Today we pay homage to my favorite low budget horror movie. Three friends, and aspiring film makers, from Michigan thought that this would be a good way to break into the industry. They were right.
The movie was made for about $375,000 that they raised from friends, family, and local doctors, lawyers and dentists willing to risk money on some crazy kids. The ambitious three were writer/director Sam Raimi (Darkman, The Quick and the Dead, A Simple Plan, The Gift, and the Spiderman movies), RobTapert(producer of American Gothic, Hercules, and Xena,and frequent collaborator with Sam), and B movie favorite Bruce Campbell(author of "If Chins Could Kill").
Evil Dead was the premier example of "Splatstick" movies that combined horror and comedy. The sequels, Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness added more humor, along with buckets of blood and gore. These films have inspired many other movie makers (I highly recommend Shaun of the Dead, an excellent splatstick film).
The original Evil Dead was renowned for its innovative camera work, like attaching the camera to a 2x4 and running through the woods, or crashing through a window, to simulate the approaching evil. The movie was often banned or censored, but eventually the investors and the movie makers proved to be successful.
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