(upbeat music) - Welcome to Rise Smile Films, the film review podcast that mixes cinema with fine spirits. Journey with us as we encounter new, old, and strange films with the occasional dabble into sports and music. Proceed with caution as these podcasts feature spoilers and some mature language. This is Matt, and this is Jesse. - Today on TAP, we have the Evil Dead, starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManticore, Betsy Baker, and Teresa Tilly, written and directed by Sam Raimi. I'm just too excited to talk about the Evil Dead. I don't even know what to say anymore. - Yeah, took us three times to get through the intro. - Yeah, the intro that's been done 250 plus times, so welcome back to Rise Smile Films, everyone. Today, we're starting a new film review cast, and, you know, throughout the show's history, I mean, we've tackled some like big horror films, The Shining, The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw, Halloween One, Friday One, Nightmare One, Suspiria, I mean, foreign stuff, American World from London, so we kind of thought, you know, now to get into the swing of things with the fall season spooky time, to do the horror heavy hitters that we've somehow have missed. And this isn't even a comprehensive list. I think we came up with this list a few times over, and there's still a ton that are like, well, we gotta talk about that one, gotta talk about that one, but-- - 15 film cast. - Yeah, so a three film cast of just some heavy hitting, like big name horror films that we've yet to talk about that we definitely need to talk about, right? - Yeah. - And coming first, I mean, I should have pushed this movie, cast number two on the show, but we've gotten better at this, so this is gonna be fun that we saved this one more timely. From 1981, The Evil Dead. So not Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Evil Dead Rise, but The Evil Dead. One of the great all time filmmaking stories, the story of Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, Rob Tapper, these Michigan boys who had a dream, sought that dream out, and when and made this little movie in the woods for next to nothing, and it became what it became. And what I like to tell myself in the day is like, this somehow led to Spider-Man in a weird, strange way. - True. - This led the groundwork, but I got two coopiest amounts of notes, the story on the making of this is gonna be so fascinating to tell to you, to tell to the audience of just how we got here. But man, I'm excited to talk about The Evil Dead. What was the last time you've seen this? - Hmm. This is the fourth time I've seen it, so I think it was about six or seven years ago. I think I burned a Saturday night, just couldn't fall asleep, and so I watched it. - It's been a little while, how about you? - Oh, this is a yearly watch. - Do you watch once a year? - Or maybe multiple times a year? This is one of the few movies, I think, on the show that I could come in blind, not having done the watch, and still come in and would have... - That makes a beat. - Two hours to talk about stuff with you. But I can't say that about most films, but I did, maybe let me do this now, because a few weeks ago when we did The Shadow, we talked about our favorite rental stories, and I left this one off on purpose, 'cause I knew this was in the hopper for us to talk about, so this story of my road to get here is from, I think, a fantastic, and I think you can find the whole thing on YouTube, which was the Bravo channel. In 2003, 2004 did the 100 scariest movie moments. I'm sure you remember that. I loved that show. That was my gateway to a lot of things, like demons, this, cat people. I was like, what's that movie, so? But there was something about the evil and the way they talked about it, so notoriously and gratuitous. I was like, I gotta check that out. And I dare, I think this might have been the last VHS tape that I rented. So we went to the video store. They had like three different versions of the VHS tape. Picked it up, took it back home, and I'll mention the moment later in the podcast where I was like, oh my God, I don't think I can watch this movie. It really spun me out and disturbed me. And a lot of that's the audio and the way these demons talk it, it felt like exorcists speak to me. And I hadn't really dabbled too extremely yet. So I'll be honest, I kind of had to fast forward through most of the movies to just finish it out. But there was something about it where I was like, I'm not gonna give up on this. Let me show some friends what this is. So put it in my backpack. I think this is like freshman, eighth grade or somewhere around that time. Went to a friend's house afterwards, I was like, guys, I got a tape. I just got to show it to you. So I showed it to two buddies and phew, man. I spun them out of just like, we watched it on a little like 12 inch TV with the VCR combo. With the tracking was all messed up. The sound was distorted. It was a horrible, just like AV experience. But seeing them react to this thing that like obviously impacted me, Evil Dead has been the gift that keeps on giving. So I was able to stomach through that viewing, became a huge fan of, I was like, well, what about that Evil Dead two over there? Saw that, saw Army of Darkness. You know, I've been a fan ever since. And then kind of later, I was like, that's the guy that made the Spider-Man movie. It's what? How? Yeah. What a weird strange journey to get there. But when you watch this movie and then you watch Spider-Man, you see it. You can see it. You see the craft, the work, the camera, the ingenuity, the kind of slapsticky comic book nature of the Evil Dead is transplanted right into Spider-Man. The only difference is $90,000, $100 million budget, right? So yeah, I knew this would be, you know, a fun one to talk about. I think there's a lot of just personal history here, but then the movie itself is a wild little ride, right? That's for sure. And I think you and I, and then you and I have some personal history because one of my favorite all-time movie-going experiences is when you and I rolled up to the Evil Dead remake, opening night, sold out, and man, I was not in a good place with remakes up to that point. I was really troubled by the Rob Zombie stuff and the Jackie Earl Haley nightmare. Like they were all very piss poor. And I was like, man, you're doing Evil Dead. I mean, the sacred film of mine. You better like let loose and oh my God, does that film just like let the audience have it in all the best ways? I mean, what a fantastic viewing. And everyone was just like on pins and needles watching that movie. So having that just experience between us. - Two's coming pretty soon. So it'll be curious to see how it plays with number two. But you know, honestly my first exposure to this film in any way other than as a youngster walking through the video store and seeing that awesome cover on the shelf with that skeletal face visage behind in front of that black backdrop was in high fidelity. - The movie high fidelity. - 'Cause it's spoken about at some length in that film when it's used as a way to measure if John Cusack's girlfriend is going to have sex with the new boyfriend or not. If I said to you, I haven't seen Evil Dead yet. Evil Dead yet, what would you think, right? - Yeah. - Well, you haven't put you in your bubble, but whole thing. That turned me onto it and I was aware of it. And my first viewing was one at much older than when you first watched it, uncomfortably. And the main part of that that really started to spin me out was, I don't know if I'm supposed to be laughing or shrieking or recoiling or turtling in horror because there are moments where you can do both from one shot to the next. And then there's a couple of other kind of think piece moments in the film that really I think take you on an interesting ride with a micro budget. - Yeah. - I wouldn't exactly say a super, super well developed concept, it's basically the book of the dead takes its revenge on people in a cabin. Which fine, good, it can be simple, simple, nice. - Very simple, yeah. - But it was an interesting ride and I think the, we talked about it at this show, just how wet and gruesome this film is. - Yeah. - I think it leans into the overall lasting images that the remake of Evil Dead I think did in a harder, edgier, - Yeah, non-funny way. - Not funny way and was not nearly as good at experience 'cause this is a once in a life or kind of film. - Sure. - But back to the original point, certainly left, at least you and I in the theater. - I was a happy camper. - Yeah. - Very, very pleased. - Absolutely. - So yeah, this is gonna be a great show. - Absolutely, so some more of the Clyde Mayes, your consolation bottle. - It's proven a good pick, so. - Well better than the crow. - Better, have you seen it yet? - No. - I'll wait till that dumps on Hulu. - Maybe passing for some more, maybe my next life, maybe never. - Probably watch crow's salvation before you watch that one. - I didn't tell you this, but the weekend we did the crow, so what, four weeks ago, was at the mall that weekend, which place I never go to. - Yeah. - And I ran across this guy at Antianney's The Pretzel Joint that had on a hangman's joke t-shirt. - Oh, the band? - Yeah. And I was like, man, that's a really cool shirt and I think he was just happy that I recognized where it came from and we had a pretty in-depth discussion about the crow then, our crow. - That's awesome. - And the new one. And he said the crow was his favorite film ever. - '94 crow. - Ever, it has its fans. - Wow. - I've discovered that, I mean, like I told you, when we did that, I was like, new crow's in trouble because A, that's a good movie. B, I think it has a bigger following than people give it credit for. - Yeah. - And grow up in the right time? Yeah, I could see someone latchin' on like, yeah, this is my thing. - And so we talked about the new one a little bit and he said there were four or five moments that he really liked, but the rest of it was pretty forgettable. - I don't know if I'm gonna sit for two hours for four or five moments, right? - Yeah, it's tough, yeah, I know. But hey, we got a ton to talk about today. Let's get started with our flight question. (gentle music) (gentle music) - All righty, in honor of Mr. Bruce Campbell's Ashley Ash J. Williams, pretty iconic character in the horse space. I can't wait to talk about this version because what a doof for most of the movie. But I think that's the point. But going from that to the chainsaw, boomstick, Wilden, hero in medieval times in present day, I mean, people get him. Part of that is Bruce Campbell's just natural B-movie charisma. So I thought it might be fun. We've never done this question before. And you know, the horse base is dominated by a lot of really fantastic female characters performances. But there's a lot of really great male characters too. So now that we're in the Ash space, your top three favorite male characters in horror films can be villain, side character, the hero, final boy, whatever you want. - That's what I was gonna get to. Did you find yourself leaning into the heroes? 'Cause I found the villains making a rather large appearance for me on this list. - A little bit, a little bit. - Yeah, I think I did stick mostly in the hero space. - Yeah, I sort of forced myself to kind of emulate the Bruce Campbell Ash character, but the first one is not. So these are not in any particular order, but sort of in an order today. - Okay. - Checking in at number three for me, from a movie that I've used before for another character, this one is, and it could also appear on this list, but I've already used them, so I'm not gonna do it. It's not Peter Vincent this time. Instead, it's Mr. Christopher's surrounding as Jerry Dandridge, the excellent, lethario-like vampire that lives across the street, who's after your mama. - Yeah. - In "Fright Night." - I love it. I just recently went to California for a wedding, and I was trying to find a plane movie that's like two hours-ish, enough to get me there, and I picked "Fright Night" this time. Man, what a great plane watch that was, and I didn't even care if people were looking around at me and were like, "Look at that disgusting movie "that guy is watching." But man, Jerry Dandridge rolling up to that club in that cable-knit sweater. - Oh, don't you love it? - It's so cheesy, but so badass. - Yeah. - And then just takes over the dance floor? - Yeah, yeah, I love Jerry Dandridge. - Such a good, bad guy. - Mm-hmm. - And kind of just, you're just normal, right? I mean, there's nothing like, other than being like, a vampire, he doesn't have like any other crazy other powers. He's just a guy living next door. - Do you ever think that that part could have been aptly and equally played by Jeff Goldblum? - Sure. - Can't you kind of see it? - Yeah, there's a lot of Seth Brundle, Jerry Dandridge similarities. - Yeah. - It's a great choice, it's... So let's stay in this "Fright Night" space. - Okay, let's- - 'Cause I won't pick Jerry Dandridge, and I won't pick Van Helsing, but I will pick Peter Vincent, Roddy McDowell, and you know, this latest re-watching, go back and we did that episode two years ago. - She saw. - Fantastic episode and movie, but I just like how timid little meek Roddy McDowell is, and then just tasked to van up and just be like, I gotta deal with this, I'm this has been actor, I don't even believe in vampires, and that's shot of, he just had killed evil, the dog evil, and then walks back to Jerry's place, and the house is just oozing fog, and there's this look on his face of like, fuck. Oh, fuck. And then just marches up in there, and I'm like, yeah, let's go Peter Vincent. And in a real space, I mean, that old man's got no chance against those vampires, but the movie makes me believe that they're a formidable duo, him and Charlie. - Yeah. - Give some consideration to Charlie Brewster, I think he's a pretty interesting protagonist from the '80s, right? - Yeah. - But I can't deny Roddy McDowell. - That movie is funny that that came up twice for us today. It's been on my mind a little bit, and as I was watching it, no, probably two or three months ago, and I can't think I may go home and watch it again tonight, just 'cause it feels like a time to watch this film. - Sure. - You've seen "Once Bitten." Jim Carrey. Lauren Hutton. I've often wondered if Charlie Brewster would have been better played by that Jim Carrey. - Like '85 Jim Carrey? - Yeah, I can see it. - Not Mask, not Ace Ventura, Jim Carrey. A little bit more restrained, but there's moments, and "Once Bitten" again, I haven't seen that in some time. - That's good. - I bet I'd enjoy it. - Yeah. - Yeah. - Great choice. - Get off my buttons. - Lauren Hutton. - Yeah, Lauren Hutton. Amanda Beers. No, that's right, Nate. - No, the girl that has been in a few things before, that was an HBO, that thing was on-- - HBO. - HBO all the time. - All the time. - Yeah, great choice. - Number two. - Number two. - I wonder if this is gonna appear on both of our lists. A movie that we've also covered on this show. - Heavy, heavy, heavy hitter. How can you not pick Jason Miller as father Damian Carris? - Damian. - Man. I think, and I don't wanna do the whole thing again, so we did a whole episode on that, but what really kind of takes me to a place of interest with that is he seems like the most unlikely man of the cloth, other than Travolta's brother and Saturday night fever. - And they kinda, and those-- - And they look similar. - Those actors are like the same guy. - Aren't they? - So maybe in a space where plugging one actor for the other didn't show today, but Father Carris is so sacrificial from the moment he steps into that, and you can just tell, he's very, very poorly equipped, and we find out at the end that that in fact is the case, but I think it's excellently delivered and there is a stoicism that naturally I think you have to tap into if you're gonna be a father that carries on in that manner. What are you armed with other than an ancient, ancient book, as we talk about our film today, and words that go around ancient scripture to take on a living embodiment that is all powerful and strength and all knowing, you are wildly outclassed. - And what's interesting about his character, I mean in a film that is very absentee father for Reagan McNeil, he kind of takes on that role as a little father, right? - Yeah. - And yeah, protector, guardian. - Great choice. - Great choice. - Yeah, you could have gone with Carris, you could have gone with Merrin, Max Voncito. - Yeah. - Fantastic. My number two, another heavy hitter we have not talked about, but I think it was in the conversation in the chamber, but I'm going all the way to scream and I'm going to Randy Meakes, Mr. Jamie Kennedy, for my number two. - Yep, primarily because I think there's a lot of Randy Meakes in me. - Indeed. - Just moving her, horn her, if I could have worked at a video store, I would have the guy at the party who just wants to watch Halloween. That would be me. Let me tell you guys the rules on how this shit really goes down. And I think, I mean, Jamie Kennedy's career is completely wild and just a little too zany for my take, the Jamie Kennedy experiment and whatever. But that role, I mean, he was perfect for and the biggest disservice that series ever did. I'm spoiler for a 20 year old movie was killing him halfway through the second movie. Huge mistake. 