Raimi's days at Michigan State University led to the filming of THE EVIL DEAD.

By Sue Uram

While a literature student at Michigan State University, Sam Raimi—age 19—formed a filmmaking group with fellow students, including brother Ivan Raimi—and Rob Tapert, Raimi's Renaissance Pictures producing partner, then a 22-year-old graduate student in economics. The group ran ads in the school newspaper to audition talent for their productions.

Tom Sullivan, creator of the makeup in EVIL DEAD, became part of the group when he answered an audition ad for IT'S MURDER, a slapstick murder mystery which Raimi wrote, co-produced, directed and starred in. Raimi played the role of an evil character who dropped poison in co-star Scott Spiegel's drink. Spiegel went on to co-write the screenplay for EVIL DEAD II with Raimi. Sullivan, then 24 and living on campus with his wife, recalled his audition. " I could do a sound effect of something dropping in water, so I got the job," he said.

Sullivan was also an illustrator and showed Raimi sketches of his work. He was promptly drafted to make a flier-sized poster to promote IT'S MURDER on campus. Through the auspices of MSU's filmmaking society, Raimi's group would rent rooms in nearby apartment buildings to use as a production base and cover the cost with a commission from the society, which would show the Super 8mm productions and charge admission. "People would show up expecting to see a feature film," said Sullivan. "Instead, they would see a comedy in the vein of The Three Stooges."

Raimi used audience reaction to gauge the success of each production. Despite Raimi's fondness for the Stooges—recalled Sullivan "No one could do a better Curl 'Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck' impression than Sam,"—Raimi could see that his penchant for slapstick comedy was getting him nowhere.

Sullivan suggested it was the commercial success of John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN (1978) that prompted Raimi to switch gears and try the horror genre. Raimi's first horror effort was CLOCKWORK, an MSU effort starring Spiegel as a homeless serial killer who torments a rich woman he finds conveniently living alone.

Sullivan recalled that Spiegel was "always on." He wore a "joke jacket" decorated with all sorts of punchlines. Sullivan said that when the group would take a break to go out and get a pizza, without encouragement Spiegel would begin to entertain people in the store. Spiegel, now a Hollywood screenwriter, wrote THE ROOKIE, Clint Eastwood's 1990 action-adventure team-up with Charlie Sheen.

To film CLOCKWORK, Raimi's group rented rooms on the MSU campus. Mattresses were attached to the walls with duct tape to muffle the sounds of screaming. "In spite of all that," Sullivan recalled, "they were evicted at four A.M.." Evicted but undaunted, Raimi dropped out of MSU to follow a recipe for success that Tapert had gleaned from an old Michigan theatre owner. "Just make the screen run red with blood," Sullivan said Tapert told the group. In EVIL DEAD there is a scene of Ash pinned to the wall of the cellar in the flicking glare of a movie projector that has run out of film. As Ash searches for shotgun shells, Raimi dripped blood down the lens—and screen.

As part of Raimi's MSU core group, Sullivan was drafted to do the makeup for EVIL DEAD. Raimi drove to the Tennessee location in his old 1973 Olds 88, which doubled as Ash's car in the film, caravaning with the vehicles of his cast and crew. Sullivan made the 14-hour drive to the location near Morristown, an area he called "DELIVERANCE country," accompanied by cinematographer Tim Philo, a graduate of Detroit's Wayne State University who had shot his own films. Sullivan recalled that the cabin originally selected for the shooting site proved unavailable when they arrived. Raimi, undeterred, found another decrepit shack.

"Cows had used it as a bathroom," recalled Sullivan. "There was no heat or electricity, and no windows." The set department went into action, hosing down the floor, building a new front porch, and installing windows which were scratched up to look old. The cabin doubled as living quarters for the cast and crew. Sullivan said Raimi suggested that subliminal writing be placed on the walls. Raimi felt words like "fear" painted in a slightly lighter color or with a different texture, though not visible to the eye, would induce the desired viewer response.

Since the new cabin location did not include a cellar, a cellar door was installed in the floor, and stairs were built leading into a six-foot hole dug underneath. To film the cast as seen from the cellar, cameraman Tim Philo laid down in the hole on a blanket, shooting an up-angle on the steps. A set for the cellar was built in the shack alongside the cabin, decorated by Raimi with gourds he had brought along for use as props, leading the crew to affectionately dub the set "the gourd zone."

Sullivan said he used "a lot of paint and liquid makeup" during shooting. "My first makeup shot was with Betsy Baker," recalled Sullivan. " I was supposed to have her ready at midnight and they were shooting something else. So, they weren't ready for her until sunrise." Originally, Baker was supposed to appear with veins sticking out of the contact lenses she wore for the shot. "Baker was so tired by the time of the shot that she actually slept while I was painting on her makeup," said Sullivan. This is the first time in the film that the monster makeup is seen. Sullivan said Baker really got into the part and was actually screaming and writhing on the ground as Campbell dragged her out of the cabin. From then on, everyone was pretty much "into" the filming.

Once production wrapped in Tennessee, after nearly three months toil, Raimi's exhausted group returned to Michigan for more pick-up and effects filming in the Raimi garage and basement, more than two years of refinements that continued right up to the time of the film's first public showing in October 1981. Cheap effects were the order of the day. For the shot where Campbell runs through the cabin and struggles at the window with Sandweiss turned monstrous, Sullivan used a mannequin with a wig to double for the actress. MSU friends who had stayed in Detroit and missed the adventure in Tennessee, now pitched in to help out. Spiegel, who worked in a butcher shop, provided Sullivan with a side of ribs to tape to the mannequin with blood bags.

Sullivan recalled how the interior of the Raimi garage was white when they began the shot. The blood balloons were filled with the "Raimi recipe for blood" (Karo syrup, red food coloring and water, with instant coffee mixed in for opaqueness and texture). A real shotgun was used to blast the shoulder of the mannequin. Sullivan said the impact of the shot was so tremendous it turned the inside of the garage pink, but the one-shot take was a success. Sullivan remembered that toward the end of filming there were "vats of blood and bile, cockroaches and snakes" intended to gush out of decomposing skulls at the finale. Sullivan said that Raimi considered the effect "too extreme" and cut it.

As for Raimi's favored 1973 Olds 88, look for it to make an appearance in ARMY OF DARKNESS. After putting his car through absolute hell filming EVIL DEAD, driving it to the edge of a cliff and almost falling off, the vehicle managed to get Raimi back home from Tennessee. Well, almost. He was a block away when the engine blew. That Olds 88 remained parked in front of the Raimi home until it was resurrected for a starring role in EVIL DEAD II (1987), not to mention its cameo appearance in DARKMAN. Raimi's Olds—Ash's car—gets refitted as the "Deathcoaster" in ARMY OF DARKNESS. It seems that Raimi believes in the luck of charms. And hard work.