Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn


1h 25m 1987
Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn

Brief Synopsis

The lone survivor of an onslaught of flesh-possessing spirits holds up in a cabin with a group of strangers while the demons continue their attack.

Film Details

MPAA Rating
Genre
Horror/Science-Fiction
Action
Comedy
Fantasy
Horror
Sequel
Release Date
1987
Production Company
Completion Bond Company Inc; Doug Beswick Productions Inc; Great Northern/ Reiff & Associates (Ny); International Casting Service Pty, Ltd.; Reel People Inc
Distribution Company
Rosebud Releasing Corporation; De Laurentiis Company; Palace Pictures; Vestron Video
Location
Detroit, Michigan, USA; Wadesboro, North Carolina, USA

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 25m

Synopsis

The only survivor from the original film, returns seeking revenge and unleashing supernatural demons.

Crew

Jerry Adams

Carpenter

Bridgette Alexander

2nd Assistant Camera

Rob Anderson

Apprentice Editor

Jim Aupperle

Effects Photography Supervisor (Dance)

Wendy Bell

Makeup

James Belohovek

Supervisor

Randy Bennett

Art Direction

Howard Berger

Special Makeup Effects Unit

Margaret Beserra

Other

Doug Beswick

Stop Motion Animator (Dance)

Pam Billingsley

Other

Ricky Billingsley

Other

John V Bonds

Sound Effects Editor

Andy Boswell

Art Direction Assistant

Andrea Brown

Choreography (Dance)

Bob Brown

Other

Teresa Burkept

Foam Fabrication (Tree Branch/Rotten Apple Head)

Michael A Burnett

Sculptor And Detail (Tree Branch/Rotten Apple Head)

Thomas Bush

Sound Editor Assistant

Yamcy Calzada

Other

Bruce Campbell

Co-Producer

Cathy Carpentar

Assistant Accountant

John Casino

Stunts

Rick Catizone

Other

Rick Catizone

Hand Animator

Francoise Charlap

Script Supervisor

Brendan Creadle

Additional Camera Assistant

Mary Ann Creamer

Production Assistant

Diane Dankwardt

Production Accountant

Kaye Davis

Editor

Alex Debenedetti

Executive Producer

Peter Deming

Director Of Photography

Mike Dickeson

Foley Artist

Mike Ditz

Stills

Reed Downy

Carpenter

Philip Duffin

Art Direction

Robert Duffin

Gaffer

Bob Dyke

Miniatures (Magic Lantern)

Elaine Dysinger

Production Coordinator

Tony Elwood

Special Props

Chris English

Electrician

Larry Fox

Construction Coordinator

Tony Gardner

Sculptor And Detail (Tree Branch/Rotten Apple Head)

Wayne Gathins

Carpenter

Pryor Gibson

Other

Sandra Gimpel

Stunts

Roy Gittens

Grip

David Goodman

Studio Manager

David Goodman

Transportation Manager

Vickie Graef

Wardrobe

William Hamilton

Other

Paul Harris

Assistant Editor

B V Hendrick

Assistance

Kevin Hill

Sound Effects Editor

Tom Hitchcock

Miniatures (Illuminations)

Betty Huntley

Assistance

Harry Huntley

Assistance

Vern Hyde

Special Effects Foreman

Vern Hyde

Special Effects

Ruth Jessup

Other

Dale Johnson

Special Effects Assistant

Michael Jonascu

Assistant Editor

Bob Kayganich

Matte Painting

Katherine Kean

Main Title

Dave Kindlon

Other

Robert Kurtzman

Special Makeup Effects Unit

Susan Labatt

Choreography (Dance)

Larry Larson

Animation Photography

Charles Lear

Carpenter

Wayne T Leonard

Set Dresser

Joseph Lo Duca

Music

Rocky Mohoney

Other

Elizabeth Mary Moore

Set Decorator

Elizabeth Moore

Set Decorator

Tom Morrison

Sound Mixer

Drew Newmann

Additional Sound (Synthesized Effects)

Sheldon Newmann

Music Technical Consultant

Greg Nicotero

Special Makeup Effects Unit

Bill Notaro

Mechanical Design (Tree Branch/Rotten Apple Head)

Larry Odean

Other

Linda Ohman

Caterer

Paul Ohman

Caterer

Greg Onychuk

Other

Randall Ouzts

Wardrobe Assistant

Karalyn Parsons

Production Assistant

Brian Penikas

Molds And Casting (Tree Branch/Rotten Apple Head)

K Siobhan Phelan

2nd Assistant Director

Tim Philo

Director Of Photography 2nd Unit (2nd Unit)

Billy Pierce

Grip

Yvonne Preble

Sound Editor Assistant

Chris Rabideau

Sound Editor (Music/Dialogue)

Cindy Rabideau

Sound Effects Editor

Brian Rae

Assistant Animator

Sam Raimi

Screenwriter

Maribel Rodriguez

Electrician

Rubin Rodriguez

Bestboy

Debbie Lynn Ross

Stunt Performer

Andrew Schatz

Sound Rerecording Mixer

Andrew Schatz

Adr Supervisor

Scott Shamis

Carpenter

Hamid Shams

1st Assistant Camera

Irvin Shapiro

Executive Producer

Shannon Shea

Special Makeup Effects Unit

Steve Sheranian

Sound Effects Editor

Eugene Shlugleit

Director Of Photography (Night Exterior)