'Cause he was like, everyone really liked him. So I think that was a bit of a miss and I think it's such an impactful character that the scream franchise with Hayden Paneteer in the fourth one. And then, oh gosh, her name's not Kirby, what's her name? There's a new character in the latter two, I'll look it up. They're essentially the new Randy's, both of them, the movie geek that's going to use that knowledge to take down the bad guy, Mindy's her name. - Yeah. - And she's the niece of Jamie Kennedy's character in those films. So that's my number two. We haven't talked a lot of scream on the show, but it's kind of a hugely important movie, not only for like the Gen X of it all, but the Wes Craven of it all. And essentially bringing the slasher back from the dead. But a lot of that's the great casting in that movie. Nef Campbell, David Arquette, Jamie Kennedy, Rose McGowan, Matthew Lillard, Skeetle Ridge. I mean, it's a fantastic cast in that movie. - Indeed, great choice. Number one's a movie we have covered before, and this is the bad guy. Number one on this list for me today. Mr. Sam Neal as Dr. William Weir in Event Horizon. - Oh, nice. - It does not get any creepier for me than him in that film. - Last October. - Yeah, we've seen the Dr. Gone bad before, and we've talked about it plenty, whether it's Frankenstein or Alien, and I mean, it's a doctor, but the robot doctor. - Yeah. - We haven't necessarily seen the doctor who is the essence of all things medical and survival turning on his own cast. Man. Sam Neal is one of those actors that, with the exception of the latter entries into maybe Jurassic Park, maybe like the last five, seven years, has a really strong slate of films. - Sure, sure. - That mostly goes unrecognized. His name doesn't come up much, and I'm not putting him in the, you know. - The plot range. - Yeah, plot range, conversation, not there. But Sam Neal has carved out a fantastic career playing a lot of different roles from comedy to horror, and it just, I don't think ever quite got appreciated the way that it should have. Like, as good as he is in Jurassic Park, everyone's overshadowed by dinosaurs. So, not today though. - Yeah. - Sam Neal, you get my tip of the cap for my favorite male lead in any horror film. - Today. - Today, yeah. - Great choice. I've been a Sam Neal fan for a long, but just completely underappreciated. There's a movie I wanna do one of these days on the show. It's called Possession. It's 1981 to Tim Isabelle, Anjani, and it is, whoo, it is a movie. It is wild, it'll spin you out. It's one of those like, weird horror movies that I could show you. But, I mean, look at "Omen 3", the final conflict. Adult Damien, he's great as that. He was in a type of a TT movie a few years ago called "The Hunt for the Wilder People", which is fantastic. Great career, but "A Ven Horizon" is a moment. And, hey man, I still want that director's cut of that movie. I can use more "A Ven Horizon" in my life, me too. My number one, two day. So many great people I left off the list. I could've gone 10, 15, 20 deep. I mean, I don't have a "Vin Helsing" on here. I kind of, I do, but not like a Peter Cushing. Not a Michael Myers or a Loomis, but another heavy hitter. We'll get to it one day. Mr. R.G. McCready from the thing. Primarily because I can really relate to this character because, you know, I would rather, you not have to deal with everyone else's bullshit. I just want to go up to my shack, get drunk, and then what happens when I'm thrust into a leadership position, I gotta deal with it somehow now. But he's terrific. One of the great on-screen beards ever, his taco hat. But the way he just commands that scene, this all male cast, everyone's turning against each other and he just kind of takes the forefront. He's terrific in that movie as just, you know, the central piece surrounded with a bunch of character actors. The thing isn't the thing without Kurt Russell and it's one of his finest movies, but one of the great all-time film characters, not even horror, great characters all around. - That's a really, really great first selection in this. I didn't even consider him. That's an awesome choice. What a nice list we came up with there. How long is our thing episode gonna be in that? Is that a three-hour episode? - For sure. There's too many things to talk about, but yeah, I think a lot of movies we have talked about so go back and listen to those old episodes. I think there's like those heavy hitters we've done. I mean, whenever we do a horror film, we spend a lot of time talking about the making of it because how these films get made is entirely fascinating to me. But then thematically, I mean, Deadpool and Wolverine, you and I can talk at length about the geekiness of it all. But like thematically, I mean, it's simple compared to some of the stuff in here. I mean, when you start looking at like, well, what's the significance of that? Why is that wet? Why is this that way? Why do they make that noise? Why smell any Daniel screaming in that way in the birds, right? You can really pick apart these things. And I think any horror movie on this podcast is always a good listen. Talk to death. - Yeah. - Indeed. - Exactly. - So it is, good job. - You too. So let's get right to the meat of this. Let's get to our review breakdown of the evil dead. (dramatic music) - Hey, Hash, where are we? - Well, we just crossed the Tennessee border. (dramatic music) - Which would put us? - Yeah. - Which would put us? (dramatic music) Right. Here. (dramatic music) - What the hell was that? Are you trying to kill us? - They don't blame me. It's just steering wheel. Damn thing jerked right out of my hand. You understand that I had this thing in for two and up yesterday and they said they'd go over everything. - Yeah, well, you better take it back 'cause the damn thing don't work. The only thing that does work is it's lousy horn. (dramatic music) - I'll go to hell, I'm not hocking at you. Jesus Christ. - Hey Scotty, what's this place like anyway? - Well, the guy that's written it says it's an old place. A little rundown, but it's right up in the mountains. And the best part is we get it so cheap. - Yeah, why are we getting it so cheap? - Well, I don't know. Might be in real bad shape. - You mean nobody's seen this place yet? - Well, not yet. What might not be that bad? - No. - Actually, it might be kinda nice. - Yeah, it's probably a real pet. - A lot of red flags right there. Cheap house, no one's seen it. This is kinda like Airbnb, like, you know, the pictures look good, but then you realize it's in like the worst neighborhood in the town, right? - Yeah. - You're like, what are we in for? Well, let's start at the very beginning, the beginning, opening credits, boom. And this camera just floating across this lagoon, or whatever. - Swamp. - Yes, swamp. I'm impressed from the word go. Maybe not in the initial watch, because I'm just like, oh, what is this low budget POS, right? - Yeah. - But now, and I have the knowledge, and I know the guy, and I know what it cost. I'm like, hey, how did you get in this water? Are you just on the muck? You're in like a little canoe, they're pushing you, and you're going up and over this thing, it's this smooth thing, and the force of the evil dead. Something that I don't think is ever really shown visually, other than the first person POV, this omniscient force that hunts them through the woods. But the filmmaker, me, is like, I don't know how they did this. I don't know how they did this in the water. It looks great, and still an ominous, but what are your just initial impressions? I mean, 'cause I think from the word go, you're like, well, this movie has not a lot of money to play with, so how impressive is this thing really gonna look at the end of the day? - Yeah, let's talk about the opening, the camera moving over this terrain. It doesn't get wet, it's fairly steady, 'cause if it's very bumpy, you get the feel that it's being carried. - Can I tell you how they did that? - I'd love to hear. - This Sam Raimi is kind of a smart guy, him and his little crew of 19 year olds. - Wow. (laughs) - They built a device called the shaky camp, so essentially they have this 16 millimeter like airy Molex camera that they mounted in the middle of like a two by four, and one guy grabs one end and one guy grabs the other end. So instead of holding it like a Jason Bourne film where you're walking through the forest and we would feel every bump, you and I would have been puking watching this, but that like weight distribution with the camera and two people holding it, and Raimi said the longer the board, the stiller the motion, so then they just, two guys just carry that through the woods, tip it, kind of shake it back and forth, unlike an axis, and this stays still in the focal point, but it's having all this great movement. Amazing, that's fantastic. You're putting that together at Home Depot. - It's so smart, you take like two simple machines, right? Like a lever and a fulcrum, and change the fulcrum to essentially the point where you hold the board instead of where you hold the camera, 'cause the board itself won't be able to shake, 'cause the board doesn't shake, it's steady. - Yeah. - Genius. The creative elements that were put together to make this happen the way that did are amazing when we considered the budget was. - 90,000. - 90,000 dollars. - Yeah. So it forces you to be more creative, more, there's more ingenuity, like how are we gonna levitate this person? Like, oh, we've gotta find a way. But yeah, it goes through the woods, it kind of makes its way to this car, it throws the steering wheel out of whack, they almost crash into this car. And then we meet our kind of central characters, and we know the genesis of the plot already is, group of friends gonna go spend the weekend or the week at a desolate cabin, kind of get away from the city of it all. I think these are college kids from the Michigan state sweater that the girlfriend's wearing, but we have five characters here, they're easy, I think, to remember, you have Scotty and Shelley, they're coupled up, you got Linda and Ash, their boyfriend and girlfriend, and then you have Cheryl, which is Ash's sister. Kind of an interesting, she's playing third wheel on this trip, I don't know what she's expecting. I'll meet someone in the woods and she will. - Yeah, yeah, boy, will she. But it's simple enough in that they pull up to this cabin and man, there's a lot left to be desired about this cabin. I mean, it's not like, I tell you ride cabin, it's like, what is going on here? But the simplicity of it all, let's just get in, let's let mysterious things happen, let's get to know our people, let's kind of figure out a little bit of their personalities. It almost like Scotty seems like the alpha in this group, like, I'm in charge, I'm driving, I booked the cabin, I'm gonna be the lead for most of this movie. And it's interesting that Bruce Campbell, I mean, the lead of this film, just takes a back seat to a lot of stuff here. He doesn't go down into the cellar first, he's almost a supporting character until the film forces him to be the main character. And he's the name, right, Ashley. I mean, not the most masculine name, right, that can be given to you on birthday. But Ash, that name's kind of badass, right? - Yeah, yes, yes. - Yeah, so all this Ashley, Ashley, the force will leave, Ashley, Ashley, he's almost kind of taking on the motherly role of this group of people, the cautious one. And once the shit starts hitting the fan and he's hitting every bookcase, banister, and can't pull it off of him to say this live, there's something there. And then when he steps into those roles of "Hero", I think that's where the magic of this film and this franchise really happens. But what do you think of the characters? What do you think of the positioning of Ash and Scotty and the whole likes of it? - Yeah, Ashley sucks, but Ash is strong. - Yeah. - Yeah, this looks like rather nondescript group of mostly unassuming young people that have gone off to whatever the hell they're gonna do in the woods. - Party? - Yeah. - Party down. - Party down. - Yeah. - I thought a lot about Bruce Campbell as we were watching this film and he certainly has ascended a place in popular fandom as important. - Yeah, cult films, yeah. - But mostly a rather unassuming career. I mean, I guess for every Bubba Hotep and little guest appearance here and there, outside of the Evil Dead franchise, there's not a lot of leading man meat on the bone. - He's on a really great "X" files episode. - Yes, he is. - So I have a question for you. - Okay. - Is he another addition to the very large cast of characters that's the lost in horror and only seen as horror actors? And that's the best he could do. Or did we miss out on I think what was possible comedic? I don't see leading romantic kind of possibilities here, but that could be wrong. - Yeah. - Action with Campbell's career. What about his career for you? - Yeah, no, you're absolutely right in that it has been kind of pigeonholed in the cult geek space, this horror fandom. And the great part about that is he has accepted that and embraced it and is a very welcome presence within the genre when he shows up. But absolutely, I think we missed out. I mean, in his biography, which is called "The Chids Could Kill" Confessions of a B-movie actor, which is a fantastic read to anyone that's a fan of this movie and this actor, it was down to him and Billy Zane for the role in "The Phantom." Now that film didn't really do anybody any favors 'cause no one saw it, but that type of just missing out on that part, that part where if he is in like a role that like Tom Cruise would take, who knows if he wouldn't have been able to slay something, he just was never given that opportunity. And when Raimi comes along to do "Spider-Man," I mean, he's not gonna give Bruce the Peter Parker role. I mean, he's too old for it. But yeah, I absolutely think we missed out on a career because the guy's good looking. And by the time we get to evil that too, that's beefcake Bruce Campbell right there. So he's got leading man looks, he's got leading man charisma. He knows how to work the camera and he can do anything physically, he can do drama, he can do the action. He just missed out on like slaying in that role when you need to slay it. As much as I would want "Army of Darkness" to rake in $200 million domestically, that's not that type of movie. - That's sort of what I think too. You know, this comes out, it's pretty sleepy and I think a lot of people just brushed off A because it's horror and B because it's independent, cheaply made, B horror, B quotes around B. - Yeah. - It's a start. It's better than getting a commercial with your agent every month and making a guest appearance as a soap opera, stand in kind of a deal, game show contestant. So he's elevated his career some. And starting in horror is not an uncommon thing for a lot of people that make it. - For sure. - Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Bacon, we can just go on and on and on and on and on there. - Man, does it come down to luck? Is it really just luck? - I think it is, yeah. - So your contention is it was, no, he was talented and had the potential. He just never got the yes that he needed to push it to the next year. - For sure, yep. I think I agree with you. - A right project at the right time. Yeah, I mean, he was on Briscoe County Gym. He was on a long-running TV series. - What was that? - It was like a USA Western. - Was he the lead in that? - Yeah, it was kind of around the time of Texas. - Texas Walker? - Walker, Texas Ranger. - That's right, Briscoe County Jr. He was like this like that. - That's right. - Sheriff, yep. - And he had a good run, I think, on burn notice. A show I kind of liked from time to time. Yeah, I think yeah, we did miss out a little bit on that career. A role, a horror role, I think, it came out the same year as this film. I think he would have been really great in the David Naughton part in American War Wolf in London. Jack, the traveling guy gets abducted by a werewolf and then lets body dysmorphia him. And like Google Campbell could have done that. He'd been great, but, I mean, David Naughton's in the same camp as like his career is relegated to kind of those little tiny small things, right? - So much of it is luck. And so then, if you have that book, I should grab it from you so I could give it a look. But, in this film, he works. And I think he's able to play leading man, but kind of a time to time rather incapable leading man. - Oh, for sure. - I mean, how many times we see him get knocked down by a shelf and spend 20 minutes trying to dig himself from underneath it. - Yeah, yeah. - With no books on it, by the way, just wood. - It's just got him pinned. - Yeah, it's pretty funny. That part where he's up against the window just holding the axe and just dumbfounded shock and we're like, go do something with the, you know? And we laughed at him and I think that's the intention. - You're supposed to, yeah. - But there's also times in this film when we see him exercise, at least the stomach to not break down with the amount of blood that he's continually and guts being doused in. And I buy every bit that these demons that I love mostly involve the females in this cabin. We'll get to that, I'm sure. Are just brag-dolling him around, yet he has this ability to sort of bounce back and offer just enough resistance with the help of a weapon here or there and maybe an adrenalized attack because you have no other choice to kind of fend them off. - Yeah. - Not super smart, not super strong, but just capable enough. - Yeah, that's exactly what he is. - Yeah, yeah, and then yeah, he becomes the hero of the movies. The last one left standing at the end of the day when the sun rises and the evil dead go back into the woods, kind of. - It's our rule not to choose the character that the flight usually is based on, but does he make your list of three to you? - Is he number one? - He's number one. - For sure, all right. - And a lot of that, I mean, it's-- - Even above McCready. - Yeah, for sure. - Wow. - It's not even this movie, it's number two. I'm gonna try not to talk about part two on the episode. I'm gonna, I'll save that for like the tail end, but I mean, he's completely badass in that movie. I mean, that's like hero ash, that's like, let me put a chainsaw in my arm, cut my hand off, and I'm gonna go in and fight the dead-ites and yeah, he like becomes this thing, he's less goofy, and more like, well, this is the only way I know how to stop this shit. And it's fun watching him be the old cantankerous version of that in his 60s on the TV show, "Ash vs. Evil Dead." The role I think we missed out on him with, which I know was in the pipeline and the movie just got canceled was he was slated to play Quentin Beck Mysterio in "Spider-Man 4," which would have been great, right? So, hey, maybe it could still happen one day. - You mean after Raimi left for three? Like, you're talking back to Toby McGuire, or do you mean really? - Yeah, Raimi, yeah, well, they made three, right? It was a disaster. - We'll talk about that someday. - Yeah, and then they were gearing up for, with Raimi McGuire, Kirsten Dunce was coming back, and I think John Malkovich was gonna be Adrienne Toomes, Anne Hathaway was gonna be Felicia Hardy, and they had Campbell as Quentin Beck Mysterio as like a smaller villain in the movie. Oh, which I was like, yeah, great. And then all that got canceled to do the Garfield the first "Spider-Man." - Speaking of real quick, Felicia Hardy, do you see the news around Sydney Sweeney this week? - Wants to play Felicia Hardy? - In talks. - Okay, let's do it. - Yeah, let's do it. - Let's do it. - So we get to this cabin, and it's very nondescript, and I think the first instance of like, you and I talk about the horror cues, if blood started dripping down my walls, I think we're getting out of here. If we hear a voice talking omniscientally, I think we're getting out of here. There's so many moments in this movie, and I think, again, I think it's the great thing about the horror genre, which is if you don't react to those moments, there's no movie, and we need something to watch and do, right? But Cheryl's hearing voices, she's in her room by herself, she's hearing, she's drawing, whatever. And she's hearing, "Join us outside," and then her hand draws a picture of the book in a very crude, disgusting fashion, and the clock's going nuts, and the cellar door starts doing, there's three or four cues right there. We're all like, you know what, guys? I'm going back to Detroit, this was fun, but I'll see in a couple of weeks, yeah. But no one really believes her, and then we get to this moment too, where they're having dinner, and I love that the transitions, they cut from that scene to this blender of tomato juice, so it just looks like someone just got chopped up in that blender to a scene I cribbed line for line. I made a little slasher film in college, and it's essentially, there's a lot of me in there, there's a lot of my own personality and a story I wanted to tell, but for certain moments, I grabbed stuff that really had an impact on me, stuff from Halloween, stuff from Argento, but evil beds had a profound impact on me, and so there's a scene in my slasher where this guy's giving a speech at a graduation party, 'cause who would do that? - Right. - And I was just like, "You know what, this is the speech," and so I put my buddy Carson up there, and he's like, "I miss to Torem," and I cut to someone, and they're like, "What does that mean?" And I cut to another person, and he goes, "Party, damn!" I took the whole thing, and no one there knew what I was doing, I don't even think that people watching it knew what I was doing, but I knew what I was doing, and I'm like, "Here's my little evil dead moment, people." Awesome, I don't even know what that means. I mean, we joked about it too, 'cause it's just like, I wanna give a toast, and we're like, what? - Over what? The great find we found on Verbo, what are we saluting here? - Yeah, this piece of shit cabin, what calls for a toast at this moment, right? - And then it's just gibberish, and then it turns into, "Yeah, pardon, yeah!" - And then the cellar door bursts open, and we're like, "Oh, right, here we go." That's not normal, everyone crowds around it, and we're like, "Well, let's go into the cellar "and see what we got here." And you wanna talk about a dank, dark basement of somewhere I would never wanna go. The cellar's in the evil dead movies. I want no part of any of them, the remake too. Yeah, they're dirt floors with still water, low hanging ceilings, rust everywhere. Pretty sweet hills of ice poster in the corner there that we noticed, but we find all this kinda derelict shit tucked away in the corner, and again, the simplicity of this film, no money, very simple story. It's not like there's a fucking shrine to the Necronomicon in this basement. It's a book and a tape recorder on a desk. - Yeah. - That's it. - Yeah. - I mean, what do you think? I mean, I don't even know if we're in proper screenwriting rules and inciting incidents and whatever, but finding the book, finding this MacGuffin of sorts, the Book of the Dead, which