|
|
The information presented here has been built up & pieced together through years of talking to people, forum posts, PMs, emails, articles, etc. bits may well be wrong, some details might be educated guesses, and some names have been deliberately left out. Do not take this information as hard fact!
How were the shorts first released/leaked?
The standard bootleg compilation of a number of the shorts is generally known as the 'Sam Raimi Super-8 Shorts', this isn't really a refection on who directed or was involved with each short, but simply provides an easy moniker. Statistically a more accurate single name title would be the 'Scott Spiegel Super-8 Shorts'. Attack Of The Helping Hand, The Blind Waiter, Stryker's War, Torro, Torro, Torro!, & Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter were actually directed by one, other or both Josh Becker & Scott Spiegel, and Six Months To Live by Sam Raimi & Scott Spiegel. Only Within The Woods and The Sappy Sap were directed soley by Sam Raimi.
The story behind the bootleg compilation, which became widely available & traded first on VHS then later on DVD, is that Tom Sullivan lent his super 8 shorts tape to Scott Spiegel. Scott was having a party and showed it to some friends but used Sullivan's original copy, which his VCR started to eat. The chewed tape had three screen 'drop-outs' all during Within The Woods; at the beginning, then when Bruce is found dead in the woods and when Ellen is searching for a weapon to attack zombie-Bruce.
Around 2000-2001, three forum users in the USA, went on a hunt to find a copy of Within The Woods. One of them got in touch with Scott Spiegel's assistant Patrick, and he made a copy from Tom Sullivan's tape behind his back for his help in re-connecting Patrick with Ellen Sandweiss. It was around 2-1/2 hours long and was of good enough quality that you could see the super 8 film grain, but by that copy it was 3rd/4th generation, it still looked good.
|
This is the contents & likely order of that VHS tape:
Attack Of The Helping Hand! (00:06:02)
The Sappy Sap (00:04:26)
WNIC Radio TV Spot (00:00:30)
XYZ Murders Trailer (00:02:14)
Thou Shall Not Kill, Except... Trailer (00:02:03)
Nightcrew B.T.S. Camcorder Footage (00:06:31)
Stryker's War (00:48:08)
PM Detroit TV Spot On Renaissance Pictures (00:03:41)
Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter (00:09:14)
Torro, Torro, Torro! (00:06:48)
The Blind Waiter (00:17:17)
Evil Dead Trailer (00:02:05)
Book Of The Dead Trailer (00:03:37)
Within The Woods (00:30:29)
Six Months To Live (00:13:46)
(Running time = 2hrs 36mins 46secs)
|
Sam Raimi Super-8 Shorts compilation DVD menu
|
One of them used this copy to make VCDs of the shorts which he traded out, along with VHS copies, and a DVD of Within The Woods & the Book Of The Dead trailer later on, although the quality of this DVD is not the best generally available. He also uploaded & shared the Within The Woods MPEG VCD version which has since flooded P2P networks.
Another one of the group apparently sent a copy of his tape of Within The Woods to Anchor Bay at some point as there was talk of it (or some of it) appearing on an Evil Dead DVD release, obviously this never happened.
Another five other shorts; Holding It, Shemp Eats the Moon, It's Murder, William Shakespeare - The Movie, and Clockwork are also available (although some are incredibly rare) but the source for these is unconfirmed. They weren't on that original bootleg tape making a second leak likely.
Ok, so exactly which of the shorts are available to get?
There have been rumours of various other shorts either having been available as bootlegs in the past, or to be released on retail DVDs at some point in the future (see next question). The following covers all the shorts we know to be available to fans at this point in time, both released on legally licensed retail DVDs, or as leaked bootlegs, although even then some of them may still be very difficult to find.
Public Enemy Revisited (1971)
Retail DVD Only
|
|
Oedipus Rex (1972)
Retail DVD Only
|
|
Super Student (1972)
Retail DVD Only
|
|
|
The Case of the Topanga Pearl (1976)
Retail DVD Only
|
|
Six Months To Live (1977)
Bootleg Only
|
|
The Final Round (1977)
Retail DVD Only
|
|
|
Acting And Reacting (1978)
Retail DVD Only
|
|
Holding It (1978)
Retail DVD & Bootleg
|
|
Shemp Eats the Moon (1978)
Bootleg Only
|
|
|
It's Murder (1978)
Bootleg Only
|
|
William Shakespeare - The Movie (1979)
Bootleg Only
|
|
Attack Of The Helping Hand! (1979)
Retail DVD & Bootleg
|
|
|
Clockwork (1979)
Bootleg Only
|
|
Within The Woods (1979)
Retail DVD & Bootleg
|
|
The Blind Waiter (1980)
Retail DVD & Bootleg
|
|
|
Stryker's War (1980)
Retail DVD & Bootleg
|
|
Torro, Torro, Torro! (1981)
Retail DVD & Bootleg
|
|
Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter (1982)
Retail DVD & Bootleg
|
|
|
The Sappy Sap (1985)
Bootleg Only
|
|
|
Have any of the shorts been released on legal retail DVDs?