Mark Shostrom

Special Makeup Creation; Special Makeup Designer

Aaron Sims

Special Makeup Effects Unit

Blanche Sindelar

Stunt Performer

Blanche Sindelar

Property Master

Julie Spears

Foley Artist

Scott Spiegel

Screenwriter

Josh Steinberg

Grip

Larry Steinberg

Key Grip

Joseph C Stillman

Production Manager

Tom Sullivan

Animator

Dorothy Tapert

Apprentice Editor

Robert Tapert

Producer

Bryant Tausek

Special Makeup Effects Unit

Dave Thiry

Special Effects Assistant

Dennis J Tini

Music Conductor

Mike Trcic

Special Makeup Effects Unit

Davi Trotti

Production Assistant

Joe Wallikas

Optical Camera Operator

John Walter

Boom Operator

Steve Wang

Sculptor (Dance)

Tam G Warner

Choreography (Animated Dance Sequence)

Brian Wedewer

Sound Effects Editor

Dave West

Sound Rerecording Mixer

Dave West

Sound Editor Supervisor

Mark Bryan Wilson

Foam Fabrication (Tree Branch/Rotten Apple Head)

Joe Winogradoff

1st Assistant Director

Snowy Winters

Other

David Lewis Yewdall

Additional Sound Effects

Film Details

MPAA Rating
Genre
Horror/Science-Fiction
Action
Comedy
Fantasy
Horror
Sequel
Release Date
1987
Production Company
Completion Bond Company Inc; Doug Beswick Productions Inc; Great Northern/ Reiff & Associates (Ny); International Casting Service Pty, Ltd.; Reel People Inc
Distribution Company
Rosebud Releasing Corporation; De Laurentiis Company; Palace Pictures; Vestron Video
Location
Detroit, Michigan, USA; Wadesboro, North Carolina, USA

Technical Specs

Duration
1h 25m

Articles

The Gist (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - THE GIST


With Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987), writer-director Sam Raimi pulled off a typically impossible feat – he made a sequel to a cult movie milestone ("the ultimate experience in grueling terror") that was widely considered to be better than the original. Initially, Raimi had wanted to press on from the exposure afforded him by The Evil Dead (1981) to a sequel that would catapult its benighted protagonist Ash (Bruce Campbell) into the Middle Ages. When moneyman Dino De Laurentiis came aboard (at the behest of Stephen King, then making his own directorial debut with the De Laurentiis-produced Maximum Overdrive[1986]), the power behind the newly minted De Laurentiis Entertainment Group demanded a scenario more in line with that of Raimi's original cult hit. With a budget ten times that of The Evil Dead, Raimi's follow-up has a more aesthetically pleasing look and a host of special effects that pays homage to a score of horror and suspense classics: the canted angles of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), the anthropomorphic trees of The Wizard of Oz (1939), the fruit cellar of Psycho (1960), stop motion animation reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen, the boarded-up windows of Night of the Living Dead (1968), the "blood flood" from The Shining (1980), the rays of light streaming in through a sundered wall from Raising Arizona (1985) and it's anyone's guess whether Ash's perambulating hand was a nod to The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), The Crawling Hand (1963) or Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965).

With Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi took the opportunity to experiment with time cuts, which advance the action one significant piece at a time in the manner of comic book panels. This technique is most pronounced in the now celebrated setpiece in which Ash amputates his stump with the help of nominal heroine Annie Knowby (Sarah Berry), whose father has unwisely unleashed ancient evil upon the world. In addition to the forward momentum gained by telescoping these events, this editing tack brackets the dumb fun (which so often metastasize into full blown surreal slapstick) with an authorial intelligence that was not lost on moviegoers whose enthusiasm turned Evil Dead II into an instant cult classic rated slightly higher than Raimi's gnarly original. Raimi had grown up on the punishing physical comedy of The Three Stooges and the hyperkinetic cartoons of Tex Avery, which bent the physical world to the demands of animated high comedy. In Evil Dead II, Raimi and crew freshen the shopworn formula of inanimate objects coming to an horrific semblance of life (a gimmick driven into the ground with the trifecta successes of The Exorcist [1973], The Omen and Carrie [both 1976]) by making these items (a rocking chair, a gooseneck lamp, a stuffed deer head) not just so much telekinetic flotsam and jetsam but characters in their own right, who taunt Ash in witchy high octaves, pushing him to hysterical, transcendental laughter even while promising he'll be "dead by dawn."