was the original title of the movie, is pretty important. What do you think of that as kind of a plot device to drive this forward, the tape recorder, and then just the curiosity of like, I will say this, the horror cues and the red flags are going off over here, but I might hit play on that tape recorder to see what's going on there. How can you not? - Yeah. - Two things come up, right? And that's, as we're trying to arm ourselves with information as to why there is the cellar and the door just popped open automatically, it would be a natural action through curiosity to wanna listen to the tape, the ring, and to wanna open the book. - Yeah, let me have play on that tape. - Because maybe somewhere in there is some idea about what in the hell is going on. So I buy that that is an entirely plausible conclusion to come to, especially when your options, if you're not listening to the tape, is enjoying the wonderful sounds of the storm outside. (both laughing) - So after we're drunk and all the alcohol is gone and every, like we're just bored off our ass in this shantate in the middle of nowhere. - Yeah, so yeah, I'll hit play. - I think the setup on that to me is as important as what they find in there, because I believe that this young group of semi-enibrated already reckless people who might be without anything kind of to do other than each other, and so there's 12 minutes gone. - Would delve into the reasons that this trapdoor sprung open, and yeah, if you found a tape recorder, Jesse, you would play it? - Yeah. - Why wouldn't you? - Yeah, I would probably play that over the ring tape. I mean, that might be like, ooh, straight VHS tape. I don't know if I'm going there, but like just audio, I'll listen to the thing for a little bit, and here's what we get. - Listen to this. This is a tape I found downstairs. - It has been a number of years since I began excavating the ruins of Conda, with a group of my colleagues. Now my wife and I have retreated to a small cabin in the solitude of these mountains. Here I continued my research undisturbed by the myriad distractions of modern civilization and far from the groves of Akadem. I believe I have made a significant find in the Kandarian ruins, a volume of ancient Sumerian burial practices and funerary incantations. It is entitled, "Not to Run De Monto." Roughly translated, "Book of the Dead." The book is bound in human flesh and inked in human blood. It deals with demons, demon resurrection, and those forces which roam the forest and dark powers of man's domain. The first few pages warn that these enduring creatures may lie dormant, but are never truly dead. They may be recalled to act of life through the incantations presented in this book. It is through recitation of these passages that the demons are given license to possess the living. - Ominous, yeah. But what I like about that just word dump right there is most of the lore of the evil dead is told to us by, this guy led later as Professor Noby. Yeah, I found this book. I've been researching the Kandarian demons. I've came to this remote cabin so I could research it further and study these weird knives and relics. And I've discovered that this book is inked in blood and made in flesh. I wouldn't touch it after that. But fairly ominous here. Yeah, we've just switched from guns to missiles over here. We've gone from, let's add a little bit of rock star glass here. Take this climax to the next level. But I mean, Cheryl's really bothered by this. She hits off like, "Yeah, well, that's really disturbing me." And we're like, "Come on, I just want to hear the rest of it." Hey, come on, I just want to hear the rest of it. No big deal. (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) So unbeknownst to them, they played the audio of the incantations within the book and they've just summoned the evil bed out of the forest. So great. Yeah, lovely. Yeah, they don't know, they don't know what they're doing. They're just like, "Yeah, we're just screwing around. "We're hanging out." What the hell's Professor Nobie doing? researching, teaching a class on this stuff. I don't know, archeologist, anthropologist, something. If you knew that was going to be the case, why the hell would you? Anyway, that's another story for another film. I mean, don't a lot of historians do? Like, this might happen, but in the vein of research. Let me go ahead and delve into this. Let me speak this out. Oh my God, it took my wife. Right, yeah, it's a great setup. It's, again, we don't like, we like more show, don't tell. This movie's gonna show us plenty, people. Sure. But here, I mean, we don't need to see Professor Nobie or something or have one of the people reading this thing out loud to us and we're transcribing it. I love the tape recorder element and just reading it out to the ethers and the ground just starts rising and smoking. Like, I don't know what that is, but that's bad news bears over there. I wanna pepper this in throughout the conversation. So let's talk about how we got here because there's a lot of different points of juncture of this story. So I shared a little bit with you about Mr. Sam Raimi. He's one of five siblings of a Jewish family from just rural Michigan. And I did share it, so, you know, we met Ted Raimi was in last week's film Dark Man. He showed up in the Spider-Man movies, his younger brother. I think he's 16, 16 at the time of the making this movie, which by the end of this production, it's like five people and he's one of them. There's my little brother put that shit on. We're gonna throw goo on you. Older brother Ivan and two older siblings, a sister and older brother Sander, which I didn't know died at a young age of 15, but from a drowning incident in Israel. But Sander was the one who turned Raimi onto Spidey Spider-Man, which is, I mean, the domino effect of all of these little things, right? The reason Sam Raimi is so good at making Spider-Man movies is because he had a preconceived notion 'cause he was a fan of the character. Nothing against Mark Webb. I would like go back and listen to 500 Days of Summer, what an amazing movie. But I don't think Mark Webb has the Spidey history that Mr. Raimi does. I don't think John Watts, the latest director, has the same affinity for the character that Raimi did. I think he collected from interviews I heard. He's hard copy, just like you. I mean, here's my Spidey collection, right? So that it came from your brother that then passed. I mean, that makes the character even more special to you in a weird, tragic way. So growing up in suburban Michigan, I mean, Bruce Campbell lives in another neighborhood over there. Another friend lives over here, Scott Spiegel. They meet this other producer guy, but not a producer yet. He's just a buddy, Rob Tapper. He lives down the street. And so they were all just kind of get together and like make movies. Like, oh, you're really good in front of the camera, Bruce. So you're good looking. We'll put you there. Sam Raimi was into like magic and being a magician or whatever. So like, you're good with like the ingenuity of it all. This guy has costumes and they ripped off a lot of like three stooges shorts and that kind of physical comedy. And they would hold screenings for people. And I'm sure people thought, like, yeah, this is great, but this is just amateur, right? And it's not until these guys get a bug up there, ask where Rob Tapper and them are like, well, horror films are really popular and drive in theaters. What if we try to like make our own? And they're like, well, yeah, let's, how do we do that? I mean, how do we just conjure up this type of money? 'Cause we're no one. So I don't, can't remember if they were in high school or college, but they drop out. 18, all these, all these guys are just really 18 year olds. Yeah. So this isn't like a proper film school. We're not like Spielberg and we're going to, you know, film school, George Lucas, USC. I mean, these guys are just living in just, you know, regular suburbia, Detroit, and we're gonna decide, let's go make a, let's go make a movie. Let me pull my notes real quick here. So the first thing that they started to do was like, well, let's make a proof of concept movie to attract investors. So they made a little kind of 28 minute short called Within the Woods, which is essentially Evil Dead Light. And I got to tell you, I got to see this movie before I die. I think it's been lost to the sands of time and or there's no like official version of it for people to watch, but I got to get my eyes on this thing. It's just essentially a very crude version of this movie with the four demons taking over people, ripping people apart. And so I'll let these guys kind of explain. So they made this thing, let's take it to people and let's see if these people will give us money. Within the Woods was made as the bite for potential investors. But the tricky part was to get them to watch it. What we did was we would call them and say, yes, we're a friend of Dr. Perkinsons and he's gave you, he has given us your name and said that although he could not invest, you might be able to. Well, I certainly can't invest. I can't invest. I won't have anything to do with you. Well, why don't you let's come by your house and show you our picture within the Woods and see if you might be interested after that. Well, I'm not really interested. Well, we'll be by around eight o'clock. So we'd kind of force our way in and get the foot in the door. Then we'd set up our super eight projector and show the movies on his dining room wall, take down some art and proceed to make them sick and then hopefully get the investment out of them. We had dentists, a couple of dentists go in. We had some real estate people. But it was tough to get people who had money who are merchants, who own stores, 'cause a lot of those people who had money and we would approach them. They're used to paying money and getting heads of lettuce or bottles of wine and we wanted them to give us money for nothing, for this movie that might be successful and might not. And I remember we showed this first of a super eight movie in the detergent aisle of a grocery store after it closed to a couple of merchants and they didn't invest. But we really went to absolutely anybody who was financially capable of losing all their money. - That's awesome. Can you imagine just like, okay, I have the dream of making a movie, but where do I begin? I'm not gonna go to Hollywood 'cause that's 2,000-ish miles away from where I'm at. It's hard to get my foot in the door there unless I really know somebody. So what if we will make the movie ourselves but how do we get money? We'll make our own cheap version and we'll go door to door to any lawyer, dentist, real estate salesman, grocery store owners, show it to them and see if they wanna throw in $5,000 into this little movie that may or may not be successful. What? I'm already a very nervous person and I need to have a steady job and income coming in. Let me drop out of school and let's just ride this out to the balls on these guys just trying to figure this out. They do enough of that to acquire 90,000 and it's like, okay, here we go, let's go make the book of the dead and let's try and pay back this investment that they did. So off to Tennessee they go, they have to find their own location, this little janky derelict cabin. The crew is family and friends. It's like no one professional really. They take an ad out in the Detroit times to acquire the talent which are just essentially nobody's right and my buddy Bruce and let's go to this house. We're gonna live there while we film it. I think I'd live there? Yeah, why would I? I think I have up to 13 crew members stayed in one room at a time sleeping back, Will. Yeah, you're just packed in there like sardines. There was no plumbing in the house. There was no phone lines until they put them in. You're probably really far away from any kind of medical attention that you need. You're gonna be filming through the fall and the dead of winter so it's gonna be brutally cold. I mean, SAG's not really keeping an eye out on the working conditions of this set but we don't have the money for any type of proper accommodations. And there's something really profound and inspiring about all of that to say I can do this if I have the money and a lot of that, 'cause 90,000 ain't shit. I mean, Carpenter had what 325 on Halloween. This is a fraction of that. So a lot of that's gonna rest on the shoulders of our young 19-year-old director and boy, there's a lot of genius and ingenuity in this 19-year-old right from the get-go that he kind of knows what he's doing already, right? Let's talk a little bit about that, 'cause when you and I are 19, we're not doing this. - No. - Dude, I'm trying to like nurse a hangover. - Right. - And I'm going to this next football game and I'm trying to figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life. I'm undecided as a major. Same room, he's off in the middle of nowhere making this movie with a bunch of nobodies. And he's just like, I have a vision. I know how to execute on that vision. And I'm smart enough to think around the limitations. Think about that for a little bit. Sometimes it just finds you, doesn't it? And I think in the case of Sam Raimi and cinema, there is obviously a dogged pursuit at a really young age that wouldn't naturally lean into that sort of perseverance and dedication to a craft. But if we are shacking up in a cabin that is derelict from who only knows who lived there once upon a time. And that's going to act as the residents. And you're probably catering budget is whatever brown bags you made that day. - Whatever hot dogs we can boil in the quarter. - Right, if you even have power to do that other than maybe a Bunsen burner or propane stove or some kind of portable barbecue grill. I guess you better believe and pursue it. And then that's just to get the 28-minute teaser done. Right, and then so after that, then you've got it now. - No, they already made that. - Okay, so now we're making the actual movie. - So you take whatever menial resources you have, and you just decide this is going to happen. And then here's the thing I think that we really need to acknowledge. The dogged pursuit of the financing with the promise of nothing on the other end, except Raimi's ability to sell it. - Yeah, that's all salesmanship. And the three of them, it was him, Campbell, and Tapper. This three stooges crew would somehow roll up to these people and convince enough of them to give them money. - I'm no mystic, and I would never proclaim to be one. But I do think that there is something to the energy that you give out. - Sure. - If you want to apply sort of physics concepts to that, energy finds like energy. And if we're talking about thermodynamics or like beliefs or attractions or whatever it might be, the driving motivation, I hope for them, and to their credit was eventually recognized, was we only need one-ish, yes. If we take 25,000 nos, but we get four yeses and that finds us 90K, then at least we have something to work with, the economics and the dedication and the talent. 'Cause if you and I were given $90,000 right now, I think you and I could probably pin a script. - Yeah. - It would be okay. - Yeah. - But if you make a really good five minute short, yeah, something like that, like not a feature on $90,000. And as much as I look at that through the lens of where my life is now, that's not doable. Maybe he got also a little bit lucky 'cause it happened at the right time. - At 19, you said you were chasing down some skirt, fighting over a hangover, and wondering what the next sporting event you were gonna attend is. - Yeah, and trying to pass my class. - Right? And they had already said the hell with that, we're gonna drop out of school. So in some ways, maybe that was a benefit to them because-- - Well, there's some bravery there, right? - Certainly, bravery and the lack of responsibilities that they had to fulfill, it's a perfect storm where Sam Raimi was lucky enough to find that thing at an early age. But knows what he's doing and talented to go with it. - I think if you shove this film in front of anyone's eyes, I mean, I think you can realize like there's, compared to like a lot of like low budget, like Korman films or like a lot of the low budget horror, I've put my eyes in front of. There's some ingenuity here and there's a cheapness here, but there's also a professionalism. And if you told someone, you know, a 19 year old made this movie, they would never believe you 'cause it's too polished to be made by someone who's a teenager still. - For every story there is of the young person that's talented that makes it, there's 15 to 20,000 more that are the story of the young person who's talented that didn't. With the same dogged pursuit. - Yeah, and the sad thing is you gotta get lucky. We talked a lot that, we talked about that a lot when I was a really young screenwriter and I was traveling out to LA and taking meetings and we had a conversation about you gotta be good, you gotta be in the right place at the right time and even those two things still are enough, you gotta get a little bit lucky. And the final thing that I took away from that is, and I'm not here on the podcast to say, chase your dreams doggedly and manifest it, but if you wanna go with that, then I would say absolutely go with it. - Yeah, me too, yeah. - But in Hollywood, making something into a feature that has a long career is like catching lightning in a bottle, but in order to do that, Jessie, you gotta get in the rain all the time. - Absolutely, without an umbrella. - Yeah, you gotta be willing to take a strike or two. - Right, you gotta risk, you gotta stay out there and you gotta take lightning strike after lightning strike, after lightning strike, after so closed, after pneumonia, after all of the things that go with it in hopes that, and then there's not even a guarantee that, but thank God that the luck worked on for this because what would we have missed in Hollywood if it wasn't for a Chantatte in Tennessee in 90K? - Well, I'll ask you that when we give our ratings because there's some substantial impact. It involves Spider-Man, right? I, the other reason I really like this story too is it has nothing to do with Hollywood. We're not going through the Hollywood independent channels and the back lots. These are just some guys from Podong Town, Michigan. I mean, there's no Hollywood connections there. I mean, they're just, they said, let's just go try. It's the George Romero. It's what I really appreciate about that story too, is here's a guy's like, I can make a movie. And he makes some one of the most profitable independent films of all time in Night of the Living Dead. So there's a lot of power to that. - We haven't even got into the distribution and the P&A on this too. I'm sure you've got it coming up, but we'll get there. - My God. - So we'll save a little bit of the production piece because making this movie, guess what? What's hell? - Sure. - And then getting it to the finish line is also more hell, but let's get back to the story and Evil Dev had a ride, have arrived. And Cheryl, for whatever reason, is still following the voices outside. And this was the moment that really spun out my two buddies. Yeah, Nate and Josh that I had showed too on that little 12-inch TV. I was like, there's the scene in the woods. I think this is what happens, but you guys can maybe help me figure out if this is exactly what happens. Cheryl goes out to these woods and the woods attack. Physically, violently, sexually. And we had to rewind it a couple of times because I was like, did that branch go where I think that branch went? And guess what, people? Yes. This is a truly, it's comic in its presentation, but visually, there's nothing pleasant about this scene at all. And it's probably a scene that they came under fire for and the video nasty's craze. I'll speak more on that later, but the assault in the woods, I mean, this was something I was like, what? Am I watching? I mean, I haven't gotten to the gruesome stuff yet, but this, I mean, there's no, making those bones about it, this is gruesome, but I mean, what do we think of all that? I mean, this is where we started. This isn't a zombie movie, people. This is a demon movie. What we possess the living with the evil dead. The evil dead is