I would get odd technical questions like "can you have a girls face on fire while she is talking in a close up?" I said, "Sure". Soon I was asked to provide the special Make up and Effects work for "Within the Woods". This was Sam, Rob’s and Bruce’s effort to create a financial package to demonstrate to potential backers. I jumped right in despite my lack of experience and the correct materials. While turning Bruce into a mutilated possessed killer I inadvertently pushed him to the "Latex Point".
This is when making movies is not "fun". Bruce survived and the "Within the Woods" effort paid off and by November 1979 we were off to make "Book of the Dead", later to called" The Evil Dead". I created a number of props that I own the copyrights to such as "The Book of the Dead" and the Dagger. I also created the Deadite make ups and the gory stuff. My favorite sequence is the stop motion Meltdown finale. I had the chance to design and realize the scene on my own as Sam and Company wee in New York editing the film.
There was a satisfying collaboration with Sam and my associate on the finale shoot Bart Pierce. The final result is still a lot of fun to watch. It took three years for Evil Dead to be released. It did dismally at the box office in the U.S., due to its unnrated status. This meant that most newspapers would not advertise it. This left the only public notice to be show times. Of course those that saw it and got the joke spread the word and put Evil Dead into cult status. Thanks.
My wife and I moved to San Francisco before Evil Dead opened. I had no movie credit yet and no photos of my film work. During the production of Evil Dead (then Book of the Dead) I shot nine rolls of 36 exposures documenting all phases of the production and life making a movie. Unfortunately I couldn’t afford the film and so Renaissance Pictures picked up the tab. The film belonged to them and I was to get copies of the pictures.