#evildead 2

Heading to Pittsburgh, PA for what was supposed to be a small side project based on a super fan (Mike) of The Evil Dead movies and how he obtained the workshed from the second movies filming location. We visited his home right outside of Pittsburgh in a small town in West Virginia.

Matthew and I already had our first documentary we were working on, our labor of love. But this idea came up  to make that trip into something much more and he is such a big fan of those movies it fell into place. We thought, what if we could interview the cast and people who worked on the movies, visit the locations and help people who had an interest see what it’s like there today.  In one way it just seemed like another great idea we had, seeing as we have a full length movie floating around, tons of short stories and other ideas we think are great. But this, it felt different.

First order of business, “If we can’t get Bruce, is it worth it?” We just took the honest approach, sent a ton of e-mails to everyone and their brother in hopes ANYONE would be interested in speaking to us. Mike had the inside scoop with the owner of the Evil Dead 2 cabin and we knew the land from part 1 would be a problem later. First e-mail back...... Bruce giving us 15 minutes in Chicago at the Comic Con, it was the closest he was going to be to Nashville.  

Off to Chicago we went in August, which we love Chicago! They have great vegan food and well hell we had our first Press Passes for Comic Con. I won’t go into the nitty gritty of behind the curtain on this process but will say, you must have a drive for the end result, you must be willing to be on standby, stressed out and willing to deal with a lot.. a LOT of hoops. But, it happened and that’s all that mattered.

There he was Bruce Campbell, sitting in front of our cameras looking Matthew in the eye answering his questions. If everyone else told us “no’” at this point it wouldn’t have mattered, or so it seemed at the time. Our 15 minutes that Bruce said we could have, was cut to 10 minutes by Comic Con and to be honest he seemed like he could have talked to us a little longer, so maybe a second time will happen.

The trip home from Chicago was bitter sweet, we were wore out from everything we went through while there again, I can’t put into words how stressful the whole thing was. Oh I should mention Mike brought the shed, we helped carry it in, set it up and run his booth while on “standby”. Those conventions serve garbage food that neither of us were willing to eat, plus the waits in line were up to an hour, an apple, a bottle of water and some popcorn was all we had in 12 hour day, not to mention lugging gear to and from, add in a mad dash into the city for a possible interview that we missed by minutes due to traffic, parking and carrying everything 4 blocks to the hotel. Maybe next time.

But the trip also had us on fire and ready to take this head on!

Off to North Carolina! Deep into the woods once stood the shell of a cabin that is now a pile of wood, it just happens to be on one of the most inspiring, nicest, most genuinely kind mans property. Never, in my life would I think I would be out in fighting huge spiders, looking for rattlesnakes and wild hogs all while photographing and filming a HUGE structure that was used to make a movie.  It was beyond hot and humid, but jeans were a must. Even though it’s not standing anymore, the size alone took me a while to wrap my head around. They built it JUST for outside shots and run ins. The fake trees and pile of coal still there are proof it’s not just a hunting cabin, it was for a movie.  Which, is aslo on the land that The Color Purple was made, going into the house and see the stair case was also something I never really thought I would be doing.

Wadesboro, was a huge success for us. People came out and spoke with us about the movie being made there, dropped off pictures of the set and we found every place they used in the film fairy easy. We still will have to return to bid the cabin site a farewell and show its removal in the spring of 2017.

Luck would have it, the rest of the cast and the special effect guys would be in Cleveland in late September. Holy Cow!  That had to happen and it did, not without issues but it did! You are dealing with multiple people at one place within a few days, do the math and see how that might work out in your head and then times that by at least 6. The ladies worked with us well, as did the guy who played Scotty. Tom Sullivan opened up his room after hours for his interview and brought in Bart Peirce, these two made all the fun stuff in the movie happen. For us, listening to them would be the highlight and at this moment I realized Bruce was not the only one we wanted to hear from. The few hours we got to spend with them were a real look into making movies and for me Tom is such a genuinely nice guy with great stories I could listen to him talk for much longer.

Lastly, Morristown, TN. Evil Dead was filmed there, it’s a small town in East Tennessee and it’s a place that, NO ONE wants to talk to you. We went earlier in the year and put fliers up; those brought a guy who helped on the film when he was in High School, he shared his time on the set with us and had some stories we hadn’t heard yet. Other than that, Morristown let us down. We had very little help from the press outlets there and all the leads we had fell flat. The owners of the property the cabin once stood contacted us before we even contacted them to tell us we were not welcome there. This puts a dark cloud over the film, but we plan to work around it and not make the focus on one spot.