the woods in this instance. It puts its seed into Cheryl. Indeed. And then Cheryl becomes the embodiment of the deadites, the evil dead, and then one by one, we will take you all, right? - Yeah. - So even like it, you know, if ash gets, you know, scratched up, cut up, that's not enough to turn you. Something about this possessive force has to consume your body, penetrate you. - Yeah. - And that's what happens here. I mean, what do you think of all that? I mean, this scene is just, is this gonna be my oh my God? I don't know because the next moment's coming up. And that's the moment that made me almost turn off the movie. - Oh, the fact that it's the woods, I think is also really troubling. If it's matter as we see it organically human, then I buy it a bit more and at least it has a face that you can recognize. You know, I'm a big fan of man versus nature. - For sure. - Because most of the time it just is nondescript and just sort of at the will of whatever the larger climate conflict is. - Yeah. - This is mother nature acting or personified with human characteristics. And the fact that it pins her down and we get that moment that's really also troubling in 1981 to about 1987 horror. And that's the gratuitous, dare I say, gratuitous inclusion of female genitalia, mostly breasts. But we even get a little bit of that and a little bit of that is like, oh, hey, wait, was that? And then, oh my gosh, is it gonna pull her hand away? And then you realize, what is it doing? Oh, it's taking her to the ground and as bad as the stock is that comes from the forest and penetrates her. What's also really troubling is Raimi's ability to set that fuse because as it takes her down, you don't know if it's gonna go under her mouth or if we're gonna get a chestburster kind of moment or what sort of happening and it kind of is in a way. Once it takes her down, like, oh, it's just gonna cover her and suffocate her, oh no, it is spreading her legs. And then two Raimi's credit in a very birds-like moment, it is questionable and we had a brief discussion. What was her actual reaction? Horror at first, but I would argue that it didn't continue to be horror through the entire duration. Duration of the act of intercourse. - She's able to... - Oh, that's a troubling scene. - It is, yeah, it was, once I figured out, I was like, oh, this is what's happening here. - Yeah, she's getting laid by the branches. - Yeah, it's, yeah, forcefully, right? - Forcefully. - I mean, 'cause I don't know who would willingly says, fuck me woods, yeah, give it to me. And so she gets out of there and then... - It's a weird witch. - And this chase through the woods at night, I think I shared with you from a pseudo amateurish filmmaker whenever you're shooting at night, good luck. I don't care if you've got a digital video camera, a 16 millimeter, a 35 millimeter, and IMAX camera, shooting at night is damn near impossible, especially without the money and the resources. And you can see like, oh, there's the car's headlights, enough illumination, but to their credit, because I've seen a lot of recent horror films conjuring Esque Warner Brothers productions, where the night is so blown out with the high dynamic range, you can't see shit. And here, I mean, I don't think we had a problem where we could decipher, make heads or tails of what's happening in the dark, she's running this things chasing, I get it, the woods are falling. It all looks pretty visually clear to me, so to their credit, 'cause with the 16 millimeter, if you're bringing too much light into that, you'll blow out your negative and it'll be all washed out. They had a good camera operator on this movie, 'cause, and then they have a strap to a two-by-four, that's just mowing down the woods, right? The other cool camera rig they came up with on this film was it was called the Visomax, and it was another long board, but the camera was mounted down, instead they would spread Vaseline over the entire board, put a rag over that, the camera on the rag, and then they would drag the rag back and forth on the thing, so they kind of gives it a nice, kind of almost dolly-like effect. You're using only Vaseline and just a particle board. - Wow. I mean-- - Let's go. - Exactly, I mean, it's like, A, we can't lay dolly tracks in the woods because that's insane, and we don't have the money for that. We can't afford a steady cam, Allah, Dean Kundi and Halloween, so let's put it on a board. I don't wanna call them engineers, but they're coming up with some stuff that people should still be using, 'cause it's cheaper and kind of works better than some of those rigs. I mean, I said the Jason Bourne effect because that is "Shake City," good movies, but man, you almost gotta close your eyes for some of that movie because it's moving too viciously. Everything's very still and controlled. These guys are on something, I don't know what they're on, but they know it, right? That lightning in the bottle, I'm in the storm, but guess what, people? I also know a thing or two and how to make this work for me. I love that the avant garde piece of this isn't from the very formulaic and still possible to achieve success in walls of academia in film. - Sure. - I love that it's, here's how I need this to look because I've seen this done before, whether that's Tarantino, Richard Rodriguez, or George Romero, or in this case, Sam Raimi, we can go on and on with like the Rebels on the backlot sort of cast of players. - Yeah. - You said a word earlier that I thought was, and by the way, yes, call them engineers, but professional, at 19, to be such a student of the film world, to be able to find a way on nickels, the two by four that you bought it, what salmon's back then, I don't know, whatever, there wasn't even lows back in 1981, so whatever, local hardware store, there wasn't in Tennessee. To be able to find a way to make it work and then be professional enough to know that it has to be in this way, but we're gonna cut corners 'cause we can't afford expensive round edges. Speaks to a vision that they all shared, B, a dedication to bring that to light, and C, a dogged determination to accomplish it whenever you can. We can talk about, against all odds, we can talk about success in any fields with sports or music or whatever profession you all might be engaged in. The success that usually comes to those who have been quote unquote successful is rarely done through lack of effort. You busted his ass with an intelligent way to try to do it, and you know what I say, work harder, not smarter, work smarter, not harder. I don't know if that applies here. No, you have to work harder and smarter in both ways. And cheaper. And you have to sleep on the hardwood floor of this captain, right? Yeah, it's remarkable here, so you're creating two dollies to make this happen on Vaseline-covered wood. You better not be afraid of splinters on this set because that's small potatoes to what's gonna happen to the amount of freezing cold conditions and how wet you're gonna be the whole time. Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, Cheryl comes back and she's like, get me the hell out of here. I want no part of this place. The woods are alive. They attacked me. Everyone's like, this is weird. I'm not leaving. I'm like, I mean, if someone's acting hysterical, I'm like, wait a minute. We made all this journey. We already unpacked. I don't know if I want to leave. I mean, maybe she's just having a moment, you know? But if she wants to go into town, sure, let me take her. And they go in this really great image of the bridge, like clod in, like almost like teeth. You know, it's broken itself outward of you ain't going anywhere, people. And this is the only traversal way of commerce here. We can't drive the Buick 73 through the woods. We're not gonna bushwhack our way out of here. This is the only way to kind of get to and fro. Now we're stuck. So let's talk about something we love on the show, which is single location movies. I mean, we are here in this cabin. We are gonna live and breathe the cabin. And now we've kind of eliminated our only exit because the easy answer is like, well, just get out of here, right? Just walk out, go find the next town, go find help. Now we're stuck. - No bridge, no car. - Yeah, the odds are now suddenly simply against you. So yeah, what do you think of just the location? I mean, the cabin in the wood film, right? I mean, Nightmare or Friday the 13th is, you know, the summer camp movie. But one of the horror tropes is the derelict cabin in the woods, right? I mean, there was cabin in the woods movies before this, but this kind of has to be the cabin in the woods movie, right? - It does. - Yeah. What I like about it is compared to the cabin where the counselors are all shacking up together in that sort of space. What the cabin in the woods in this film offers is, albeit poor and fairly inadequate, some defense against the forces that have not yet entered it. So I think it's done really well in that space with the trap door in the floor that Cheryl is gonna spend 2/3 of the movie sequestered under. Now she can pop it open and we get a great look at her watching everything that's unfolding. And I think that's important 'cause she looks of the three, four demons, she's the worst. - She's very unsettled. - She's, you know, to the little makeup guy that's some dude from who the hell that is, to him. - Yeah, we don't even have Cevini on this gig. This is not Rick Boteen by any chance, by any stretch of the imagination. But what they do in this is they create a structure or a barricade with this really broken down, awful wood that does exactly the opposite to me of what the strangers really failed on. And that's allows the penetration of the domicile to then leave, making me not think that there's any way to prolong the conflict before the forces of antagonist take on or protagonist in the strangers 'cause they're in in the first five minutes, 20 minutes, and then walk out, that's stupid. - Pop it in and out. - Stupid, and we see it and the rest of players don't, like, we'll do that movie someday, but. This film is different and we see him, ash in a couple times, physically remove the forces of evil from the sanctuary, if you will, to try to give himself some safe place to exist. Whether that's, I'm gonna trap Sheila. - Cheryl. - Cheryl. Underneath the floor. I'm gonna drag my girlfriend outside. I've gotta get them out of here because I have to have at least a wall between me and whatever the hell super strong demon is. - And that's done really, really well. - Yeah, I almost wanna say single location, this living room is where most of the movie takes place. We go to the basement a couple times, we go to a bedroom briefly, and we go outside for a little bit, and a tool shed. But we're in this living room for most of the carnage, right? Did you find out anything about the location scout for this? - Did they just happen upon this place? They were the location scout, like-- - Yeah, right, they didn't have the crew. - Yeah, the investors are like, "Well, you guys go find the location." So they're just like, "Okay." - So they just traveled through every forest in the world till they could find a derelict cabin. - They stumbled upon there, like, "This one will work, "let's go for it." - It's meant to happen. - Absolutely. And so then we get to this moment. So, okay, the bridge is screwed, let's go back, let's just wait out the day, let's get some sunlight on this situation, then we'll kind of hike our way out, and then we get to this scene, and Matt, this was the scene, I almost, the first viewing almost pulled the tape out. - Okay, let me think, to seven. What suit? Diamonds. I don't know, wait, hearts. - Oh my God, seven of hearts, you're right. - Hey, Ash, I guess the card right. - Yeah, truly amazing, Linda. - I don't know, I don't know, but I think it's really some sort of extra sense or something, you know, like ESP. - Okay, try this, okay, it's a seven. - I don't believe it! - Of space. - Queen of spades. Four hearts, eight of spades. Two spades, Jack of Diamonds, Jack of Clubs. (crowd cheering) - Why have you disturbed our sleep? You're liken us from our ancient slum breath. You're a guy! Let me have this before you. One by one, I know you will take you. (crowd cheering) - Mm, get that tape out of my machine, because-- - It's horrifying. - Yeah, and I had been familiar with what I'm gonna coin on this podcast at this moment. Exorcist speak. I had never seen the exorcist yet, but I knew Reagan in that movie talked like in here. Wait, Josh, like in this demonic way that was for the little Catholic Jesse. Not right, and then this thing turns its head, glass opaque eyes rises from the feet with a really another cool rig, which is essentially like a harness from the chest up, and then the guys are outside the window with like kind of like a big rod, kind of pulling her up and down like this, to make her levitate, 'cause it's not wire work, 'cause they couldn't afford wires, and they couldn't rig 'em to this brinky dink up the cabin. So they're like kind of like, just pulling her up and down. And one by one, we will take your souls, get me out of here. And I was like, what movie did I rent? There's nothing funny to this day. I mean, there's a lot of comedy throughout this entire franchise. There's nothing funny about this. No, and then she collapses to the floor, everyone's like, WTF, and then she grabs this pencil and ooh, to the Achilles, man. Oh, and then it looks, you look at it. It's a jelly foot, it's like a misery jelly foot. And she's like, and we're on this foot for a long time, and she's stirring it up, and it's ooze and blood and pus, and we're like, my God, I don't care how fake it looks, I put myself in that position, and I'm like, man, someone takes a pencil to my Achilles? I am down for the count, man. I'm like, I'm done for the rest of the movie. And she slaps everyone around and slaps Bruce Campbell around, and like, get this thing out of here, into the cellar, she goes. And what I really like about this moment is this, the rest of the movie's kind of balls to the walls, like, once we get here, it's go time. What do you think of this as just like, the emergence of the evil dead? Well, I guess I want to throw it back to you. - Okay. - I think it's horrifying, and that scene where she's levitating in her head is cocked to her right shoulder, and her eyes with amazing contacts are horrible to look at, and her skin is this semi-state of rancid green, like, to that makeup guy. - Yeah, sickly, Tom Sullivan. - Tom Sullivan. Good job, dude, to make it with whatever, you know, makeup you found at Spirit Superstore. - Yeah, he's not done yet. No, he's not. So, good job. - Yeah. - And then whatever apparatus they use to elevate her, so she's floating, we struggle with females that are floating. It's been, you know, whether that's eyes without a face, extra sister, now get in this film. - Yeah, we're a Sigourney Weaver in Ghost Bus. - Okay, there you go, yeah, that's right. This is that moment in high fidelity when Jack Bless says it's so funny and so scary. This is pretty, pretty scary stuff, and you brought up the pencil bit. - Yeah. - Okay, so, this is now the second time we've seen a stabbing, if you will, and I wonder if the stabbing in this film, because I'm gonna post something to you in a minute, as I'm gonna throw it back to you, has a different significance than normal stabbings in the rest of movies. - Yeah, yeah. - What do you see? - Yeah, do you see something different? - It's slightly sexual, but it's also, I think, plot-wise important, right? It's the transference of possession from evil dead to evil dead, because when Linda gets possessed later, it starts the genesis of her ink. Remember how it, like, it spiderwebs out? So it's important too, like, we're not biting someone and transferring that energy. It's happening through physical penetration. We saw it through wood, we see it through more wood, smaller wood. - No, right, you're on it. - Exactly, so, yeah, boom, boom, boom, right? The only one we don't really see is Shelly's. We just see the window crash and she just gets taken over by this entity. But, oh man, I don't know where you are on the spectrum of Achilles' injuries in cinema, but Judd Crandall and Pet Sematary, there's a gnarly one in the first hostile movie. There's something extremely, oh, Jared Patilecki in the House of Wax remake, has a really good one. I think that those ones are scissors, woo! It's a gnarly injury that, like, I mean, you know, football players, I just tear my Achilles, but no one's running around in the football field and jamming a pencil in your Achilles. This is like the one thing I would never want to experience. Like, I don't know, take me, have the woods take me, but I don't know, this seems extremely painful. - As the Shelly possessed by the demons of the Book of the Dead, so Egyptian demons, I guess, say we're gonna take you one by one, man, that's a loaded line, take you one by one. So, are we creating an army of the answers? Yes, we'll find out later in films if that was, in fact, the case. Now, I don't know what the large nefarious plans is either than the boredom of being caught in a, you know, 2,000-year-old slumber because we can't ascend to the, you know, across the river sticks or whatever the hell, religious connotations you want to play with that there. But the creation of like-minded bad guys or similar bad guys is really troubling and always has been, hint, hint, hint, lead in for next week, I believe. - Yeah. - When you are taking what is, and this is pure horror at its core, a natural human action, the act of procreation and bastardizing it with ill will or evil intent, insert femme fatale and film noir. - Yeah. - And weaponizing sexuality by the evil or by the bad or by the demonic or by the protagonist to make more of you. So progeny is like creator, and in this case, progeny becomes another demon. So it's not now one versus four. We're ultimately living to four versus one, one being ash. And that is, and always has been, troubling for everyone. - Yeah. - You're taking a lot of the issues that are absolutely necessary to life, which is the creation of. And in real time, in colorful, ugly, visceral ways, breaking it, deconstructing it, reconstructing it in some ugly, horrifying way. And that's why you and I and everybody loves horror. We've talked before about one of the things that horror gives us a chance to do is explain the unexplainable, and that's maybe what life looks like post-death. - On the other side, yeah. - Which means, Matt, that's called death. No, I know, but we're looking at it thematically. And so it gives us a chance to kind of dabble our feet into the pool of the unknown with a really troubling answer that, frankly, who wants the hell to find that answer? - Yeah. - I don't want to know what that looks like. No one does, Josie. - Yeah, me either. And I'll say this too, like there's no way that Sam Raimi was looking at this very simple idea at that micro of a level. I mean, he's just trying to get it to the finish line in an ingenuity way, but I love that you and I can come in, look at the visuals, put that two and two together and realize there's a lot more at play here than just googang. (laughing) - Right. - It's just not like special effects galore. There's something really eloquent taking place here in this specific type of demonic film. 