It's a time of year when everyone is getting ready for Halloween.
Putting together their sexy pumpkin spice latte costumes or
their sexy ebola victim costumes or whatever.
(Sound) Here at CineFix, we're celebrating by telling you some things about
Sam Raimi's cult classic The Evil Dead.
Now don't get me wrong, we're dressing up like sexy pumpkin spice lattes too.
In fact, that's what I'm wearing right now.
But I digress.
Here are seven things you didn't know about The Evil Dead, probably.
>> (Sound) The Evil Dead uses a classic strategy of
low budget movies, which is sticking to one location for
practically the whole film.
In this case, it was a cabin in Tennessee.
But, one major problem was that the cabin they used didn't have a cellar.
They faked one by digging a four foot deep hole in the ground inside of the cabin.
All the scenes that actually take place in the basement were shot
months later in Marshall, Michigan.
So right here, Ash is in a real cellar in Michigan looking back up into a cabin
that's in Tennessee.
And this cellar scene was shot in a third location,
Sam Raimi's garage in Franklin, Michigan.
It just goes to show you what kind of tricks filmmakers have to
use to make things work, which sets me up perfectly for our next thing.
(Sound) >> You bastards,
why are you torturing me like this, why?
>> It took a couple of years before The Evil Dead could be completed.
They'd run out of money, have to put things on hold, and
then actors would leave to work on other projects.
You know, mo demons, mo problems.
So that led to a lot of crew members doubling for
actors who had left the production.
And director, Sam Rami, did a lot of the heavy lifting himself.
For example, that's him in the front seat of the car pretending to be Shelly and
there's his hand doubling for Scott's in this shot.
Here's producer, Robert Tabert, doubling for a demon in this shot from behind.
Then this is actually Tabert's sister on the floor.
Got a crew guy filling in here, since that actress was long gone and
this is actually a local Tennessee actress they found subbing for Betsy Baker.
I guess you can never underestimate the power of a bad wig and
a strategic camera angle.
Meanwhile, Sam's brother, Ted Ramey, also got in on the action.
Those are Ted's feet doubling for Scott's and
here are Ted's hands strangling Ash from the basement, the fake basement that is.
But, while the basement was fake,
the scratches on Bruce Campbell's face right here are real.
Geeze Ted, trim your nails.
The list of fake shemps in the credits was Sam Raimi's way of acknowledging everyone
who loaned their bodies and limbs to get the shots they needed,
while also acknowledging his love of the Three Stooges.
Which makes for another fantastic segue.
(Sound) What do you'all know about plumbing?
>> Nothing. >> That's fine, give me a hand.
(Sound) >> The fake Shemps aren't the only way
that Sam Raimi paid tribute to The Three Stooges in the Evil Dead.
This scene in the basement is a way of
referencing The Three Stooges A Plumbing We Will Go from 1940.
Instead of leaking pipes and light bulbs filling with water like the Three Stooges,
we get a basement blood storm.
Both are definitely plumbing disasters but if I had to pick one, I'd go with neither.
(Sound) This necklace that Ash gives to Linda was originally going to be a more
critical element in the movie.
Toward the end, it would refract light onto the Book of the Dead which would help
Ash realize that burning the book was the key, yada yada yada.
Well, even though they cut that bit out,
the magnifying glass necklace is still pretty prominent throughout the film.
Most people don't know that this close up of the necklace was shot months
after the rest of the scene and in the interim they'd lost the original necklace.
The closest thing they could find was a gold magnifying glass
necklace which they spray painted silver so it would match.
And you can actually see the paint coming off on Betsy Baker's fingers.
Don't worry though, I don't think silver spray paint is toxic.
I've huffed tons of it, and my brain still goes good.
(Sound) One of the best things about The Evil Dead, and
really any horror movie from that era, is the use of practical special effects.
But, the Evil Dead was particularly hardcore on set.
I mean seriously, they did some things that were actually super dangerous and
reckless.
For example, this shot was achieved by rigging 2x4s into a t shape,
attaching the camera and then running at the window so
that the 2x4s would break the window before the camera got there.
(Sound) Yeah, to get the shot where the window breaks,
they just broke a real window, with real glass.
And in this scene, that's a real gun that they really fired with real bullets and
a real person.
Okay, maybe that last part isn't true and they just shot a dummy but still,
they were firing live ammo on a movie set.
So I guess if we've learned one thing today about making
horror movie cult classics is that safety is very overrated.
(Sound) At the very beginning of the movie,
the kids pass these two guys on the road on their way to the cabin.
Well, these two guys are none other than Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert.
I know, these guys are all over this movie.
Later, when they're listening to the recording that they find in the cabin,
we hear this line.
(Foreign) >> It turns out,
the gibberish that you just heard translates to, Sam and
Rob are the hitchhikers on the road, which doesn't sound very scary at all, honestly.
Moving on. (Sound) Lets wrap up with a thing about
the force which is what the film makers named the evil POV shots
that we see throughout the film.
The sound that accompanies the shot is what really sells it and adds that creep
factor but you probably don't know what they used to get that sound.
The force is a combination of wind, (Noise),
a low drone sound effect (Noise), and Sam Raimi's voice.
They got the wind from an Orson Wells movie called The Third Man,
as well as an ambient track that Raimi recorded at the house they were staying
in during filming.
It wasn't far from the cabin and he recorded about 10 minutes worth of it, but
the recording has become so
iconic that other horror movies have actually used Raimi's scary wind too.
Finally, Raimi recorded himself making various sounds for
whenever the force would move from one spot to another, like this.
(Sound) They then
processed the voice to make it sound more spooky and
not just like a goofy guy making weird, (Noise) Noises into a microphone.
Which by the way, don't knock it 'till you try it.
Pretty much made a career out of it.
Well, that's it for today and we didn't even have time to get you
all of the things we have that you probably didn't know about Evil Dead,
let alone get into our things on Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness.
But if you want to followup episode sometime, hit the thumbs,
be sure to tweet me a photo of your sexy ebola victim costume.
Anyway, thanks for watching.
And be sure to check out cinefix.com and subscribe for more true-ish things about
movies and sometimes men in demon drag, right here on Things You Didn't Know.
(Sound)