In a 1988 interview with British journalist Jonathan Ross, Sam Raimi projected for himself an inevitable loss of creativity that would come with the assignment of bigger budgeted studio projects. Indeed, as Raimi became the A-list director-for-hire of such popular successes as A Simple Plan (1998), For Love of the Game (1999) and the Billy Bob Thornton-scripted The Gift (2000), the stately, tasteful manner of his craft seemed a betrayal of his salad days as a DIY splatterpunk using Milk Duds to thicken his bathtub ichor. If Raimi had been suspected by his early fan base of having sold out prior to the New Millennium, his helming of Columbia's mega budget Spider-Man franchise from 2002 on was likely the final coffin nail for the faithful. Yet while these summer blockbusters (the final budget of Spider-Man 3 is calculated to have hit $350 million) seem, at least superficially, to be anathema to the hands-on Raimi aesthetic, there is an obvious and reassuring kinship shared by Ash of The Evil Dead canon and Spider-Man's Peter Parker. We meet both characters on the cusp of adulthood and witness their maturation being interrupted by occult forces, supernatural events that change them physically, complicate their love lives and compel both to rise above their fears and physical limitations to become unlikely and initially unwilling heroes. Although Raimi rarely works in full-on horror these days, Ghost House Pictures, the production company he founded with Evil Dead producer Robert G. Tapert, remains a strong brand in the genre with such box office hits as Boogeyman (2005) and The Grudge (2004) and 30 Days of Night (2007).

Producer: Robert G. Tapert
Executive Producers: Alex De Benedetti, Irvin Shapiro
Co-Producer: Bruce Campbell
Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel
Music: Joseph LoDuca
Cinematographer: Peter Deming, Eugene Shlugleit
Editor: Kaye Davis
Art Direction: Randy Bennett, Philip Duffin
Special Effects: Mark Shostrum, Howard Berger, Gregory Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman, Steve Wang
Visual Effects: Doug Beswick, Tom Hitchcock, Bob Kayganich Cast: Bruce Campbell (Ash), Sarah Berry (Annie Knowby), Denise Bixler (Linda), Richard Domeier (Ed), Dan Hicks (Jake), Kassie Wesley (Bobbie Joe), John Peakes (Professor Raymond Knowby), Lou Hancock (Henrietta Knowby), Ted Raimi (Possessed Henrietta), Sam Raimi (Medieval Soldier).
C-85m.

by Richard Harland Smith
The Gist (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - The Gist

The Gist (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - THE GIST

With Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987), writer-director Sam Raimi pulled off a typically impossible feat – he made a sequel to a cult movie milestone ("the ultimate experience in grueling terror") that was widely considered to be better than the original. Initially, Raimi had wanted to press on from the exposure afforded him by The Evil Dead (1981) to a sequel that would catapult its benighted protagonist Ash (Bruce Campbell) into the Middle Ages. When moneyman Dino De Laurentiis came aboard (at the behest of Stephen King, then making his own directorial debut with the De Laurentiis-produced Maximum Overdrive[1986]), the power behind the newly minted De Laurentiis Entertainment Group demanded a scenario more in line with that of Raimi's original cult hit. With a budget ten times that of The Evil Dead, Raimi's follow-up has a more aesthetically pleasing look and a host of special effects that pays homage to a score of horror and suspense classics: the canted angles of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), the anthropomorphic trees of The Wizard of Oz (1939), the fruit cellar of Psycho (1960), stop motion animation reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen, the boarded-up windows of Night of the Living Dead (1968), the "blood flood" from The Shining (1980), the rays of light streaming in through a sundered wall from Raising Arizona (1985) and it's anyone's guess whether Ash's perambulating hand was a nod to The Beast with Five Fingers (1946), The Crawling Hand (1963) or Dr. Terror's House of Horrors (1965). With Evil Dead II, Sam Raimi took the opportunity to experiment with time cuts, which advance the action one significant piece at a time in the manner of comic book panels. This technique is most pronounced in the now celebrated setpiece in which Ash amputates his stump with the help of nominal heroine Annie Knowby (Sarah Berry), whose father has unwisely unleashed ancient evil upon the world. In addition to the forward momentum gained by telescoping these events, this editing tack brackets the dumb fun (which so often metastasize into full blown surreal slapstick) with an authorial intelligence that was not lost on moviegoers whose enthusiasm turned Evil Dead II into an instant cult classic rated slightly higher than Raimi's gnarly original. Raimi had grown up on the punishing physical comedy of The Three Stooges and the hyperkinetic cartoons of Tex Avery, which bent the physical world to the demands of animated high comedy. In Evil Dead II, Raimi and crew freshen the shopworn formula of inanimate objects coming to an horrific semblance of life (a gimmick driven into the ground with the trifecta successes of The Exorcist [1973], The Omen and Carrie [both 1976]) by making these items (a rocking chair, a gooseneck lamp, a stuffed deer head) not just so much telekinetic flotsam and jetsam but characters in their own right, who taunt Ash in witchy high octaves, pushing him to hysterical, transcendental laughter even while promising he'll be "dead by dawn." In a 1988 interview with British journalist Jonathan Ross, Sam Raimi projected for himself an inevitable loss of creativity that would come with the assignment of bigger budgeted studio projects. Indeed, as Raimi became the A-list director-for-hire of such popular successes as A Simple Plan (1998), For Love of the Game (1999) and the Billy Bob Thornton-scripted The Gift (2000), the stately, tasteful manner of his craft seemed a betrayal of his salad days as a DIY splatterpunk using Milk Duds to thicken his bathtub ichor. If Raimi had been suspected by his early fan base of having sold out prior to the New Millennium, his helming of Columbia's mega budget Spider-Man franchise from 2002 on was likely the final coffin nail for the faithful. Yet while these summer blockbusters (the final budget of Spider-Man 3 is calculated to have hit $350 million) seem, at least superficially, to be anathema to the hands-on Raimi aesthetic, there is an obvious and reassuring kinship shared by Ash of The Evil Dead canon and Spider-Man's Peter Parker. We meet both characters on the cusp of adulthood and witness their maturation being interrupted by occult forces, supernatural events that change them physically, complicate their love lives and compel both to rise above their fears and physical limitations to become unlikely and initially unwilling heroes. Although Raimi rarely works in full-on horror these days, Ghost House Pictures, the production company he founded with Evil Dead producer Robert G. Tapert, remains a strong brand in the genre with such box office hits as Boogeyman (2005) and The Grudge (2004) and 30 Days of Night (2007). Producer: Robert G. Tapert Executive Producers: Alex De Benedetti, Irvin Shapiro Co-Producer: Bruce Campbell Director: Sam Raimi Writers: Sam Raimi, Scott Spiegel Music: Joseph LoDuca Cinematographer: Peter Deming, Eugene Shlugleit Editor: Kaye Davis Art Direction: Randy Bennett, Philip Duffin Special Effects: Mark Shostrum, Howard Berger, Gregory Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman, Steve Wang Visual Effects: Doug Beswick, Tom Hitchcock, Bob Kayganich Cast: Bruce Campbell (Ash), Sarah Berry (Annie Knowby), Denise Bixler (Linda), Richard Domeier (Ed), Dan Hicks (Jake), Kassie Wesley (Bobbie Joe), John Peakes (Professor Raymond Knowby), Lou Hancock (Henrietta Knowby), Ted Raimi (Possessed Henrietta), Sam Raimi (Medieval Soldier). C-85m. by Richard Harland Smith