'Cause we've done demon films before, I mean, we've done paranormal activity, we've done the exorcist, we've done, you know, the omen. But this, the way power is transferred from being to being is, you're right, it's very penetrative. And what I like about it too is it's at this moment where like I mentioned too, Ashley Bruce Campbell is taking on this motherly, very effeminate role. And halfway through the movie, it's like almost like Ashley becomes Ash in the latter part of the film where he's like, I'm the only one left. I gotta take this situation by the horns. Everyone's dead around me or goin' up. What do I do from goin'? And then my favorite bit and we'll get to it here in a little bit, the house going insane and Ash going insane is a visual miasma of awesomeness. But it's, this character is just like, I just gotta make it 'til the sunrise is at least. Meanwhile, there's some evil dead breakin' down my door. I'm gonna think about this. These two guys, Ash and his Scotty, take their girls up to what they think is gonna be some secluded cabin in the woods for a weekend of drugs and sex and liquor. - We didn't even talk about Ash's like, let's stay up for a little bit and listen to the rain. And then his-- - Also sound of the storm. His little token of appreciation is ridiculous. - Oh, it's beyond stupid. - It's stupid, it's this magnifying glass necklace. Which I joked to you saying, there's no point in putting some poignant thematic significance on the magnifying glass other than being the Deus Ex piece that kills the evil dead. - Right. - And it probably just belonged to someone's girlfriend who was just here with her husband who took a gig because his friends were making a movie in the woods and she had a cool looking necklace. That is it. - It. - Base level. - Right. - It's the best they could do. They're not gonna have the Titanic part of the ocean here. - Right, it's this, it's almost laughable. And man, Bruce Campbell and his little Unibrow, like with like the game he has. And I joked to you, I was like, maybe it's as simple as that. Maybe I just need to pretend to not be looking. I got a little box in my hand and guess what, guys? I'm getting late tonight. - Right, I'm gonna give her something because she's gonna think that it matters 'cause and then the pants are gonna come off. - Exactly. - Ashley to ash the transference of throw away that circle case $7 magnifying glass necklace, which I think you'd give to a grandma. So she could wear it when she was reading a recipe or the Bible or the directions on the next piece of needle points she's gonna do 'cause her eyes are too old. - You buried your grandma with that piece of jeweler. - And the box, he gives it to her sucks too. It's not even wrapped. Like this is a bullshit gift. - Yeah, it's bad, it's really bad. - And so you take the immaturity and the lack of masculinity that Ashley has. And by the end of the film, that necklace, he uses as the key piece into retrieving, not to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I would imagine that nobody has listened to this. It hasn't seen this film before. And spoiler alerts anyway, as the lead-in said. - And guess what, stop and go watch this movie. - Right. (laughs) - It serves as the lasso that he brings the book of the dead back into his grasp before he can finally do away with the forest's evil kinda. So this coupled with the scene in the forest where we begin to create an army and then the scene with the pencil, I just, I was gonna save it for later, but I'll just do it now. - Okay. - This is crazy. 19. Does Sam, Raimi, have such a grasp on the inner machinations of internal conflict and femininity to craft this? Or did he just continue in this very lucky process, come into gold? 'Cause I mean, we're talking about weaponizing sexuality and the birthing process and fucking magnifying glasses as throwaway gifts to get laid that you're later gonna be able to turn around and thematically use to bring down the forces of what was created by the woman in the penetration act. Like, we are in some pretty heady space here, Jesse. - Yeah, no, no, no. - Brilliant, do I say brilliant? - No, it's absolutely brilliant. The 19-year-old? - No way, absolutely not. Lucky, 100%. Like, just the way you visually compose a story and just all these things just happen pseudo-naturally, the film does look extra wet. I mean, these people start spewing like white milk later. It turns into alien for a little bit. - I was gonna ask you about that. - Absolutely, it's, I feel like he lucked into those elements because as a 19-year-old, he's only seen so many films, certain cinephile, for sure. Spider-Man file, for sure. You're not smart enough to put that. I mean, you know, in my, I'm barely, I'm able to put that together now, but I'm much older than Raimi was at that time. I mean, if Sam Raimi at 19 is like you and I are 19. - Yeah. - The concept of sex is basically like man, I kind of wanna bang anything that moves because that's how Mother Nature made me at 18, 19 years old, but there is a control, an understanding of this that this movie had to, 'cause I just don't believe at 19 that he was that smart. - No, I don't need that. - But this movie had to been heavily influenced from the movie two years prior, which would be alien. And all of the chest bursting pregnancy, milk out of Ash's mouth, think about that, right? Influencing this film. I think it's interesting that, right, the name Ash, right? I just came to that right now, in Holmes Ash? - Yes. - Yeah. - And how important that like the spewing of milk all over the place. As he tries to choke out Sigourney Weaver with a porno mag in her mouth, rape. Was he so attuned to fuck, this is really troubling me, so I wanna put it in my film, not knowing like, it's really troubling me because it's playing with one of the five or six primal pieces Mother Nature put in me and when you challenge that, you get a strong response from you. - If you were 30, maybe. - Absolutely. - Maybe, right? - 19? - No way. - No way. - No way. - No, 'cause I know how I was at 19, I was. - Everyone. - Yeah, I wasn't thinking this clearly at 19. - No way. - So, years and years of film study. - Yeah. - I'm telling you, this is, you know what? We're gross to say that, but no, ladies and gentlemen, let's put in film schools across the nation to the film professors that I hope are listening. Oh yeah. Stop preaching Citizen Kane. We'll do it one day. Good movie. A lot to talk about. - Rosebud. - But, man, maybe they should shove evil bed in front of these kids' faces and like, look at these lessons you can learn at the appropriate age that the filmmaker's making it. - What are you inspiring Citizen Kane to create a new generation of Orson Welles or a new generation of Sam Raimi's? Who would you rather see films made by Jesse? - I mean, army of Raimi's, right? - Exactly. - No, it's interesting. So, then we get to the next scene here, which is, you know, Shelley's really disturbed by Cheryl and the basement. What happened to her eyes? And the living room is already disheveled. She goes to her room, the evil bed comes for her. And Scotty's like, "Oh, that was weird. Let me go look for her." And she jumps on them, scratches his face and it's clawing at him. And this was the moment on initial viewing, I was like, "I gotta fast forward this. This is really troubling me." They're talking an exorcist speak here. She's pussing and oozing in every orifice. He stabs her in the, oh no. He cuts her hand with his hunting knife. She bites the hand off, throws her onto the fire. Then he chops her into a bunch of pieces and I was like, "I am 12-year-old, 13-year-old. I'm not ready for this. I can't see someone get chopped up." And to Raimi's credit, I mean, there's the John Carpenter school of making a horror film, which you don't see is scarier than what you do see. Paint your images in the Michael Myers in the shadows. And Raimi's like, "I'm gonna show you. I'm just gonna give it to you." And man, it is nasty. And it's little things moving here and little things moving on the floor and puss and milk and guts all over and ash. I'm in the corner 'cause I don't know how to react to this. Scotty's the, I mean, on initial viewing, you would think Scotty's the, if you showed this to someone, they don't know who Bruce Campbell is and how awesome he is as a person and an actor. You would think Scotty's the lead of the movie, right? Yeah, yes. He chops up his own girlfriend into itty bitty pieces 'cause the tape showed us that the only way to defeat the evil dead is through bodily dismemberment grows. This is, yeah, I almost, again, I almost turned the movie off a second ago. Now I'm fast forwarding through the movie 'cause I can't even stomach some of this stuff. I was like, I am really spun out on initial viewing. How did this movie get me? I was just gonna ask you the same thing. If you are looking for the door at 17, 18 years old, how old? 13. Okay, sorry, if you're looking for the door at 13 years old, that might be a little young, but how in the world are you pitching even the 28 minute version of this to a guy who owns a grocery store and a dentist? Pitching the stuff, the guy that works on my teeth. They're gonna be like, wait, what are you showing me? And you want money for what? Yeah. How are they not saying you need to go pound sand because I'm not investing in this nasty movie? And I don't know what kind of films dentists and accountants and market owners, market store owners prefer, but I highly doubt that it's questionable material regarding sexuality, violence and comedy. It had to have been people that were like, oh, that's so little, that's Raimi's son. I'm like, I can throw him a thousand dollars. I mean, maybe that was it. Like we're doing him a solid because he's been my client and the, you know, his family shops at my store, we work on their teeth. I mean, it feels very familial. Oh, it attacks right off. Sure, yeah, just like, oh, give him a little money to make his movie. Yeah, sure, why not? Yeah, and then, so we just keep progressing along. I mean, so that we chop her up into pieces. So kill count, we killed one of the evil dead. She's not coming back for the rest of the movie. We chop, we did what the tape said, chopped her up into pieces. We threw her, I mean, we choked her like, you're gonna bury her or burn her. Like, I don't know, burn that thing 'cause that thing came back three or four times, right? They go bury her and I like this little makeshift graveyard that they have in front of this cabin 'cause they're gonna try and bury Linda a little bit later. And then Linda comes to her ankle, brings about the evil dead. And there's something really troubling about Linda too. I don't like how childlike she is, how mocking she is. I'll play the audio, but it's, once it's ash V evil dead, these things are laughing at you. They're taunting you. You think it's still your sister in the cellar, but it really isn't. I mean, what's real and what isn't? And we're not high, we're not drunk. I mean, how do you believe the truth between all the supernatural things happening here? And that's where I think the end scene of ash, essentially losing his mind to the house is my favorite scene of the movie because he just succumbs to the craziness of it all. - Right. (crickets chirping) - Cheryl? (crickets chirping) (crickets chirping) - I'm all right now, Ashley. Come on, I'll have to change my view. (crickets chirping) I'm all right now, it's your sister, Cheryl. (crickets chirping) - You bastards. Why are you torturing me like this? Why? (crickets chirping) - Shut up. ♪ We're gonna get you ♪ ♪ We're gonna get you ♪ ♪ Not another peak ♪ ♪ Time to go to sleep ♪ ♪ Please ♪ (crickets chirping) - Here's my question to you. Do you take your chances in the house? You have your girlfriend laughing at you. - Laughing and taunting you, telling you, don't matter what you do, dude, we're gonna get you. Or do you go into the woods and the woods are gonna tear you apart? - I think I take my chances in the house. - Yeah, I think so. - But it's close. - I mean, the house is gruesome. I mean, the opaque eyes, and I do gotta mention the contact lenses now. They were problematic for the actors. They could only wear them for 10 minutes 'cause they'd really screw up their eyes. And in one instance, I think it was with this actress here, they tried to remove the things and they pulled off all her eyelashes when they did it. Oh my, dude, that's a horror show right there. So this is not a pleasant situation to be in. So Scotty's been attacked by the woods. Your girlfriend's all possessed out. Your sister's in the cellar as we're becoming ash, right? What do you do? What do you do? - We saw what it looks like outside and there's a lot of vines out there and a lot of branches that are gonna have their way with you. Well, we know what it looks like inside too. So to that, really well done, because now I believe that you can't get in the car, the bridges out, the car doesn't work, there's no escape route. And now there is nowhere to run that's safe because the walls are closing in. So like you said, between the forest and the shack, I guess I'm choosing the shack, but it's close. I mean, even if you find a clearing in the forest, which maybe there's nothing there, so you have a brief moment, all the vines have to do, a branch they have to do is close in on you. - Yeah. - The other question that I was gonna ask you, of the three female antagonists, which of them seems the most dangerous? Like rank them in order of most, I would say scary, but most demonic to least demonic. - Cheryl, Linda, Shelley. - Shelley's his girlfriend? - Yeah. - No, no, Shelley's the one they chopped up. Linda's the girlfriend, Cheryl's in the cellar. - I agree. - The cellar dweller has troubled me from the first viewing. Her opaque eyes, the blood spewing from her mouth, and what I really liked about the remake was, Jane Levy played the sister to one of these guys. She was essentially, oh my God. Yeah. - Raise your blade on the tongue. - Oh my geez. - You've never forgotten. She becomes the Cheryl of the movie, and then they do a really great reversal recognition at the end of that where they turn her into the ash of the movie. Cheryl becomes depossessed and becomes the heroine of the film. - Yeah. - Fantastic. - Great decision to make, but man, the stuff they put that character through is horrific. - Yeah, I've always been really troubled by Cheryl in the cellar. - I'm with you. - I'm gonna play another audio clip here, 'cause now we're deep into production. And years ago, I heard a clip of Bill Hader talking about what film he'd like to kind of be a fly on the wall for, and he picked this one of all films. And I love what he had to say about it. - If there was a movie that you could've been on the set of. - Oh, never. - Oh my God. - This is gonna sound very strange. The first Evil Dead movie, because it was made by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell and basically a bunch of 19 year olds in the woods. And they shot at the making of that movie is very funny to me, 'cause they didn't know what they were doing, and they were figuring it out as they were shooting it. And if you watch the movie, you can tell, it's one of those movies, if you know the backstory, you can tell what happened during it, where they're figuring out how to make a movie, and they get really good by the end of it. Like, he's just shooting with a 16, I think it's a BL, like an air BL, and he's doing amazing camera work. The, you know, do you remember that movie where the camera flies everywhere on the shaky cam and all that stuff? But the actors all start leaving. And so the monsters are, it's like, in one shot, it's the actual actress, and when they cut again, it's a producer. And you can tell it's the producer, Rob Tapper, with like, make a bond and a wig. Like, this actress left, and this person left, and this person left, so they had to hire someone from inside the, you know, in the town, and Tennessee, where they were shooting to come and play this person and all that stuff. And so, I always found that to be a very inspiring story of just people shooting something in it, and just having a dream and going like, we're gonna go make a movie. We're from Detroit, we know nothing. It's just a group of people making it 'cause they love it, and they wanna tell this story. And it's a wacky, insane story, Evil Dead. But they have the confidence enough to have their own style, or they don't know enough to have their own style, you know, which I love. And I just would've loved to sat and watch those guys go, oh, if we do this, hey guys, look, if we do this, it looks better, oh cool, you know, and they start figuring it out. And I just, we just watched it last Halloween, it really holds up. - He's riding a lot of that stuff, right? - And what if the style, when you don't know what the style is, is just genuine innocence and effort? There's a style to that. His name's Tim Duncan. Think about what it just said. It's not blessed with amazing jumping ability, it's not some stud athlete, the big fundamental, as named by Shaq, right? You've got a couple ideas, you've seen a couple things work in film, and this is all I know, so this is what I'm fundamentals, and we're genuinely pursuing something hard, all in with passion. What if that's your style? - Why not? - Why not? - Yeah. - That's pretty cool, I love what Hader says is like, they made a movie, and by the end of it, they got really good at it. Like, they kind of like through the process of like, from the beginning to the very end, they were like, we're figuring some stuff out, and this is actually turning out better than it dissipated. - Yeah. - Something really admirable right there. - It's funny to think about, of all the takeaways from this film, and I probably would echo Hader on this absolutely 100%, is inspiration. In this movie, you know nothing about the making of, and you're just that, oh God, what the hell, my dad, you're my dad, what are we, turn this crap off, right, my dad. (laughing) - I had a few of those screenings myself. - Sure. - You know, when we do saw one of these days, another heavy hitter, right? - Mm-hmm. - Dude's legendary film in my household, 'cause he's just like, my dad just walked out of the room, and I was like, what? And he told me, I don't know how you could watch something like this, and I felt offended. - And I know your dad is a lovely man. - Yeah. - Your dad's awesome. - I don't know what went through my head when I was like, I'm just kidding. - Dad, we should watch this. - I'm gonna watch saw. - Yeah, exactly. But you take, okay, so all of that on the surface, what evil dad is, and then you get to what Hader has just come up with, and you recognize it's done by a bunch of 19 year old, the dean have the cast for the whole shoot, and no money, and I don't know how you can't look at this to film accepting movie going, I love movie kind of people. How important in the speck world this movie's gonna be. Not only for this movie and Raimi, but what this movie represents, and here's one more question in this. - Yeah. - Is this still happen? Is this still doable today? - I don't know. - It's tougher. - I wonder that I was like, this route and road that Raimi took through Michigan. - Through Michigan. - Crowdfunded by local people that knew us. 90,000 to make a movie. I mean, essentially what this is now is get, do something, but then you put it on YouTube, and hope it gets some sort of recognition where maybe some big wig at Universal or Warner Brothers watches that, and was like, let's turn that into a thing. And that's happened before, I mean, lights out. Do you remember the movie lights out? - Yeah. - That started as a horse short. It was like a one-minute horse short that got turned into spun out into a feature, and then that guy got shazam. So some of that-- - Is that Babadook too? - Yeah. - Babadook is the same way. - Yeah, and so some of it is still possible. It's just not like, the Raimi route is just like the most extreme route of success. From Evil Dead, we get to Spider-Man song? How, right? I'm telling you, I need you to, you got to read that book. I need to know how Avi Arad came to Sam Raimi and was like, you are the guy to make this a reality. It wasn't James Cameron, it wasn't Roger Korman. What about Sam Raimi was able to get that film completed and delivered finally, right? I mean, there was something there. There's a missing thing, but it started here. I mean, it's like, if this film's a bomb, and nothing happens, and we quickly forget, and we're not doing a podcast on the Evil Dead, we're not talking about Spider-Man in the same way. And does the Derreal, I guess I'm doing it now, I was gonna save this for later. Does the Derrealment of Spider-Man affect the entire Marvel cinematic universe? 