60 Fun Facts About Evil Dead

Who wrote and directed the original trilogy of Evil Dead films?

Sam Raimi directed all three, making The Evil Dead as his feature debut at 20; it began shooting in November 1979, weeks after his birthday.

What is Ash Williams's full first name, as his sister calls him in the original film?

Bruce Campbell has said the name is short for Ashley, and Raimi toyed with the full name Ashley J. Williams for Army of Darkness.

What short film did Raimi and Campbell make in 1978 as a prototype to attract investors?

Within the Woods, a 32-minute short shot in 1978 for about $1,600, was shown to Detroit-area doctors, dentists and other local investors to prove the concept.

In which state was The Evil Dead (1981) filmed, in a remote cabin with no plumbing?

The cabin sat outside Morristown, Tennessee; the shoot there began in November 1979 with no plumbing and dragged on for about twelve weeks.

Which horror novelist's rave review of The Evil Dead at Cannes in 1982 helped it find a distributor?

Stephen King praised it at Cannes in 1982 as 'the most ferociously original horror film of the year', a quote that went straight onto the posters.

What was the first film's working title before distributor Irvin Shapiro said it sounded boring?

Raimi shot it under the title Book of the Dead; distributor Irvin Shapiro thought that sounded dull, so The Evil Dead was chosen from a list of alternatives.

Where did Ash and his friends go to college, according to the original film's plot?

Raimi and Tapert were themselves Michigan State students when they started planning a feature film.

Which two of Ash's companions in the first film are his girlfriend and his sister, respectively?

Linda is Ash's girlfriend and Cheryl his sister; Cheryl, played by Ellen Sandweiss, is the first to be possessed after the trees attack her in the woods.

Who plays Annie Knowby, the professor's daughter, in Evil Dead II?

Sarah Berry plays Annie Knowby, who arrives with missing pages of the Necronomicon and is stabbed by Ash's severed hand in the finale.

What nickname, inspired by Raimi's Three Stooges fandom, was given to stand-ins replacing unavailable actors?

Fake Shemps honoured the Three Stooges, whose producers hid doubles after Shemp Howard died in 1955; The Evil Dead's credits list several cast members as Fake Shemps.

Which future Oscar-winning filmmaker was an assistant editor on The Evil Dead, cutting the shed scene?

Joel Coen, later an Oscar winner for Fargo and No Country for Old Men, was an assistant editor; he borrowed the prototype-trailer trick to raise money for Blood Simple.

In the UK, The Evil Dead was famously branded and banned as what kind of release in the 1980s?

The Evil Dead was branded a 'video nasty' and prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act; withdrawn from UK video after 1984, it passed fully uncut only in 2000.

What did Raimi call the camera-on-a-plank rig, carried by sprinting operators, that stood in for a Steadicam?

Raimi dubbed it the 'shaky cam': a 16mm camera bolted to a plank that he and producer Rob Tapert sprinted with through the woods for the demon's point-of-view shots.

Which studio gave The Evil Dead its wide US release in April 1983?

New Line Cinema handled US distribution and opened the film wide on April 15, 1983, about eighteen months after its first Detroit screening.

The 1987 sequel was subtitled what in its publicity materials?

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn was the full title on its 1987 posters; the opening recap rewrites the first film so only Ash and his girlfriend visit the cabin.

Which Italian producer funded the 1987 sequel after the author who championed the first film phoned him?

Dino De Laurentiis, then producing Maximum Overdrive with the novelist, put up the sequel's roughly $3.6 million budget and kept the story in the cabin.

In Evil Dead II, what does Ash attach to the stump of his right arm after cutting off his possessed hand?

Ash mounts a chainsaw on the stump, strapping the modified prop to his forearm; the saw's petrol engine was replaced with an electric motor for safety and its teeth dulled.

Which Ernest Hemingway novel sits on top of the pile of books Ash uses to trap his severed hand?

The top book is A Farewell to Arms, a visual pun; the hand fight itself grew out of Attack of the Helping Hand, co-writer Scott Spiegel's 1979 short.

Which horror villain's clawed glove hangs in the cabin's tool shed in Evil Dead II?

Freddy Krueger's razor glove hangs in the shed as a reply to A Nightmare on Elm Street, in which Nancy dozes off watching The Evil Dead on TV.

Who played the possessed Henrietta in Evil Dead II, sweating litres inside a full-body latex suit?

Raimi's younger brother Ted Raimi wore the Henrietta suit; his sweat can be seen pouring out of the costume's ear as Henrietta spins above the cellar.