Insider Info (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - BEHIND THE SCENES


Because Sam Raimi did not own the rights to The Evil Dead, he was not allowed to reuse footage from it for the sequel. Ultimately, the decision was made to recreate events from the first film with new actors.

Principal photography on Evil Dead II began on May 10, 1986 and continued through September.

Exterior scenes for Evil Dead II were shot first.

The allocated budget was 3.75 million but the finished film cost $3.6 million.

Evil Dead II cost roughly ten times the budget for The Evil Dead.

Because De Laurentiis wanted to charge Raimi for the use of the DEG Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, the Evil Dead II production shifted to Wadesboro.

Interiors for Evil Dead II were shot inside Wadesboro, North Carolina's J.R. Faison Junior High School.

Rental of the school was $500 a week and the cost of repairing the leaky roof.

The interior cabin set for Evil Dead II was built on two levels, with the cellar actually beneath the main section.

The mantra of the Evil Dead II throughout principal photography was "The gore the merrier."

Raimi had creative differences with original director of photography Eugene D. Shlugleit and replaced him with Peter Deming.

Raimi had wanted housemate Holly Hunter to play the part of Bobbie Jo but the producers insisted on the more conventionally sexy Kassie Wesley.

A Freddy Krueger glove seen hanging in the work shed was a reference to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), which had used a clip from The Evil Dead.

Lentils were used inside the polyurethane and foam rubber body of "Henrietta" to give the sculpture mass and weight.

Sam Raimi's younger brother Ted wore the Henrietta suit in the film, with his scenes filmed at night to keep the actor as cool as possible on a set that could easily reach 110 degrees.

Reshoots for Evil Dead II were done in a warehouse in Dearborn, Michigan.

Three members of the Evil Dead II special effects crew – Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger – later formed the KNB EFX Group.

Because he feared Evil Dead II would be slapped with an X rating for violence, Dino De Laurentiis chose not to distribute the film through DEG but to create a one-shot distribution company, Rosebud Releasing, specifically for the sequel.

The blossoming rose logo for Rosebud Releasing was designed by Sam Raimi with the sound effect of the buzzing fly taken from The Evil Dead.

Evil Dead II was released in March 1987 without a rating.

by Richard Harland Smith

Sources:
The Evil Dead Companion by Bill Warren
If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell
Audio commentary for Evil Dead II by Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Scott Spiegel and Greg Nicotero.

Insider Info (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - BEHIND THE SCENES