'Cause Spider-Man is the bread and butter of the Marvel universe in 2002, right? - So you're asking me if this movie flops, are we still, we're talking about, we've even our frustrations of Latter-day Marvel, like would we even have the conversation? - Possibly. - Yeah, yes. - There's a, that film needs to work in a way that's very special to the fans, and to movie-going audiences that have been waiting for a Spider-Man movie. It started with the director that made his teeth here, but if this doesn't work, that doesn't work. We can say all we want about, oh man, I mean, blades the first, I can appreciate that. X-Men's important, but if Spider-Man doesn't work, nothing works in the Marvel canon. To me, no, you're right. But Spider-Man doesn't exist, if evil dead. (slurping) - What'd you say there, son? Dr. Green Street, do you like film? - Oh my God. (slurping) - I guess. (slurping) That's my Santa Claus for the dentist chair right away. - You're right. - Think about that. - Yeah, we gotta go street by street on the circuit, and we gotta go find the dentist that's gonna give us $2,000 to make this gross movie. - Sound, of course, I like movies. What do you mean? (slurping) (slurping) Making a movie, can we borrow some money? - It's so micro, the domino effect that I think a lot of that stuff really had. I'm gonna, I'll bring that question back to you at the end of this episode, but man, there's a lot on this little 19-year-olds here that he doesn't even know of. I wish I could whisper to him as a little dead-eyed demon on his shoulder. You're gonna get the direct Spider-Man today. - I know this is hell, keep going, 'cause this is so hugely important to the whole world of cinema. - Yeah. - That little 19-year-old with shit his pants, right? I mean, like, I'm gonna get to direct a Spider-Man movie, and that movie's gonna be good. And then the next one you'll make will be even better. - Even better. (laughing) - I don't even know what to say. I mean, there's just, it's so fun talking about that space, that space, and then still this movie that is essentially just a goop picture. It's just so gross at times. - Yeah. - 'Cause we get this next scene here, which is Linda is now the evil bed, and we're gonna get you, and she shows up, and she's fighting Ash pounding him against the wall. He puts a knife around her, she falls on it, spews milk, it's disgusting, and it's like, I guess she's dead, takes her to the workshed, and another great moment is the first time we saw it in Raimi's filmography, which is the quick shot montage, which is still shots of an image, image, image, image, image, and then it, yeah, yeah, just, and that's how we do the montage, and it's chained to locker up, chain to locker up, chainsaw, and it's better in part two, because he essentially makes his chainsaw, and his sawed off shotgun, and he's really good at the montage, with just quick shot, shot, shot, shot, shot, shot. But what's crazy about it is this stupid, insignificant, magnifying glass keeps showing up, and he sees it on Linda's neck. I can't chainsaw my girlfriend, I don't care how evil bedded out she is, I can't chop her up into pieces. Let me give you a dignified finale. I'll go bury you next to your friend, I imagine, Shelly. Bury's her, and we're just sitting out there, and I'm just telling you, I'm waxing on eloquently about how hard it is to fill him in the dark, and Linda emerges from the ground, claws up his leg, and it's like, I'll just beat her with this two by four, and this shot of him falling down, she leaps on him in a very comedic fashion, and just lops off her head with a shovel, and the natural inclination is to laugh at how preposterous all of that was, and then you and I, I think, physically recoil that the amount of blood that just instantly-- - Or glues on him. - Spirt it into his mouth, dude, no thank you. - I think Raimi said, "You know what scene I really liked in Carrie?" - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, I do too. So, if you're gonna draw from something you might as well be alien and Carrie. And then we're gonna take Bruce Campbell, and hey, bud, keep your mouth, and nostrils closed, at least breathe out through your nose in this because you're about to get saturated in this crap. - Do you wonder, I wonder about that with certain actors and like Joe Beth Williams in Poltergeist, like in the pool. I was like, you're submerged in there, and like, unless you're plugging your nose, dude, that crap is all up in here. - Yeah. - That can't be fun, right? I mean, hopefully you're being compensated well, but like, these people obviously aren't. Hey, Bruce, keep your mouth open. I'm like, just shut all this blood into your nose and mouth. - Yeah. - Dear God, I mean, he goes back to the house, and finally, I mean, Cheryl's broken out of the basement. Scotty's laying dead on the floor, and we're like, okay, so like, Cheryl's beheaded. Shelly's chopped up into pieces. There's only two of these things, thankfully. But like, I gotta figure something out. So he's like shells, shotgun shells. They're in the basement. Oh God, I gotta go into the basement. I'm gonna play the clip. There's not a lot I can provide the right audience visually because a lot of it is auditory, but just listen to the sound design. And one thing I found out about this, the cones are gonna figure their way into this film here in just a wee little bit. But a lot of the sound effects in this movie ended up in blood simple. And listen to the little tinkling of the blood from the pipe. Is it not the tinkling of the water spout at the end of blood simple? So they use the same sound effect field because they became such good friends after the fact. - Mm-hmm. (electronic music) (electronic music) (electronic music) - Who are the sockets? (electronic music) (electronic music) (heavy breathing) (electronic music) (electronic music) (electronic music) (electronic music) (electronic music) (electronic music) (electronic music) - Shut up, Linda. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up. Oh, it's so sweet of you. - You gotta give me this. - This is the act of bodily dismemberment. - Hit her. Hit her. Hit her. Hit her. (electronic music) And that's the moment right there. For me, at least thematically in the film. He goes down, puts the new shells into the shotgun, slams it, cocks it. And I think that's Ashley to Ash, right? There's like, now I'm ready to deal with this. - Yeah. - As best as I can, right? - Yeah. - But man, that leaking pipe of blood, and he's just like, okay, that's strange. Let me walk up to it. It just explodes on his face, dear God. Dude, I want, I want no part of that. I don't know. Do I want, and a pencil of the Achilles, or do you just have like my face emerged in strange blood? I don't know where it came from. Maybe give me the pencil. - I think I'm with the pencil too. - And then that, through the outlets, the light bulb, the light bulb is actually a Three Stooges gag. There's a Three Stooges short where they're plumbers, and they just like, they're pretending to be plumbers. They show up at like a swinky house. They totally fuck up the plumbing in the house, and when they turn the lights on, the light fills with water. - Oh. - In this film, it fills with blood, because of course. - Yeah. - And this place just goes haywire. The whole house just goes nuts at this point. The clock, I've always wanted to know, this shot of like, the clock going, shh, shh, what do you call that? The pendulum of the clock? Back and forth, and the camera's like between it, and it's going back and forth between Campbell's face. - Yeah. - That's great, and then he goes to like the back door, the evil dead's there, it like zooms in on him, close up of his face, the shutters are going crazy. The overhead shot of him walking in the womp, womp, womp, womp, womp, as it goes through the pillars. And then the really great shot of like the mirror, man, I'm going nuts, and he touches the mirror, and it's just water, it's, oh my God. What do you think of like the house going crazy, but essentially him going crazy too, so how much is it fact and fiction? Is the house really going crazy? Or is he just lost his damn mind at this point? - I think a little bit of both, and how could you not have lost your mind if you're in the middle of all this? But I do think the house, because it's possessed by the forces of what has been a really wet bloody movie, is actually going through those processes too. So if you want to go back to what I was saying earlier, which is the house is his protection from, and menial, like very limited protection, against the Necro- - Nomicon. - The Necro Nomicon villainy. Man, it's turned on him now too. There is nowhere to go. So I like that this is what the third act is saying. You've got your shotgun, Ashley has become full on Ash, and not only are you taking on what's remaining of the evil dead, but the house isn't on your side either. So... - I guess I'm kind of leaning into more, it's just the house, but you and I would be baddie too. - Yeah. - Plus he hasn't been, you know, he's been awake for 24 hours, at least on the same time. So yeah, really, really well done, and I hadn't seen the light bulb filled with fluid before. I'm curious how you do that. How do you do that? No idea. 'Cause I thought once you compromised the vacuum piece of the light bulb, then the light bulb wouldn't work anymore, and I might be wrong, I'm not Albert Einstein, or Thomas Edison by any stretch of the imagination. So once you are able to put something into the light bulb, wouldn't that speak to an entry point which would challenge the integrity of what's inside the light bulb? - Yeah. - Anyway, good job, good job. But at this point, I mean, the evil dead are running the muck. I mean, Scotty comes to, I love this eye gouging scene, it's pretty gruesome, pulls a piece of branch out of him, and he just sprouts blood like nothing. And so we're down to two, but like, how do we destroy these things? And he notices that the book has kind of sort of caught fire, and Scotty's smoking a little bit over here. If I can get that whole book into the fire, I can kill the rest of these things. So it's this really interesting pusher pool with both Cheryl and Scotty. Can I do enough to get this thing? And he uses the stupid little magnifying glass to pull the book to him. Enough, I mean, while that's happening, Scotty's biting down on his calf, and Cheryl's beating him down with the fire poker, gets the book, puts it into the fire, and then everything stops. I love that shot of the fire poker falling out of her hands like right in front of his face. And then it's stop motion down. - Yeah. - Like they're like dissolving, desolving, bugs are cutting out of them, coming out of them, pea soups coming out of them. And then they just start exploding. And all the bloods going on Campbell, and this shot of like Cheryl falling down to the ground, and the camera following his eyes as the head explodes, and the blood just spurts on him, is just like insult to injury, right? It's just like, Raimi's able is also willing to abuse his actors for the shot. I mean, see Tobin Gwire inspired man. I mean, like, we're gonna do it soon. I'm telling you, I got a cast plan for the later where we finally get to do that movie, but there's a great scene in that movie where Peter's late for Dr. Conner's class drops his books in the middle of Columbia, you. And he's getting hit by book bags and things, and it's like, it's that mentality here. I'm gonna abuse my actor to get the shot. Dude, Campbell's covered in blood head to toe. What do you think of the finale? I mean, like, I think you're able to appreciate the kind of genius of stop motion animation, but is it too cheesy? Does it pull you out? I could see someone watching this and be like, wow, that looks shitty, but if you haven't done stop motion, I don't think you know how laborious and time consuming that process is. To do this, this probably took this guy months to figure this out. - Yeah, months. - Yeah. - What do I think about that? - Yeah, I mean, it hasn't aged well over the time, but I'd take that over CGI mostly. - Do we wrap up the evil dead in a satisfying manner? - Yeah, I mean, what are you gonna say on this film? Are you gonna look at that and be like, oh, well, the ending, technically, special effects-wise sucks, so the movie sucks. If that's where you're at, I guess so be it. But it is sort of fun to watch them break down in a way. And you can tell it's stop motion animation. - Do you really care that much? I mean, no, I never, I don't either. - I had that filter turned off a long time ago. - Me too. - Yeah. - Now, if that was the only time in this film that there are any special effects, and that's all you had, maybe that's a fair criticism, but I'm willing to grant this movie the grace that that's the best they could do at that time on the budget they had. And it doesn't look entirely awful. And I don't know if it's not a realm of possibility. That's actually what that might look like. I'd not clay, but you don't really spun me out on that. I really, is that green piece that falls out of Scotty? Scotty, is that a worm? Like, what is that? - Like a snake or a worm or-- - Some kind of bug in there, I don't know. The fun and the stop motion animation is trying to figure out what exactly that's supposed to look like as it's decomposing. - Yeah. - Is it clunky? Yes, is it a little clumsy? Yes. - Yeah. - Do I care? No, I don't know. I think that's the goal of the film, right? I mean, and somehow I would stood at the test of time. Let me catch you up a little bit on some of the production anecdotes here. So, the first day of filming, they got lost in the wall. - Oh my God. - I know where they were. I mentioned 13 people sharing one room. But by the, what's interesting, and you can totally tell, I mean, I've seen this film enough where you can tell where they don't have the Scotty actor anymore. They don't have the Cheryl actor anymore. So this is 16, 15 year old Ted Raimi in coopious amounts of makeup. And his brother is just torturing this guy with ooze and pus coming out of him. So I need to discuss a term, 'cause he's Ted Raimi's credited in the credits as a fake shimp. Do you know what that is? Shimp from-- - Through Stooges. - Yes, yeah. It's a term, okay, so in the three Stooges, shorts. At one point, Shimp, the actor, the real actor, had a heart attack, but they still had a couple episodes contract-wise to finish out with him. So they used body doubles, force perspective to hide the fact that it wasn't really him. Which one's Shimp? Long, stringy, wet hair, not curly, right? So they're such a big vanity. So Raimi in this was like, well, this isn't really Ellen Sandweiss playing Cheryl. This is my brother. So Ted Raimi is credited in the film as fake shimp. And I was like, what does that mean? It's essentially a coined a term of a body double that's not really the real actor. And I think we've seen this a lot. I think we saw this in the crow, which was brandonly past, and there's shots of the back of someone's head, him in the shadows, but it's not really him. That's an example of a fake shimp. Paul Walker dying in the Fast and the Furious 7 production using body doubles, his brothers to kind of pseudo-finish the movie. But I mean, he used it in a way that was actually, I was like, what the fuck is a fake shimp? I was like, I know who Shimp is. I kind of love that, man. I kind of just, I love that they're like the body double 'cause the person left. So imagine this. So okay, they made the movie. It's very troubling. There's no plumbing. It's a disaster for everybody by the end of it. And it took them about a year to complete this thing. By the end, it's Ramey, Campbell, Rob Tapper, the special effects guy, and a couple other people, Ted Ramey, you got like seven people left at this cabin to complete it. Allegedly what they did was it was so cold in the cabin, they just started burning the furniture they had there to keep warm. So I love this image of like these guys breaking down with axes, beds, and chairs to like make a makeshift fire just to keep warm just so we can finish out the last five days of this thing. And he got my 15 year old brother here in coopiest amounts of goo and makeup. Man, I kind of love that. Just I really like that. Yeah. But then the film wraps up. The final shot is Bruce Campbell walks out into the sunset. Don has arrived. Maybe I can make my way to the main road even though the bridge is out. But here comes the evil bed and get this. The final shot is the camera on a bicycle, going through the forest, knocking down the doors, and essentially knocking over Bruce Campbell so you can get that final shot of his face before we cut to black. - Wow. - Wow. Wild. How do you mount the camera to a bicycle? And you're getting the shots you need. And I mean, we've been talking almost two hours now in a movie that's only an hour and 25 minutes. It is lean and mean, right? But this final shot I mean is just like the evil bed is out there. You can't stop it. It's gonna get the guy. I don't care what you once you read from the book, you can't stop at your toast until we make a sequel and get more into it. But that's it. I mean, cut to black. The film's finally finished. Let me play this next clip here 'cause I think it's fun hearing from Raimi about like, well, what were you going through during all this time? - No. - You fell under a little pressure when you were shooting it? - Yes, I fell under a great pressure. And it was not artistic pressure. It was all financial pressure because there were no expectations on me as a kid. It was all a question of, I have $90,000 of these people's money who I promised I would make a good movie out of. This has got to be good. It's strange, but that's where I was coming from back then. - So what do you think would have happened if the movie hadn't been hit? - Well, then I would be selling air conditioners again, which I'm pretty good at. You see this little baby that'll put out 200 BTUs in a cool room, basically 20 by 40. And if you want to blow it around with a fan, I got that too, and sell air conditioners was terrible. - So did they make the money back? - In fact, on Evil Dead number one, we've returned to the investors about three and a half times our original investment. - How much control did they exercise over the movie? Did they keep in touch and keep in on how things were done? - No, they were very good to us, actually, the investors. They never hassled us. We would give them a bi-weekly letter to tell them where we were and what was going on. At this point, the picture is in editing, the picture is in music, the picture is in dubbing. And then we sent them two invitations to the world premiere. - What does the dentist care about, like, just finish it, right? - He's not gonna give insight on to like do it this way or do it that way. - Yeah. - 3.5 times, that's pretty decent, right? I mean, like if I invested 5,000, I'm getting 20 plus thousand back, right? I mean, sure, not bad. So they had a boatload of footage to edit. They chose a Detroit firm where Sam Raimi met Edna Paul. Paul's assistant at that time, Detroit editor was Joel Cohen, who did some editing on this film. And then him and his brother, Ethan, were so inspired by this grassroots within the woods prototype film to feature film that that kind of half inspired them to do blood simple that way. - Yeah. - And kind of like, let's make the movie, let's garner interest and then let's go make the movie. We're gonna do that movie one day, but like it's gonna be real interesting to see if we can draw some evil bed parallels to blood simple, right? And then I guess these guys became lifelong friends at that point, just because this guy, the assistant of this person was Joel Cohen, right? - Yeah. - And were some like-minded people? The initial cut ran 117 minutes, that's just three minutes under two hours. Hey, guess what? Too long, but get that in front of my eyes. I'll watch the 117 minute cut of the evil bed. They got it down to a reasonable length. And I thought this was a cool anecdote blowout was being edited at the same facility at the same time as this movie. - Interesting, yeah. It's two pretty good properties at the same time in the same place. - So I think that was inspiring for one young Mr. Raimi. So it had the premiere at a local Detroit theater and it was a huge success. And you know, that's like your friends, your family, your investors coming and are like, wow, that like they made a movie, right? - Yeah. - So it was huge. So they decided to tour it and show it at any interested distributor with the hopes of it being picked up. And I have a really cool story, also from the same interviewing piece from Raimi of like, okay, we have a movie. Some people are liking it, but like we