does make up for that with an overflow of over-the-top, slapstick humor. Where else can you see a man cut off his own hand, go to war with it, and trap it with a copy of "A Farewell to Arms"?. This is what I said when I included Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn(1987) as one of my top horror films of all time. I still stand by it. Evil Dead 2 is almost as good as the original, but at the same time, it's an entirely different kind of movie. This would hint at where the series would go as Bruce Campbell became the Ash we all know and love, and it would take a more comedic turn to take advantage of Bruce ability to make fun of himself and knack for physical comedy.

The thought of a sequel actually was thrown around as they were filming the original, six years prior. However, Raimi scoffed at the idea of doing a sequel later, thinking the film he was currently working on (Crimewave, with the Coen Brothers) would be a hit. When it wasn't, he decided to come back to the cabin in the woods. Their budget came from Stephen King, who managed to talk producer Dino De Laurentis into providing funding after he (King) loved the original film. The filming wasn't nearly as bad as the original, but they still had problems, such as the "Henrietta" costume for Ted Raimi.

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn not only made back it's budget and about 5.6 million as of 2006 (not bad for a low-budget horror film), it was very well-received critically. It has a 98% on RT (out of 42 reviews) with a critical consensus that says: Evil Dead 2's increased special effects and slapstick-gore makes it as good -- if not better -- than the original. Sam Raimi had an idea of sending Ash back to medieval times, which is how this film ends. He would further explore that concept in the next entry.



Army of Darkness(1993) uses hardly any horror and goes fully into the realm of comedy, head-first. Sam Raimi became somewhat popular after filming Darkman, and so he was able to secure a higher budget($11 million, the highest of any of the films) for his medieval, undead horror-comedy. Sam and his brother Ivan wrote the screenplay, and had more money to make better special effects like the skeleton army and attack of the miniature Ash's. Bruce Campbell also got to be campy as a good and evil Ash, which was awesome.

Financially, it was successful, as previous entries were. It ended up making nearly $52 million, nearly five times it's budget. Critically, it was also acclaimed, although not as much as it's predecessors. It currently has a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Army of Darkness actually had two different endings. There was the one shown in the film, where Ash makes it back to his own time and fights off Deadites like he always does. The second ending, features Ash taking too much of the magical potion and waking up in a post-apocalyptic future. Personally, I think this is the route they should go if they ever get around to making Evil Dead 4. Either that, or a large scale invasion of Deadites in modern times.



Evil Dead and it's hero, Ash, while not as popular culturally as other horror icons, still maintains a strong following among genre fans. Because of this there are still plenty of non-film Evil Dead materials you can get your hands on.

Video Games: Not including the game based off the movie for the Commordore 64, there have been three big Evil Dead games released this past decade. The first of these is Evil Dead: Hail to the King. This one is supposed to take place within series continuity, and is set eight years after Army of Darkness. Basically Ash goes to confront his demons and that possessed hand of his, still lurking around, sets the demons free again. The game was released for Playstation, Dreamcast and the PC in 2000. Another game, Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick was released for the Xbox and Playstation 2 in 2003. This was set twenty years after Army of Darkness and twelve years after the previous game. Two years later, Evil Dead: Regeneration was released for PS2, Xbox and PC. This was a "What-If" story that basically ignored Army of Darkness and the previous two games. It's set directly after Evil Dead 2 and plays like Ash never was sent back in time.

Comic Books: Outside of adaptations of the films, like the one Dark Horse published in 1992, there is an ongoing series called Army of Darkness being published. Ash journeys to various areas stopping the Deadites. This comic has opened the door for a number of crossovers, including the Marvel Zombies, Freddy, Jason and Re-Animator.

The Musical: You read that right. There is an off-Broadway production of Evil Dead. It actually has the approval of both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, and is still ongoing in certain areas. The musical takes a lot of liberty, obviously, as it has to add songs and it uses elements of all three movies. The first three rows of the audience is called the "Splatter zone" because fake blood tends to fly out onto the crowd (best musical ever? I think so.). The original producers of the musical have the okay of Raimi and are currently at work on a film, 3D version of the musical. So essentially, we are getting our Evil Dead remake, only it's going to be a lot different. I'm looking forward to it.

That's it for me. Evil Dead is still a beloved franchise and the movies are supremely entertaining. I doubt we'll ever see Bruce Campbell as Ash again, or an Evil Dead 4. That said, I don't think we'll get a straight-up remake either. The last I heard it was canceled because of fan outrage.

I'll see you next week.