Because Sam Raimi did not own the rights to The Evil Dead, he was not allowed to reuse footage from it for the sequel. Ultimately, the decision was made to recreate events from the first film with new actors. Principal photography on Evil Dead II began on May 10, 1986 and continued through September. Exterior scenes for Evil Dead II were shot first. The allocated budget was 3.75 million but the finished film cost $3.6 million. Evil Dead II cost roughly ten times the budget for The Evil Dead. Because De Laurentiis wanted to charge Raimi for the use of the DEG Studios in Wilmington, North Carolina, the Evil Dead II production shifted to Wadesboro. Interiors for Evil Dead II were shot inside Wadesboro, North Carolina's J.R. Faison Junior High School. Rental of the school was $500 a week and the cost of repairing the leaky roof. The interior cabin set for Evil Dead II was built on two levels, with the cellar actually beneath the main section. The mantra of the Evil Dead II throughout principal photography was "The gore the merrier." Raimi had creative differences with original director of photography Eugene D. Shlugleit and replaced him with Peter Deming. Raimi had wanted housemate Holly Hunter to play the part of Bobbie Jo but the producers insisted on the more conventionally sexy Kassie Wesley. A Freddy Krueger glove seen hanging in the work shed was a reference to A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), which had used a clip from The Evil Dead. Lentils were used inside the polyurethane and foam rubber body of "Henrietta" to give the sculpture mass and weight. Sam Raimi's younger brother Ted wore the Henrietta suit in the film, with his scenes filmed at night to keep the actor as cool as possible on a set that could easily reach 110 degrees. Reshoots for Evil Dead II were done in a warehouse in Dearborn, Michigan. Three members of the Evil Dead II special effects crew – Robert Kurtzman, Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger – later formed the KNB EFX Group. Because he feared Evil Dead II would be slapped with an X rating for violence, Dino De Laurentiis chose not to distribute the film through DEG but to create a one-shot distribution company, Rosebud Releasing, specifically for the sequel. The blossoming rose logo for Rosebud Releasing was designed by Sam Raimi with the sound effect of the buzzing fly taken from The Evil Dead. Evil Dead II was released in March 1987 without a rating. by Richard Harland Smith Sources: The Evil Dead Companion by Bill Warren If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell Audio commentary for Evil Dead II by Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Scott Spiegel and Greg Nicotero.

In the Know (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - TRIVIA


Sam Raimi was born on October 23, 1959, in Royal Oak, Michigan, to a father who sold furniture and a mother who ran her own lingerie business.

Raimi's oldest brother, Sander, had been an amateur magician. When Sander died by drowning at the age of fifteen, Raimi took up the study of magic in honor of Sander.

The first movie Sam Raimi remembers seeing was Fantastic Voyage (1966).

As a teenager, Raimi made Super 8 films based on old Three Stooges two-reelers with his friends, among them Bruce Campbell.

Campbell was the star of all of Raimi's amateur films because he was "the good-looking one."

When Raimi was studying literature and history at Michigan State University, he would exhibit his 8mm films at the university cinema and charge attendees $1.50. The abusive feedback from his fellow students taught Raimi a lot about audience expectations.

Raimi and his friends made the Super 8 short Within the Woods to show investors the potential of his screenplay for The Evil Dead.

Making The Evil Dead left the then-21 year old Sam Raimi $40,000 in debt.

Raimi made Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn to repay the investors on the original film.

Peter Deming would go on to lens such popular films as My Cousin Vinny (1992), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and Scream 2 (1997), as well as Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Dr. (2001) for David Lynch.

Deming shot second unit on Sam Raimi's next film, Darkman (1990).

After spending the $125,000 he made filming Evil Dead II, Bruce Campbell worked as a midnight to 8 a.m. security guard at an Anheuser-Bush plant in the San Fernando Valley.

Richard Domeier has, since 1995, been an on-air host for the QVC home shopping corporation.

Campbell's first paying gig post-Evil Dead II was a guest spot on the CBS prime time soap opera Knot's Landing.

Doug Beswick, the stop motion animator who created the dancing of the undead Linda, had been an animator on the old Davey and Goliath show.

by Richard Harland Smith

Sources:
Sam Raimi interview by Alan Jones, Starburst, 1987
If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell
"Hot Coffee and Cold Blood: The Making of The Evil Dead" by Bill Warren, Video Watchdog No. 46, 1998
The Evil Dead Companion by Bill Warren
Sam Raimi interview by Jonathan Ross, The Incredibly Strange Film Show, 1988

In the Know (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - TRIVIA

Sam Raimi was born on October 23, 1959, in Royal Oak, Michigan, to a father who sold furniture and a mother who ran her own lingerie business. Raimi's oldest brother, Sander, had been an amateur magician. When Sander died by drowning at the age of fifteen, Raimi took up the study of magic in honor of Sander. The first movie Sam Raimi remembers seeing was Fantastic Voyage (1966). As a teenager, Raimi made Super 8 films based on old Three Stooges two-reelers with his friends, among them Bruce Campbell. Campbell was the star of all of Raimi's amateur films because he was "the good-looking one." When Raimi was studying literature and history at Michigan State University, he would exhibit his 8mm films at the university cinema and charge attendees $1.50. The abusive feedback from his fellow students taught Raimi a lot about audience expectations. Raimi and his friends made the Super 8 short Within the Woods to show investors the potential of his screenplay for The Evil Dead. Making The Evil Dead left the then-21 year old Sam Raimi $40,000 in debt. Raimi made Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn to repay the investors on the original film. Peter Deming would go on to lens such popular films as My Cousin Vinny (1992), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997) and Scream 2 (1997), as well as Lost Highway (1997) and Mulholland Dr. (2001) for David Lynch. Deming shot second unit on Sam Raimi's next film, Darkman (1990). After spending the $125,000 he made filming Evil Dead II, Bruce Campbell worked as a midnight to 8 a.m. security guard at an Anheuser-Bush plant in the San Fernando Valley. Richard Domeier has, since 1995, been an on-air host for the QVC home shopping corporation. Campbell's first paying gig post-Evil Dead II was a guest spot on the CBS prime time soap opera Knot's Landing. Doug Beswick, the stop motion animator who created the dancing of the undead Linda, had been an animator on the old Davey and Goliath show. by Richard Harland Smith Sources: Sam Raimi interview by Alan Jones, Starburst, 1987 If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor by Bruce Campbell "Hot Coffee and Cold Blood: The Making of The Evil Dead" by Bill Warren, Video Watchdog No. 46, 1998 The Evil Dead Companion by Bill Warren Sam Raimi interview by Jonathan Ross, The Incredibly Strange Film Show, 1988