To dodge an X rating, Evil Dead II was released unrated in the US through a shell company with what name?

The sequel's Italian producer set up Rosebud Releasing Corporation as a shell so Evil Dead II could go out unrated in March 1987 without an X rating tarnishing his studio.

Where did Evil Dead II shoot its exteriors, using a Color Purple farmhouse as its office?

Wadesboro, North Carolina, had hosted The Color Purple; Raimi's crew used that film's farmhouse as a production office and shot the cabin exteriors nearby, hours from the producer's Wilmington studio.

At the end of Evil Dead II, Ash and his car are sucked through a vortex to which period?

The vortex drops Ash and his car into the Middle Ages, 1300 AD; Raimi had pitched that medieval premise for the sequel itself, but the producer wanted another cabin film.

What model of car does Ash drive through all three original films?

Ash's 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88 is Raimi's own car, slipped into nearly all his films; in Army of Darkness it is rebuilt into the steam-powered 'Deathcoaster'.

In Army of Darkness, what three-word phrase must Ash say to safely retrieve the Necronomicon?

The phrase is lifted from the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still; Ash mumbles and coughs his way through it and dooms the kingdom.

In Army of Darkness, Ash works at which department store?

Ash is a housewares clerk at S-Mart, the store whose slogan he recites; by Ash vs Evil Dead, three decades on, he is stocking shelves at Value Stop instead.

Which line does Ash deliver after killing the Deadite in the store at the end of Army of Darkness?

Ash blasts the Deadite and says 'Hail to the king, baby' in the upbeat store ending, reshot after Universal rejected Raimi's bleaker original finale.

In Raimi's original, rejected ending for Army of Darkness, Ash oversleeps and wakes up where?

Ash takes seven drops of the sleeping potion instead of six and wakes in a post-apocalyptic London, St Paul's in ruins; Universal found it too depressing.

What was Army of Darkness's working title?

It was shot as Medieval Dead, a pun Raimi enjoyed; the final title Army of Darkness came from distributor Irvin Shapiro, to whom the film is dedicated.

Who played Sheila, Ash's love interest in 1300 AD, in Army of Darkness?

Embeth Davidtz, later of Schindler's List, played Sheila; Bridget Fonda appears too, as Ash's girlfriend in the reshot opening recap.

Which composer wrote Army of Darkness's 'March of the Dead' before LoDuca scored the rest?

Elfman had just scored Raimi's Darkman; LoDuca scored all three original films and recorded this one with the Seattle Symphony.

Who directed the 2013 Evil Dead, in his feature debut?

Fede Álvarez, a Uruguayan director discovered through his short Panic Attack!, made his feature debut with Evil Dead and went on to Don't Breathe and Alien: Romulus.

Who plays Mia, the recovering addict at the centre of the 2013 film?

Jane Levy, then of Suburgatory, plays Mia after Lily Collins dropped out in early 2012; Mia's cabin detox is the reason the friends gather.

In which country was the 2013 Evil Dead shot?

It was shot in New Zealand, in the Auckland region, in 2012 with Raimi's Ghost House Pictures producing; the director favoured practical effects over CGI.

Which single word does an older Ash say in the post-credits scene of the 2013 film?

Campbell's Ash turns to the camera and says 'Groovy', his catchphrase since Evil Dead II; it is also the last word of the Ash vs Evil Dead finale.

On which US cable network did Ash vs Evil Dead premiere on Halloween 2015?

Starz premiered Ash vs Evil Dead on October 31, 2015, renewed it for a second season before the pilot aired, and cancelled it after season three in April 2018.

In Ash vs Evil Dead, what does Ash's sidekick Pablo call him as a mark of respect?

Pablo's shaman uncle raised him on stories of an evil that only 'El Jefe' could defeat.

Which Xena star plays the mysterious Ruby in Ash vs Evil Dead?

Lucy Lawless plays Ruby; she is married to Rob Tapert, the franchise's producer, and the Xena star had already cameoed in Raimi's Spider-Man.

What insulting nickname did the people of Ash's hometown, Elk Grove, give him after his friends died?

Elk Grove dubbed him 'Ashy Slashy', convinced he had murdered his friends and sister at the cabin; a hand puppet of him even appears in season two.

Which Six Million Dollar Man star plays Ash's father Brock in Ash vs Evil Dead?

Lee Majors plays Brock Williams, Ash's hardware-store-owning father in Elk Grove, who is killed by Ash's possessed car in the second season.