need distribution to get it into more theaters, right? This is what they had to do. This is still the 19 year old kid. Okay, what do I do with my movie now? - How did you go about getting a distribution deal? - Rob Tapper, Bruce Campbell and myself went to the home of distributors, New York first. And we crashed on people's floors. And I remember one place, we didn't have enough money to rent out a hotel room or a motel room. So Bruce called this girl that he knew liked him. Say, Betty, I'm gonna come buy your place. I'm in town. Oh, great, come on, bye, Bruce. Okay, can I stay the night? Sure, I'd love it. She was coming onto him in Detroit. So Bruce goes, shows up at her door. shows at Bruce, I, Rob and I are there. Hello, hello, we're here too. She went, oh, you're all here. Okay, come on in, you can stay the night. So it was a nightmare. To use this woman's apartment, we had to do her first of all. And then Rob and I would hear this horrible struggle going on in the back room. This apartment was no bigger than this room. Her advances on Bruce. Meanwhile, I was trying to fall asleep pretending it didn't exist. She had six cats, this apartment. Not that I was any position to complain, mind you. I'm just saying that when I awoke, I slept in a bed of cat hair. When I awoke, my face had all puffed out of us. It was a nightmare. We'd ride the subways with our film cans in hand, show them to distributors in the screening rooms, wait outside nervously drinking coffee, pacing around, reciting the lines that we would say to him about how good we thought it would be in rehearsing our dialogue. We'd come in when the movie was over. He'd be sleeping, you know. Is it over? So we had a lot of very discouraging experiences. All knows. Luckily for Sam, the film met with a different response in Europe. After screening up a Cannes Film Festival, it was picked out for distribution in Britain by Paris Pictures. Thank God, the grassroots of it all. We gotta go, I gotta go lay in though, like a woman's apartment to sleep on a bed of cats. Just to go the next day, go show this to people that are gonna just not even pay any attention to it. How discouraging, but like they did find their way to-- As much as Bruce as Sam and Robert taken one. I love that he said there's a struggle in the back room. The struggle in the back room? Bruce, you gotta like this girl's into you. You gotta make it happen, buddy. You gotta make it happen. Oh my gosh. So they find their way to-- The wingman is the frontman for the first time. For sure, you gotta take one for the team, dude. They find their way to Irvin Shapiro, who was a distributor who was responsible for distributing Night of the Living Dead. So a lot of success there. And he was interested, but it was like, you gotta change this title. Book of the Dead, this is too much. So they came to Evil Bed at that point. And then Irvin Shapiro was one of the founding members of the Cannes Film Festival. So he was like, you guys can screen it there out of competition as like a midnight-- because that happens from time. Like, the Cannes Film Festival have like a midnight screening of like a totally off-the-walls horror or like whatever movie. So in '81, '82, this gets screened there. And some people are like, OK. But one of those people that was in attendance that night was one Mr. Stephen King. And he gave a quote endorsement, which was, he really liked the movie. And he said the most ferociously original horror film of the year, which they took that quote, slap it on the poster. Dude, Stephen King endorses our movie. And that kind of became the calling card, which was like, OK, they liked it in Europe. Now the US people are like, we want a piece of it. What is this? New Line Cinema, the little studio that shows up all the time of like, oh, when no one can find it, we'll do it. They distributed it domestically. Another company does it in Europe. And they did kind of a weird COVID thing here with Evil Bed, which was they released it in 1983. So two years after it was done, in theaters and VHS simultaneously. So it kind of found the home video market and then the theatrical market at the same time. Cool. Yeah. What does that say, though, to the power of Mr. Stephen King? I guess it speaks to the most important vote of approval you can get at that time. 81 King is pretty good, right? Yeah, I mean, is there a better connoisseur of horror out there than Stephen King and if this master storyteller? And let's be real honest, right? I mean, we're not in a place where God, most of Stephen King movies suck. We're still at a place where most of Stephen King movies are going to be OK. Kerry? Yeah. The Shining. The Shining, that's two pretty big huge hits right away. That's a game-winning endorsement if there ever was one. And what better way to put that on your poster than man? If Stephen King thinks that's a pretty good horror, that must be pretty goddamn good horror. So boom. Yeah. Again, a little bit lucky. Stephen King happened to go to a midnight screening of some weird "Off the Wall" possession film. OK. At the Cannes Film Festival in France, he was there. He was like, oh, wow, I really like that. Interesting. Crazy, right? I mean, so that leads one thing to the next. The movie finally comes out. It ended up on the "Video Nasty" list and received an X rating here in the States. Unbelievable. The movie is still banned in some countries to this day. Wow. But after the fact, I mean, it was a pseudo-calling card for Mr. Raimi. They doubled down. They made a little movie called "Crime Wave" after this. The Collins wrote it. He directed it. Bruce Campbell's in it. But it was from all anecdotes. It was an unmitigated disaster. A lot of interference. The script got chopped up. And I've seen it. It's not a great movie. It does feel like a lot of chefs in the kitchen, right? But he's somewhat-- and so out of desperation, because they were like, this is a bomb where if he on you, you want to do an Evil Dead sequel. And so he's like, I guess, if that's the only way to keep going, so they do Evil Dead 2 and 87. And to this day, I will stand by this. That's number nine or number 10 on my top 10 films of all time. I think it's Raimi's absolute masterpiece. It's essentially this same movie that we just talked about for two hours. But with more money, more ingenuity, more control, more maturity, and he delivers on all fronts-- we'll do it one of these days. We won't do it in this cast, because we got more to talk about. But Evil Dead 2 out of desperation-- not even a want. Let me continue the story of Ash and the Evil Dead. It's like, no, I need to do this because I won't have a career. And let me deliver, and boy, does he deliver. And then that leads with universes like, well, lose this guy, dark man, to quicken the dead, and then simple plan to Spider-Man somehow, right? You do enough-- sometimes you take the gig because the gig puts food on the table, right? It's not what you want to do, but it's what needs to be done at the given moment. Hear that, Josh Olson? Yeah. So you keep doing it, and that gets you to some place that kismet, right? A, I love this character. B, my brother showed me this character. C, this guy wants me to do this movie that I've heard about becoming reality for the last two decades. And he delivers, and then some. It's one of the greatest stories in Hollywood. I mean, how can you not love all of that? It started here in 1981 with Evil Dead, the road to get to Spider-Man. It is just completely crazy. And it's wild to look at Raimi's Filmography since then, because it's Spider-Man 1, 2, 3, Drag Me to Hell, which is essentially Evil Dead 4. Have you ever seen that, no? Really? No. It's amazing. Justin Long, Alison Long, it's a great movie. It's everything I would want from a Raimi horror film from the guy, one of these days, to put that in the hopper. God, Justin Long, what happened there? Exactly, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah, he showed up in one of our scripts, too, of like-- it has to be Justin Long. Oz, The Great and Powerful, which to this day, I will say, is it's Army of Darkness with Wizard of Oz. It's the same story and beats, and I can prove it. I can prove you, beat by beat. It's the same movie. Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, and that's it. So three Spider-Men's, Drag Me to Hell, Oz, and-- so six movies since 2002. A lot of producing work, though. Heavily involved in the Evil Dead remake, the show. Fettie Alvarez's career with Don't Breathe. Do you want more from Mr. Raimi? I know he kind of got the rumor for the time was he was in the short-running for Secret Wars. What do you think? Does he fit in the superhero space? Do you want to see him do another horror film? I mean-- Yes, to both of those. Yeah, either, right? Yeah. The problem with Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness was not a Raimi problem. It was like, they don't know what story problem. They don't know what they want this universe to be problem. Exactly. Stuck in the limbo, right? Yeah, no, of course I want more from him, and I think those two spaces are a proven entity where we've seen some success. Yeah, I mean, if he's producing and he's got his hand on things that he thinks has potential, and he can line up the pieces to make things happen, that's fine, too. But it probably is time for him to get back behind the camera and find that property that really goes ahead and submits the importance of the man in the industry. Because I don't know if a lot of people are willing to give him that accolade. Yeah, obviously we have to. Oh, I definitely will. And it's probably time. I think a lot of what Sam Raimi didn't get is what Ridley Scott did get. Totally different. But I think the acceptance and the appreciation of Ridley Scott is sometimes a bit overwrought, because there's a lot of good Ridley Scott properties. There's a lot of really bad Ridley Scott properties, too. And you can say the same thing about every director. But somewhere between Tim Burton and Ridley Scott is where Sam Raimi exists, and a little bit of Burton goes a long way, and a lot less of Ridley Scott goes a long way. And there you land smack dab in the middle of Sam Raimi's wheelhouse. Yeah. It's a very unique career, right? All started right here in '81, 19 years old. Let's go to the woods and make a movie. But let's wrap this thing up. So what's your favorite tasting moment scene sequence of the evil bed? I think my favorite bit in this is the pure horror piece that we come to appreciate. And that's the levitating bit that made you want to turn the film off. Like I said, I'm five or six times in now. That's still a really troubling part. I told you, that's very, very horrifying. It's really well done. And the makeup is superb. The changing of the voice, it's perfect. It's hard to watch. I like hard to watch in horror for horror, not because it's poorly made, but because it's actually really troubling. Yeah, troubling. That challenged me, right? I'm going to pick the cabin going mad, ash going mad sequences of close up shots in the basement. That's Ramey in his wheelhouse of like zoomins, close outs, overtop, inside this clock. And you get to see a lot of ingenuity there. But like, man, Bruce Campbell sells it. I mean, as an actor, how do you sell this thing's coming at me? What do I do? Dude, that's an actor reacting to nothing. And he sells it. He's just like, he sells the craziness of all of that. Yeah, dump a gallon of blood on me. Like, what am I going to-- I'm in no position to argue. I love that it's like 10 minutes of the movie, or just the cabin. It's just like going berserk. But it's like the filmmaker coming into his own. And the actor just selling it, too. It's always been my favorite moment of the movie. That shot of like-- he opens the hallway door. And the camera's like at the very far end of it. And it waits a little bit. And then it just zooms in on the door. And he slams it. And then we just do like a smash cook close up of his face. And he's like, this place is going nuts. I don't know what to-- I don't know what to react to this. So that's mine. What's your-- Oh, my God. Moment of the evil dead. The forest rape, sexing. I don't know how it can't be. You make a choice where once you pry her legs apart, you can show what's happening without showing what's happening. You can go too tight on face. And she is somewhere between horror and euphoria, which is delivered really, really well in a movie. That's a little bit devoid of great acting. But now, Raimi, he decides, no, you want to see what's going to happen? Watch, bam. And we go. And you see what happens. That's like, wow, like, really. We're going here. We're going here. Do you remember that line in-- We're getting so emotional. We're actually going to let this happen. We're going to dinner, we're actually going to let this happen. That's this here is like, we're actually going to show it, right? My oh my god, it's the pencil into the Achilles. But that troubled me, almost turned it off. But then the next scene, I was exceptionally troubled by. And this is the scene I fast forwarded through, which was Shelly's possession. On the fire, biting her hand off, getting chopped up, I was like, I am not prepared to watch the rest of this movie with this. And I don't do this a lot. But 13-year-old me was like, this is a new and unique experience. So it's a compilation of both of those moments. That was a maturity moment for me of like, wow. Horror can be these other gross things. I really need to buckle up. And for some people, they've never seen stuff like this before. When you go see The Conjuring, it's a fairly contained, controlled movie, like you don't have a scene in The Conjuring where someone bites their own hand off and then spews milk fluid out of their mouth. I mean, the evil bed is, you know, not expert level, but like advanced level, whore viewing. It takes a very specific person to sit down and watch this. And I think not be troubled by it. Well said, yeah, yeah, what am I going to say, yeah. Who's the master distiller on the evil bed, really? I mean, we like Bruce Campbell. But this is Sam Raimi's vehicle. So I'm sure we're both probably in the same place here. Sam Raimi. You got a 19 years old? Yeah. And this is, I got like a piece of quartz stuck in my mouth. This is your finished product. Remarkable. Like, I mean, not even Orson Welles could say at 19. He was delivered, I think was 27, 28 when Jaws came out. I mean, this is way carpenter 26, 25 at Halloween. Dude, he's beaten all these guys and delivering something with like a vicious ferocity. Yeah. Yeah. How do you not give it to Raimi? I mean, this is one of the real-- and I really want to do it on this podcast. I think the audio speaks for it. The story notes, anecdotes speak for it. What we've talked about speak for it. One of the coolest director origin stories, I think I've ever come across in film history. And I think the big problem is I don't hear a lot of people talking about it. I mean, we talk about Tarantino working in a video store. We talk about Spielberg working or going to college, growing up in Arizona. George Lucas having a car accident, making Star Wars. Where are my peeps talking about Sam Raimi going into the middle of fricking nowhere, making this with no ties to Hollywood and essentially crafting a career that gets him to Spider-Man. That's amazing. That's the amazing Spider-Man. Yes, yes. So man, I want more of that. I mean, like, give this guy his due credit because this-- I think it's impossible today. I mean, there's so much saturation in the media creation space. Sure, you could put out the evil bit on YouTube, but are you getting Spider-Man off of that? Probably not. I mean, it was of its time. So you're right in that regard of it's timing, it's luck, and it's knowing what you're doing as well. It's a perfect combo of all three, well said. How are you going to rate and grade the evil bed? We have Rocka, well, call, single barrel and tippy top shelf. I don't know how this can't be anything but top shelf. What this movie was, what it was perceived as, what it took to make it and what it leads to, is the stuff of legend. I think it is a mistake to call this a cult film that has a wide following of fans or a vast following of fans. Certainly it has that. I'm not going to say that that's not the case. This is far beyond cult following acceptance. That is giving it way, way, way too narrow focus on how important this movie is in the early '80s through the mid aughts of filmmaking and what it meant not only for horror, but for the legacy that this film would build. And we haven't even talked about this, let's just say specked, okay, specked. We didn't even talk about the disrespect. So grassroots, bust your ass, spec story, what it will become, the genius that it showed, the guttiness that it took, and the luck genuineness to deliver a film that even though at 19 you're either looking into or presenting what you don't even understand yourself but innately or subconsciously have already come to grasp, this is a top shelf film. That's where I'm at. You're not gonna argue. No, I'm glad and also thankful. 'Cause I mean, I could appreciate a single barrel rating because it's so unique. It is craft, but for you specifically, I'm glad you did it 'cause I'm still gonna do it because it will make for great material. I almost wanted to call you out if you didn't give it's top shelf because for you specifically, Mr. Spider-Man, how important that character is for you to your nuclei, right? Yeah. If this film bombs and Raimi has to go and become an air conditioner salesman, that movie isn't what it is and maybe down the line, someone figures that out, right? Yeah, maybe. We get a Spider-Man movie in its way, but I think if you go back and listen to the OG Spider-Man we did in year one, that's a monumental film moment for you. Yes. And who's to say that if like input director of that time period that like blades, fine, X-Men 1 is all right, but if Spider-Man bombs and is the same quality of like the Fantastic Four or Ghost Rider or Hulk, does it derail the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe because we don't got our flagship up front. There's a lot riding on that for Spider-Man movie and it's I think successful in due part to the casting, but because of this director we're talking about today, which is because of this film today. So if this film bombs, you don't get that, you don't get that moment. How could this not be a top shelf film for you? Right. You don't get that opening night, May 3rd, 2002. Oh my God, this finally happened without this guy, right? I mean, this has to be huge. It's top shelf with a bullet for me. I mean, I'm not even, and here's the crazy part. This isn't even top 10. This is like maybe top 25 movies for me. There's a lot of movies that I hold in really high regard. Evil Bed 2 I think is number nine, number 10. So I think that says a lot of the power of how amazing I think the second film is in this trilogy. But I mean, this gave me a filmmaking voice of myself and like the next year, so like 2010-ish, I'm going to take a stab at like making my own film from the ground up. I just don't have the ingenuity and the drive and the bravery that Raimi had here. Like I'm not going to drop out of school to make my film a feature film reality. Maybe that's different in 1981, right? But like there's a lot of balls there to like drop out of school. Let me go do this. Let me make it happen. And it becomes a movie that is still being talked about today for however long we've been talking about it. Long show this week, wow, 240. There's something there, right? So it's been hugely inspirational for me. I'll always be a voice in Raimi's corner. I'll be a voice in a lot of filmmakers corner, but like there's something very poignant and special about him, Michigan, suburbs, drop out, I'll make it happen. Like that, there's a lot of me in Raimi in those that 19, 20 year old mentality. I'm forever grateful. And the way I got to Evil Dead feels so germane to like how films of like Gen X came to horror films which was go to the video, you hear about something, you go to the video store, you rent a VHS tape, you watch it. Oh my God, I'm horrified. I got to share this horror with other people. And like a parasite, I latch it onto other people. I just feel like I need