Yea or Nay (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - CRITIC REVIEWS OF "EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN"


"It looks superficially like a routine horror movie, a vomitorium designed to separate callow teenagers from their lunch. But look a little closer and you'll realize that the movie is a fairly sophisticated satire. Level One viewers will say it's in bad taste. Level Two folks like myself will perceive that it is about bad taste."
- Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times

"...a flashy good-natured display of special effects and scare tactics so extreme they can only be taken for laughs."
- Variety

"If The Evil Dead shifts the horror film into overdrive, then Evil Dead II puts its foot through the floor and goes insane."
- Kim Newman, Nightmare Movies

"One of the few sequels that's actually better than the original, a Spam-in-a-cabin zombie classic that scores a 99 on the Vomit Meter and sets the world record for blood-and-slime spewing."
- Joe Bob Briggs, Joe Bob's Ultimate Movie Guide

"Director Sam Raimi strikes again with this manic, and very funny, sequel to his stunningly inventive 1981 low-budget fever dream, The Evil Dead. As in the first film, Raimi lets out all the stops and plays every cinematic trick in the book. Instead of "Dead by Dawn," the subtitle of this film should be "Help! There's a Camera Chasing Me!"
- The Horror Film edited by James J. Mulay

"After the humour-laced horror of The Evil Dead, this adopts the crazy, cartoonish tone of Raimi's underrated Crimewave (1985) and goes for belly laughs. The film is especially well served by Campbell's gutsy performance as he goes from quivering wreck to functioning psychopath..."
- The Aurum Encyclopedia of Film: Horror, edited by Phil Hardy

"Whereas The Evil Dead was a ferocious gross-out movie, Evil Dead II emerges with a lunatically demented comic genius – it's somewhere on the order of George Romero collaborating with cartoonist Tex Avery... It's so outrageously over-the-top that it attains a level of dizzying surrealism. Here blood doesn't just spurt, it gushes like a broken fire-hydrant..."
- Richard Scheib, The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review

"... the dialogue is minimal, the maniacal laughter track is set at full-blast, special effects create such novelties as dancing skeletons in the moonlight, the sound effects are spine-chilling, the pacing is breathless, the frenzied camera is always in play, the editing is quick-cut, the extreme gore is equivalent to a horror film funhouse of surrealistic images..."
- Dennis Schwartz, Ozus's World Movie Reviews

"Stylistically and technically, the film is a quantum leap beyond its predecessor... is a wonderfully imaginative hybrid, consisting of Gothic elements (e.g., the isolated haunted house), splatterpunk (before it had a name), Lovecraftian demonology, European psychodrama, horror film spoofs, and-perhaps most importantly - Three Stooges slapstick comedy. The film's peculiar strength... is that it is so difficult to pigeonhole."
- Sam & Rebecca Umland, Video Watchdog

"Raimi's resourceful restlessness ultimately pushes the movie beyond gooey genre pastiche and into uniquely absurd farce."
- Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine "Showcasing Raimi's love for the likes of the Three Stooges and MAD magazine and the Keaton-esque comic skills of Bruce Campbell, there is still oodles of gore, but the flying eyeballs and lopped-off appendages serve as the functional equivalents of custard pies and buckets of whitewash rather than anything psychologically retrograde...The Evil Dead II is the sort of film which it is really impossible to describe or summarise. You simply have to come along and experience it for yourself.
- Keith H. Brown, Edinburgh University Film Society

"There are lots of similar bits scattered through the movie, including a wild Ray Harryhausen skeleton dance, a particularly nasty dismembered head, flying eyeballs, animated furniture and clever digs at films as disparate as The Wizard of Oz [1939],Little Shop of Horrors [1960],Rambo [1982],Aliens [1986] and Altered States [1980]...The acting is straight out of '50s B movies. The exposition is clumsy, the sound track corny, the denouement silly. Then again, who said bad taste was easy?"
- Richard Harrington, The Washington Post

"This is so stylishly, hysterically overdone that it stands out as a first-rate comedy gore flick...The overacting finds acceptability within the gushing blood (sometimes green, sometimes red), the flesh-destroying effects, and the wide-angle lens shots that are, well, "groovy.""
- John Stanley, Creature Features

Yea or Nay (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - CRITIC REVIEWS OF "EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN"