Evil Dead Rise (2023) moves the horror out of the woods and into what kind of setting?

The story moves to a condemned Los Angeles apartment building; an earthquake opens a hidden vault under the car park, where teenager Danny finds the book and 1923 phonograph records.

Who wrote and directed Evil Dead Rise?

Lee Cronin, the Irish director of The Hole in the Ground, was hand-picked by Raimi after directing episodes of his Quibi series 50 States of Fright.

How much fake blood did the director say was used making Evil Dead Rise?

The director said the shoot used over 6,500 litres of fake blood, much of it in the elevator scene where the lift floods with gore.

Evil Dead Rise was originally going to premiere on which streaming service?

Warner Bros. first planned Evil Dead Rise as an HBO Max streaming exclusive, then switched to a theatrical release after strong test screenings; it went on to gross about $147 million.

In Evil Dead Rise, what do the possessed Ellie, Bridget and Danny merge into?

The three fuse into the Marauder, a multi-limbed amalgam of the possessed family that Beth and Kassie finally shred in a wood chipper in the car park.

Who wrote and directed the 2026 film Evil Dead Burn?

Sébastien Vaniček, the French director of the 2023 spider horror Infested, wrote Evil Dead Burn with his regular collaborator Florent Bernard, with Raimi's Ghost House producing.

Evil Dead: The Game (2022) is what kind of multiplayer game?

It is an asymmetric survival horror game in the Dead by Daylight mould: four survivors gather Necronomicon pages and the Kandarian Dagger while a fifth player controls the demon.

In which city was Evil Dead: The Musical first staged, in 2003?

It opened at Toronto's Tranzac Club in August 2003; when the Northeast Blackout hit, the cast played a performance on the club's lawn by flashlight and car headlights.

According to the trilogy, the Necronomicon is described as an ancient text of which civilisation?

Professor Knowby's tape calls it a volume of ancient Sumerian burial practices and funerary incantations, the Naturom Demonto, bound in human flesh and inked in blood.

Who voices the archaeologist Professor Knowby on the tape recording in the original film?

Bob Dorian, later the host of AMC's classic-movie showcase, voiced Professor Knowby's tape; Raimi and Tapert themselves cameo as roadside fishermen.

How much did Raimi say the completed first film cost?

Raimi has put the finished film's cost at about $375,000, after the original budget ran out and extra money had to be raised for post-production and the blood effects.

Evil Dead II opened in March 1987 in about how many US theaters?

It opened on about 310 screens and grossed just under $6 million in the US; stronger returns overseas helped persuade the producer to back a third film.

Roughly how much seed money did the 1978 prototype short help raise for The Evil Dead?

The short helped the trio raise about $90,000 from Detroit-area doctors, dentists and lawyers; Raimi, Tapert and Campbell bought suits and briefcases to look like businessmen.

The Evil Dead's first private screening in October 1981 was held at which Detroit cinema?

The Redford Theatre, a Detroit movie palace, hosted the October 15, 1981 premiere; Raimi staged William Castle-style stunts with ambulances parked outside for the crowd.

Why did the crew end up shooting in Tennessee rather than Raimi's hometown of Royal Oak, Michigan?

Of the states the crew wrote to, it was the only state to show enthusiasm; thirteen crew members then had to sleep in the remote cabin during pre-production.

What happened to the Morristown cabin used in The Evil Dead in 1982?

The cabin was burned down by its owners in 1982, reportedly fed up with trespassing fans; only the stone chimney survived, and souvenir hunters have carried off its stones since.

Roughly how much did The Evil Dead gross worldwide?

The film grossed about $29.4 million worldwide, only $2.4 million of it in the US; it was a far bigger hit overseas and a best-selling UK video release.

Which 1990s video game hero quotes so many Ash lines that Bruce Campbell was angry at not being paid?

Duke Nukem recycles several of Ash's one-liners in 1996's Duke Nukem 3D; Campbell groused that he was never paid, and Evil Dead II also inspired Doom's chainsaw.

What is the 2008 comedy Campbell directed and starred in, playing a version of himself hired to fight a spirit?

In My Name Is Bruce, the actor plays a washed-up version of himself kidnapped by a fan to fight Guan-Di, a Chinese war god, in an Oregon mining town.

In which year did Army of Darkness reach US cinemas?

Army of Darkness opened in US cinemas on February 19, 1993, after more than a year of delays over its ending and rating; it had been shot in 1991.