Yes, there have been a number of rumours & releases, but as the copyright for each Super-8 short seems to reside with it's director, any form of official release is entirely at their digression. In 2002, there was much excitement when Anchor Bay Entertainment revealed that Within The Woods would be an extra on the forthcoming Book Of The Dead Edition DVD of The Evil Dead. The short was remastered and listed in publicity materials, the fans got excited, but and then at the eleventh hour, it was pulled from the DVD. Separately Anchor Bay UK tried to get the short for their Evil Dead Trilogy boxset in 2004, but again had no luck. Additionally; clips from Within The Woods and Six Months To Live were edited out of the Incredibly Strange Film Show featured in the same boxset. You can see the Within The Woods section for more information on this.
|
|
In 2002, the German distributor Dragon Films Entertainment released a special edition of Scott Spiegel’s gory 1989 slasher Intruder (under the title Night Of The Intruder) on Region 2 PAL DVD. The DVD features two shorts directed by Scott Spiegel, Attack Of The Helping Hand and Torro! Torro! Torro! (the latter co-directed with Josh Becker). However, Dragon is one of a handful of German distributors notorious for releasing official-looking bootlegs of films they haven’t actually licensed, and Intruder was no exception. The two shorts (as well as some rare workprint footage from the film) may well have been mastered from a bootleg VHS tape. If it had been an official Special Edition with Scott's involvement, it would likely have included digitally remastered versions of both the shorts, as per the French Alien Apocalypse DVD (see below).
|
For anyone wishing to buy this DVD, its worth noting that Dragon Films also released a bearbones standard DVD alongside their special edition, which comes without many of the extras (including the shorts). You can tell the difference between the two by their covers; the special edition DVD cover is shown above, and the standard DVD cover can be seen here
Within The Woods was included on another German DVD, the distributor T.U.T. (The Union Television) released Evil Dead with the short as an extra, in 2004. The quality is very poor, and is not the best generally available. Again this would likely have been taken from a bootleg VHS tape. It's highly unlikely they would have been given permission to include the short if Anchor Bay couldn't in the USA or UK.
A low quality version of The Blind Waiter was available for a time as streaming RealMedia file on Josh Beckers website Beckerfilms. Over the past few years, Josh has had a number of his Super-8 shorts professionally transferred & remastered to DVD at CinePost in Marietta, Georgia. The results are stunning - crisp, bright, vivid, full of colour, a world apart from the widespread poor quality bootleg VHS tapes.
|
In 2005 Josh licensed two of these new transfers; Oedipus Rex & The Blind Waiter for inclusion as extras on the French DVD of Alien Apocalypse, released by Free Dolphin Entertainment. A number of other shorts were scheduled to appear as extras on DVDs to be released by independent US distributor; Synapse Films. Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except was to include Stryker's War, the 45-minute Super-8 prototype for that film, and Running Time was to feature Holding It. One of the DVDs was also to feature a documentary on the making of the Super-8 shorts featuring interviews with Josh & Bruce Campbell, which has apparently already been filmed. With little news since the original announcement, and Synapse dropping both DVDs from their upcoming schedules, it is unknown if these DVDs will ever happen.
|
|
|
Early in 2010, rather than continuing to wait on Synapse, Josh decided to move forward alone and sell all the shorts directly to customers via his website. Currently there are five shorts discs available; disc one has Stryker's War, disc two has The Blind Waiter & Oedipus Rex, disc three has Holding It, disc four has Acting And Reacting & The Final Round, and disc five has Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter, The Case of the Topanga Pearl, Super Student, and Public Enemy Revisited.
Each short has it's original untampered musical score, and all five DVDs come with printed disc artwork (as shown above) in blank paper slipcases. To buy everything costs $60 plus postage, although it's well worth the price with all the profits going directly to the shorts' creator, as well as the fantastic quality of the telecine transfers. Josh will also autograph the discs free of charge if you ask him. Here is a direct link to the DVD purchase page on Josh's website. It is unknown if Josh will make additional titles available in the future, but if this venture proves lucrative, the idea could be taken up by other members of the Super-8 group making their own shorts available for sale too.
I remember seeing good quality clips on a Television show on TV/VHS/DVD?
Yes, there have been a number of TV shows over the years which have featured clips from various Super-8 shorts, some which have not actually been released either as bootlegs, or on retail DVDs, so at the moment, this is the only place you can see clips from of them. I have listed all the known shows below, although more than this may well exist.
|
|
Clips from two shorts; Within The Woods and The Happy Valley Kid were shown on a US TV program; PM Magazine Detroit, with a spot on Renaissance Pictures around 1982. This was broadcast after The Evil Dead had been screened at the Cannes Film Festival, and while the guys were still trying to find a distributor to get a theatrical US release. A VHS transfer from a tape recorded at the time, can normally be found on the standard 'Sam Raimi Super-8 shorts' compilation DVD, although it only usually has around a 3m 41s section, not the full show, and additionally the quality is quite poor. A separate DVD containing the full section is also available running at 7m 28s, although this is much harder to track down.
|
|
Brief excerpts from two of the Super-8 shorts; Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter and Torro! Torro! Torro! appeared on Domonic Moir’s 1986 film excerpt & trailer compilation Film House Fever released in 1986. This compilation is otherwise notable for being co-hosted by a pre-fame Steve Buscemi.
Evil Dead director of photography Tim Philo provided the lighting for Film House Fever, so this would appear to be the likely connection that led to the inclusion of the two shorts. This show was released on VHS at the time, but has been long since deleted. Both the shorts featured are available in full in either similar, or better quality.
|
|
|
|
|
The Incredibly Strange Film Show special on Evil Dead hosted by Jonathan Ross, as it was originally broadcast on UK television on the 2nd of September 1988, included clips from Six Months To Live & Attack Of The Pillsbury Doughboy. Also shown were clips from Within The Woods, although the music cue taken from On Her Majesty's Secret Service was removed, likely because they were unable to clear the rights for TV. Anchor Bay UK included this show on their 2004 UK Evil Dead trilogy boxset, but all these clips were edited out for some reason. The unedited broadcast version of the show can normally be found on one of the various incarnations of the 'Sam Raimi Super-8 shorts' compilation DVD.
|
|
|
|