"It looks superficially like a routine horror movie, a vomitorium designed to separate callow teenagers from their lunch. But look a little closer and you'll realize that the movie is a fairly sophisticated satire. Level One viewers will say it's in bad taste. Level Two folks like myself will perceive that it is about bad taste." - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun Times "...a flashy good-natured display of special effects and scare tactics so extreme they can only be taken for laughs." - Variety "If The Evil Dead shifts the horror film into overdrive, then Evil Dead II puts its foot through the floor and goes insane." - Kim Newman, Nightmare Movies "One of the few sequels that's actually better than the original, a Spam-in-a-cabin zombie classic that scores a 99 on the Vomit Meter and sets the world record for blood-and-slime spewing." - Joe Bob Briggs, Joe Bob's Ultimate Movie Guide "Director Sam Raimi strikes again with this manic, and very funny, sequel to his stunningly inventive 1981 low-budget fever dream, The Evil Dead. As in the first film, Raimi lets out all the stops and plays every cinematic trick in the book. Instead of "Dead by Dawn," the subtitle of this film should be "Help! There's a Camera Chasing Me!" - The Horror Film edited by James J. Mulay "After the humour-laced horror of The Evil Dead, this adopts the crazy, cartoonish tone of Raimi's underrated Crimewave (1985) and goes for belly laughs. The film is especially well served by Campbell's gutsy performance as he goes from quivering wreck to functioning psychopath..." - The Aurum Encyclopedia of Film: Horror, edited by Phil Hardy "Whereas The Evil Dead was a ferocious gross-out movie, Evil Dead II emerges with a lunatically demented comic genius – it's somewhere on the order of George Romero collaborating with cartoonist Tex Avery... It's so outrageously over-the-top that it attains a level of dizzying surrealism. Here blood doesn't just spurt, it gushes like a broken fire-hydrant..." - Richard Scheib, The Science Fiction, Horror and Fantasy Film Review "... the dialogue is minimal, the maniacal laughter track is set at full-blast, special effects create such novelties as dancing skeletons in the moonlight, the sound effects are spine-chilling, the pacing is breathless, the frenzied camera is always in play, the editing is quick-cut, the extreme gore is equivalent to a horror film funhouse of surrealistic images..." - Dennis Schwartz, Ozus's World Movie Reviews "Stylistically and technically, the film is a quantum leap beyond its predecessor... is a wonderfully imaginative hybrid, consisting of Gothic elements (e.g., the isolated haunted house), splatterpunk (before it had a name), Lovecraftian demonology, European psychodrama, horror film spoofs, and-perhaps most importantly - Three Stooges slapstick comedy. The film's peculiar strength... is that it is so difficult to pigeonhole." - Sam & Rebecca Umland, Video Watchdog "Raimi's resourceful restlessness ultimately pushes the movie beyond gooey genre pastiche and into uniquely absurd farce." - Fernando F. Croce, Slant Magazine "Showcasing Raimi's love for the likes of the Three Stooges and MAD magazine and the Keaton-esque comic skills of Bruce Campbell, there is still oodles of gore, but the flying eyeballs and lopped-off appendages serve as the functional equivalents of custard pies and buckets of whitewash rather than anything psychologically retrograde...The Evil Dead II is the sort of film which it is really impossible to describe or summarise. You simply have to come along and experience it for yourself. - Keith H. Brown, Edinburgh University Film Society "There are lots of similar bits scattered through the movie, including a wild Ray Harryhausen skeleton dance, a particularly nasty dismembered head, flying eyeballs, animated furniture and clever digs at films as disparate as The Wizard of Oz [1939],Little Shop of Horrors [1960],Rambo [1982],Aliens [1986] and Altered States [1980]...The acting is straight out of '50s B movies. The exposition is clumsy, the sound track corny, the denouement silly. Then again, who said bad taste was easy?" - Richard Harrington, The Washington Post "This is so stylishly, hysterically overdone that it stands out as a first-rate comedy gore flick...The overacting finds acceptability within the gushing blood (sometimes green, sometimes red), the flesh-destroying effects, and the wide-angle lens shots that are, well, "groovy."" - John Stanley, Creature Features

Quote It (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - QUOTES FROM "EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN"


PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY'S VOICE (John Peakes): "Legend has it that it was written by the Dark Ones – Necronomicon Ex Mortis. Roughly translated, Book of the Dead. The book served as a passage to the evil worlds beyond. It was written long ago when the seas ran red with blood. It was this blood that was used to ink the book. In the year 1300 A.D. the book disappeared."

ASH (Bruce Campbell): "Hey, whaddya say we have some champagne, eh baby, huh?"
LINDA (Denise Bixler): "Sure."
ASH: "After all, I'm a man and you're a woman. 'Least, last time I checked."

ED GETLEY (Richard Domeier): "Annie, you hinted in your telegram that your father was on to something with the first part of the translation. What has he found in The Book of the Dead?"
ANNIE KNOWBY (Sarah Berry): "Probably nothing. But just possibly... the doorway to another world."

POSSESSED LINDA: "Dance with me, ah hahahahaha!"

ASH: "Work shed!"

EVIL LINDA: "Even now we have your darling Linda's soul. She suffers now in torment!" ASH: "You're goin' down!"

EVIL ASH: "We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound 'fine'?"

ASH: "You bastards... you dirty bastards. Give me back my hand. Give me back my ha-ha-hannnnddddd..."

ASH: "That's right... who's laughing now... WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!"

ASH: "Me and ol' double-barrel here'll blow your butts to Kingdom Come! See if we don't!"

PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY'S VOICE: "It's only been a few hours since I've translated and spoken aloud the first of the demon resurrection passages from the Book of the Dead."
ANNIE: "Shh. Listen up. This is my father's voice."
PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY'S VOICE: "And now I fear that my wife has become host to a Kandarian demon. May God forgive me for what I have unleashed onto this earth. Last night Henrietta tried to... kill me."
ANNIE: "No."
PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY'S VOICE: "It's now October 1st, four thirty-three p.m. Henrietta is dead. I could not bring myself to dismember her corpse... but I dragged her down the steps and I buried her. I buried her in the cellar. God help me, I buried her in the earthen floor of the fruit cellar."

POSSESSED HENRIETTA (Ted Raimi): "Someone's in my fruit cellar! Someone with a fresh soul!"

POSSESSED HENRIETTA: "I'll swallow your soul!"

ASH: "There's something out there. That... that witch in the cellar is only part of it. It lives out in those woods. In the dark. Something... something that's come back from the dead."

POSSESSED ED: "We are the things that were and shall be again! Spirits of the book. We want what is yours... life! Dead by dawn, dead by dawn!"

JAKE (Dan Hicks): "That's funny."
BOBBIE JO (Kassie Wesley): "What?"
JAKE: "That trail we came in here on.. well, it just ain't there no more. Like... like the woods just swallowed 'er up."

BOBBIE JO: "He's in there."
ASH: "We'll all go in together."
JAKE: "Hell no. You're the curious one."

PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY: "Recite the passages... dispel the evil... save my soul!"

BOBBIE JO: "Jake... you're holdin' my hand too tight."
JAKE: "Baby, I ain't holdin' your hand."

JAKE: "Your pages don't mean squat!"

ASH: "Groovy."

ANNIE (reading): "Nosferatus... alememnon... kanda..."

KNIGHT (Sam Raimi): "Hail he who has come from the skies to deliver us from the terrors of the Deadites!"

Quote It (Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn) - QUOTES FROM "EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN"

PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY'S VOICE (John Peakes): "Legend has it that it was written by the Dark Ones – Necronomicon Ex Mortis. Roughly translated, Book of the Dead. The book served as a passage to the evil worlds beyond. It was written long ago when the seas ran red with blood. It was this blood that was used to ink the book. In the year 1300 A.D. the book disappeared." ASH (Bruce Campbell): "Hey, whaddya say we have some champagne, eh baby, huh?" LINDA (Denise Bixler): "Sure." ASH: "After all, I'm a man and you're a woman. 'Least, last time I checked." ED GETLEY (Richard Domeier): "Annie, you hinted in your telegram that your father was on to something with the first part of the translation. What has he found in The Book of the Dead?" ANNIE KNOWBY (Sarah Berry): "Probably nothing. But just possibly... the doorway to another world." POSSESSED LINDA: "Dance with me, ah hahahahaha!" ASH: "Work shed!" EVIL LINDA: "Even now we have your darling Linda's soul. She suffers now in torment!" ASH: "You're goin' down!" EVIL ASH: "We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound 'fine'?" ASH: "You bastards... you dirty bastards. Give me back my hand. Give me back my ha-ha-hannnnddddd..." ASH: "That's right... who's laughing now... WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!" ASH: "Me and ol' double-barrel here'll blow your butts to Kingdom Come! See if we don't!" PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY'S VOICE: "It's only been a few hours since I've translated and spoken aloud the first of the demon resurrection passages from the Book of the Dead." ANNIE: "Shh. Listen up. This is my father's voice." PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY'S VOICE: "And now I fear that my wife has become host to a Kandarian demon. May God forgive me for what I have unleashed onto this earth. Last night Henrietta tried to... kill me." ANNIE: "No." PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY'S VOICE: "It's now October 1st, four thirty-three p.m. Henrietta is dead. I could not bring myself to dismember her corpse... but I dragged her down the steps and I buried her. I buried her in the cellar. God help me, I buried her in the earthen floor of the fruit cellar." POSSESSED HENRIETTA (Ted Raimi): "Someone's in my fruit cellar! Someone with a fresh soul!" POSSESSED HENRIETTA: "I'll swallow your soul!" ASH: "There's something out there. That... that witch in the cellar is only part of it. It lives out in those woods. In the dark. Something... something that's come back from the dead." POSSESSED ED: "We are the things that were and shall be again! Spirits of the book. We want what is yours... life! Dead by dawn, dead by dawn!" JAKE (Dan Hicks): "That's funny." BOBBIE JO (Kassie Wesley): "What?" JAKE: "That trail we came in here on.. well, it just ain't there no more. Like... like the woods just swallowed 'er up." BOBBIE JO: "He's in there." ASH: "We'll all go in together." JAKE: "Hell no. You're the curious one." PROFESSOR RAYMOND KNOWBY: "Recite the passages... dispel the evil... save my soul!" BOBBIE JO: "Jake... you're holdin' my hand too tight." JAKE: "Baby, I ain't holdin' your hand." JAKE: "Your pages don't mean squat!" ASH: "Groovy." ANNIE (reading): "Nosferatus... alememnon... kanda..." KNIGHT (Sam Raimi): "Hail he who has come from the skies to deliver us from the terrors of the Deadites!"

Quotes

Trivia

Miscellaneous Notes

Released in United States Spring March 13, 1987

Released in United States on Video September 1987

Began shooting May 19, 1986.

Released in United States Spring March 13, 1987

Released in United States on Video September 1987