to do it for more. I mean, like more people need this ride. And I don't care, you can think it's the worst thing. I don't care at this point. Like I think people need to see the Evil Dead. It's an important horror milestone. I might even say top five most important horror films ever made, fantastic. Well, let's wrap this up with our nightcap. (dramatic music) Before we get to the nightcap, you know I have a really keen ear. It's calibrated a little bit differently than a lot of other people's ears. That's my music background. I wanna play a cue for you from the end of the Evil Dead. So after that little clip I played, when Ash is walking out into the dawn, this little diddy plays. And then I'm gonna play a second one from you. It's the final scene of Spider-Man 3. When Mary Jane's singing at the nightclub and Peter shows up there and they lock eyes. She walks up to them. They hold each other and kind of dance into like a very sweet embrace. Is there some similarities here in the music cue? So here's Evil Dead. (dramatic music) (dramatic music) Okay, that's the Evil Dead. Here's Spider-Man 3. (dramatic music) Yeah. (dramatic music) It might even be the same notes, right? - Yeah. - Like the only difference that I can see is the string is coming a little bit later and the Spider-Man 3 is the same song. At least tonally it's the same song. I'm telling you that I got this cast planned in the background over here. Spider-Man 3 has issues. - Yeah. - The end of that movie's not one of them. Kind of sweet, man. I'm like, yeah, that's Peter and Mary Jane. Dude, to hug it out, we went through some shit but like, we're good, right? - Yeah. - And that music is really well done in that movie. I just wanna do that to you 'cause like on other Evil Dead podcast, dude, I have like, I hear some things sometimes and I'm like, that sounds like this and sometimes it can't be coincidence, right? It's like, I heard that song there. Here's the homage, right? Nice. So the Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, Evil Dead the remake. And then last year we had Evil Dead Rise, a film I did not love. But Ash versus Evil Dead was a TV series on the stars network that lasted three plus seasons. So my nightcap question to you is, give me a horror film, property, franchise, whatever, that you think could last a season TV series for multiple ongoing seasons. - Okay, yeah. Speaking of, as we're growing up, very important and inspirational films, I'm going to one of the three that I would give to you as you give me this Spider-Man story. Ready, it's Halloween. And I want it in the institution where Michael is with, if we're doing Dreamcast, with Donald Pleasance, somewhere in the 13 to 15 year old range. Not so little kid that we don't understand that he kind of is too inaudible and not worldly enough to really make a story out of, but there's a number of years in the Michael Myers story that we don't know anything about it than a bit of brief backstory. - Yeah. - There's a story there. After Sister is Killed and we are pissed off 'cause we didn't get taken trick or treating or whatever you want to derive from that, there's a story there. And in institution and the friendships that he makes or the violence that ensues, I think there's a story there. And it could be almost mind-hunter-like if you wanted to do it that way. - That's pretty good. - Yeah. - That's got to be like somewhere in the works there. I mean, like the last years, the missing years, some of the novelizations have kind of gotten into the weeds with that, but yeah, the asylum years with young Michael and what's he up to? What's Luma's up to? Great choice. - Thanks. - My number three, a very troubling franchise for me, the latter sequels, I think I'm almost convinced that they are other scripts and then they just shove this property into them at the last minute to like sell it. But are you not telling me you couldn't do episodically the Hellraiser franchise, which is essentially puzzle box per episode, some sort of wayward soul comes across this box for whatever nefarious needs they need and they summon the centabytes? - Yeah. - I mean, that's a cool idea. I mean, I don't feel like it's been executed well enough on the film space, but in television episodically, week by week, I think you could get an interesting view into the wants and needs of a protagonist and then the centabytes fold into that. That could be a lot of fun. - Ooh, I love that. - Yeah, a lot of story there. Okay, so this one would be very expensive 'cause it needs to be episodically done in the 50s when the original came out or the 70s when the remake was done, but it plays really well against a red scare, it doesn't necessarily have to be red, but a political backdrop. And I think it's the people that have not been possessed or taken over yet by the pod people and give me an invasion of the body snatchers rebel group taking down the pod people story. So five, six, seven people that have figured out what's happening and have some way of identifying who is still human and who is not, and they move through society essentially on the lamb from being turned and running into various groups pod or otherwise that have really different social implications tied to it. - Is your show a little, is it a little like The Walking Dead? - A little bit, yeah. - Man, you wanna talk about two movies that could fit into this cast today, which is 50s invasion, 70s invasion. - I think we both like the 70s one better. - God, it's just such a universal story of like, what is it like to not talk to someone that isn't that someone, right? They're a replacement, a void of who you know. - Great choice, thanks. My number two, it's a franchise we've talked about, often on this podcast, and you know what? Guess what people, the films ain't working for me, but episodically, let's take like a Freddy's, nightmares, Friday the 13th approach, give me the conjuring, Ed and Lorraine Warren, treasure trove of rooms as a series. And guess what, every episode is just a different, a different trinket. - I love that. - A monkey, a nano bell, a piece of floss, I don't care. - Yeah, each episode is just another haunted thing in that treasure trove of Ed Shack or whatever, because I don't know if I can stomach another movie of them, because there's a lot of baggage coming with a lot of that, right, but episodically, I mean, like a series, it seems perfectly suited for something like that. So give me the conjuring series instead of movies. - I love that. We've talked about it forever. All of the properties that they introduced it to, and then as we kind of dug into it, realized how much they didn't deliver on most of it. - I think I said last week, I think, like E.T. was big for us, the conjuring was big for us, of like, that was a film we liked, an initial viewing, and we sat here in the living room watching, and we're like, the fuck, like, this, this is kind of terrible. - Yeah, this is kind of not great. - Yeah. - Good choice, that'd be a lot of fun. There's a lot of meat on that bone for the warrens. That has to have been discussed. I would imagine that has to have been discussed. - For sure, yeah. - Number one, okay, this is one that we brought up a lot, and I don't know where in post-production or pre-production or Devo hell it is now, but man, the one that I really wanna see, think like Dexter. Did you do Dexter? - Yeah. - Okay, the dark passenger is terribly villainous, but when used to take out someone who's worse than Dexter, we kind of ally with it. Man, give me it follows in the same way, and we go and Mike Monroe has figured out exactly how to use this, and we are at an investigative, film the war, femme fatale kind of way, so we gotta tart her up. We are seeking out the worst and the bad of the bad to bring that to them, and it can be from peter-ass, to drug dealer, to you name it. Oh man, and we are-- - That's a show, yeah. - We are comin' the catacombs of trouble, and watching like when you continually introduce yourself to that element of society, what's worse, the demon that's chasing you down, 'cause you're on borrowed time anyway, or the element of society that you're having to ingratiate yourself with. Man, that is a show, number one. - Yeah. - Greenlighted tomorrow. - We need her. - Maybe she works for the FBI. - We need her though, right? - Gotta have her. - Whoa. - Didn't we not get her? - Did you do long legs? - Not yet. - Did you do it? - Oh, wild. - And then that figure, yeah. - It's a crazy movie. She's fantastic in it. Nick Cage is fantastic in that movie. Ooh, I loved it. I will dare I say, made one of my honorable mentions, so it was on my brain, right? - Oh, yeah. - The fact of like transmitting the sex demon from other people, you're right, to like peter-ass, to this person. I mean, that's a show. And there's 13 episodes right there of how many different ways can I get this to different people and make a story out of it. - Yeah. - My number one, I thought, if you have any honorable mentions, we'll save those here in a second, but I was like, I really like the premise of rec. Going to a firehouse, filming that day, and then getting thrust into an extraordinary situation. But what if that was episodically every episode, which each episode was just a different found footage thing. And the whole show was just called rec, and it's just, we're going to this place, that place, and something supernatural or phenomenal happens along the way. I don't think we've ever had a, we've had VHS, which is an anthology film, but we've never had TV episodic found footage. Nope. I think there's a space there for that to have completely unique stories across the rec banner. So that's my number one, I'd really like to see that. - I wanna see that too. - Yeah, I love that. - Yeah, and that leans into your Twilight Zone stuff that you like, where you can keep it contained in one universe that sort of all operates by the same rules, but not necessarily ABCD in sequence with each other. Oh, I love it, I love it. Any honorable mentions for you? One, actually, actually two, but I'll just do the one, Dracula. Okay, so I don't wanna, I don't need another Dracula episodic story, like we can do dark shadows. And I wouldn't, if someone proposed that, I probably would tune in religiously. What if the harker and Van Helsing wipe out all of the vampires at Carfax Abbey, they miss one of Dracula's brides? And then we take that from whenever the hell that is in the middle of 18 boring and put it in 2024, and she has grown up into a much more controlled, in control of that ability, and existing today. And then I wanna play in the space that is feminine, and loving, and almost romantic, but deadly romantic. Who is she picking? Who is she gonna turn? How many people has she gone through? So Age of Adeline meets Dracula's bride. That's a mess, but man, it handled properly. And you know, you're gonna laugh, you know how I want to write it? Mark Webb. Okay, I give it to Mark Webb. Starring Sidney Sweeney. Or Anadarmus, who's a better vampire. Guess what, tell me. No, wait, hang on. They're gonna be in a movie together. For you. No, it's a Ron Howard movie coming out this fall called Eden, and it's them two, Vanessa Kirby, Daniel Brulph, who plays Baron Zemo. Yeah. Dude, sign me up. Are we there opening night? No, I'm there opening night. I don't even care what the rest of the movie is. Look, Sidney Sweeney and Felicia Hardy's blackhead outfit is enough to get my ass on the seat. It's opening, come on, right? Come on. Great choice. Oh, yeah. Let me, I have one honorable mention, and it's a film we've done on the podcast, but okay. Imagine the child or society. Oh, I thought about this too. And here you took it. Okay, I love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, it's essentially just a group of old fogies telling ghost stories. I mean, how was that not a show, right? How could it not be? The only kind of factor I need is like, Craig Watson has to like go full frontal on every episode. Oh geez. Okay. But like, I think that's a cool premise, right? I mean, here's these old guys troubled in their own ways, coming together in their very waspy way of telling ghost stories together with bourbon suits. Yeah. I really, maybe we should go back and listen to that episode 'cause I think that was a good one. But like, the commentary on like these, the dressing up to tell ghost stories. So great. Well, like each episode is a different story that they're telling to perpetuate this society going forward. And then that's a show right there. I mean, there's right all those episodes. So do you want it as like, oh God, Jesse, that's so good. Do you want that as like skull and bones initiation to membership in this larger group has been visited by the same kind of feminine or entity through all of them? Or is it just, we've had experiences in this week's episode is member 22. I think that version, and that could still be so. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I don't think we need the same plot. Like yeah, this girl like making her way through all these men, but rather I'm coming to the group this night. Here's my story, the story's the episode for the night, right? So good. Yeah. There's a lot of, I think on the plate there, I mean like as we kind of ebb and flow from like premier television or film to television, I know there's a Crystal Lake show that Peacock has in the works right now that is coming, right? But like that, I'm waiting to see what that might look like. TV, I mean like for all, especially a lot of these like 80 slashers, I mean like we've gone pretty far with these guys, right? Yeah. I mean episodic television might be like the next best place for like expanding the story and seeing where we can take some of this material. That's why I really see Hellraiser. I mean, they've gone about as far as they can with that in the film's base and they've really kind of mucked it up, but like episodically, that puzzle box gets into a different person's hand each week and it's very quantum leapy like, yeah. Yep. We're going to like a different sin this and then like guess what pinhead and butterball are showing up? Like yeah, I think that could work pretty well. Yeah. But hey, guess what, Matt? I knew this one was going to be long because, you know, the Evil Dead highly sacred ground for me, but man, that's it's still top 25 ground. Are my top 25? And I've mapped it out just because like, what does my top 25 look like? We've but scratched the surface of those films on this podcast. Evil Dead 2, I told you was in the top 10. I mean that they're saying something there. I mean, I'm not just, you know, saying that for attention. I mean, Evil Dead 2, I think is a better movie than this movie. Yeah. But, I mean, this is the Hor Heavy Hitter's Cask. I'll let you announce, you know, what's coming next week? It's shocking to me that after 250 plus episodes of proper and shots and everything else that we have never got there to this one, but it's time. So we're going way, way, way, way, way, way, way back to a franchise and a series that we love tremendously. So we're back in a universal space and we're back in a universal space all the way into 1931. Mr. James Wales, masterpiece. What is in my top 10 all time? And it is such a fun discussion we're about to have around the film, Frankenstein. I cannot wait. Yeah. This is gonna be a good one. Even Bride of Frankenstein, which I'll say right now, I think is a better movie, but OG Frankenstein, a ton to talk about. I mean, the weird opening theatrical, this movie might scare you beyond belief. So you can leave. Don't say we didn't want to. You can leave now. Do what is that? I mean, we're gonna spend 30 minutes talking about that one moment alone. Get the hell off my screen, Van Helsing. But the Dwight Fry of it all, the Colin Clive at all, the scene. Man, how much time are we gonna spend? What's the over under on the time spent talking about Frankenstein and the little girl with the flowers? Is it 30 minutes? Is it over under 30 minutes? I was gonna say 20, but okay. So I think I have over 20 and you have over 30. I'm saying over because I gave you a poster that is that image incarnate hanging in our television room in my house. So much next to the door. Yeah, so much to talk about. I mean, one of my favorite parts, and I'll mention this next week too, is if you go to Universal Studios, Hollywood, those sets are still there. I mean, the tram bus takes you through main square, essentially the scene of the father carrying his daughter through the town square. I mean, you can go drive through that and from a film space, I'm like, man, to quote your chargers. Dude, who's got it better than us? Who's got it better than us? Yeah. Going through that space. I mean, that's just like, I get it. I understand it, but like thematically, when you get to the body horror, the dysmorphia, abnormal versus normal, the, you know, the Dwight Fry of it all, the Collin Clive of it all. And we'll talk a little bit of the Frank, and we'll do bride one of these days 'cause that's, you know, a lengthy conversation, but I could foresee another two plus on Frankenstein, easy. So next week's gonna be long too. There's no question. For sure. I can't wait to get into all the creation and destruction roles on this film. I can't wait. Let me ask you this 'cause we did Dracula one. We did the Invisible Man. So this is our next Universal Monster. Is this the one you've most been looking forward to, or I mean, I mean, you're looking forward to the Wolfman or a creature along the way, but like, I mean, of covering on the show, Universal Classics. This is number one. Although I love the bride too, and I love the Wolfman, this one, like I'm stunned. This cask is a reflection onto the misses that you and I just haven't had the time to cover it. It's not a sin, it's not, but like how did like, how did we not cover this film already? This is the wrong word and more of like it. You'll never be starred for content or films to talk about, right? It's almost you don't have enough room to talk about everything. Yeah, Jesse, I mean, when I tell you top 10, there's a lot of personal stuff that's probably gonna come up next week. I don't think this gets into a rocky five space, which was such a beautiful and odd discussion when we did that podcast. We're, I'm in tears in the middle of the show, but this movie is monumentally important to me on a lot of different levels, and I cannot wait to talk about it. Yeah, this is, to answer your question, yes, this is the one. Fantastic. And then I can't wait to, and all that next week, you can say what we're gonna do the next week. It's another film we've been pontificating on for a long time. So yeah, that's gonna be that one. That's the one I think I'm most looking forward to, 'cause I don't know where I'm on the barometer of how I feel about that. Man, this rewatch might be like, oh my God, what an amazing piece of cinema, oh my God, what a piece of shit. Yeah, no, they really might go the E.T. or conjuring way when that's done. Yeah, it can go either way, but you got Frankenstein coming to you next week, but hey, what a great discussion on the evil dead. Thank you for making this the longest episode in this show's history. And hey, guess what, we gotta get going. I got a BRBO for a cabin in the woods for us. Do you wanna take it with me, or are you a little hesitant? Well, I have a question before I answer that. Is it for one night or two nights? Because if it's for two nights, the answer's yes, 'cause I heard there's a great storm we can listen to coming, two nights from now. I got a magnifying glass, I'm dying to give you. Hey, we'll see you all next week, everybody. Man, if you made it this long, I really owe you this one. Have a great week, everybody. We'll see you in the long dark. (gentle music) - Thank you for listening to "Rise Mile Films." Be sure to subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Podbean, Stitcher, TuneIn, or if you listen to podcasts, be sure to leave us a rating and a review while you're there. It really helps out the show. And for "Rise Mile Films" merchandise, go to teapublic.com. The evil dead is property of Renaissance pictures and New Line Cinema. And no copyright infringement is intended. Until next time, cheers. (engine revving) (engine revving) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]
