The Living Deadites in New Jersey

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by Sarah Pilat
webdate: 8/25/99 5:17:59 PM

It was midnight at an older theater in New Jersey. A theater in which Rocky Horror is so frequently performed that there were built-in sets for it. There was a line wrapping around the theater, composed mostly of young people dressed all in black, and clutching copies of Evil Dead movies. Once inside the venue used by Exhumed Entertainment, a series of trailers for classic horror movies flickered across the screen. There was a thick feeling of anticipation in the air. We were all there for one thing, and it wasn't the movie. Tonight, the man responsible for the Ash character was to be among us, and we eagerly awaited his presence. Then the screen falls dim, and a man from Exhumed steps to the stage; it's the moment we have waited for: "It gives me very great, great pleasure to introduce Mr. Bruce Campbell."

Bruce spoke to us for a bit and answered some questions, then we saw a special screening of Evil Dead 2. This was followed by a longer Q & A session and autograph signing.

Following are significant bits of information that Bruce felt necessary for us to know, as well as anecdotes and questions asked by fans.

"Okay, this is Evil Dead 2, as opposed to Evil Dead 3. Made in 1986, in the movie metropolis of Wadesboro, NC. And I'm hesitant to give out real information about where any of this stuff was shot because the original locations started to be raided like tombs in Egypt."
"Egypt!" |
"I'll see ya after the show pal."
"No - because I was signing at a film festival in [somewhere], IL
(single cheer )
"Oh- you're from there - you're the one.
" And somebody plunks down a big rock - (in funny voice with face to match) ' Heh, heh, heh - Look familiar'? 'Gee - No - I uh - thought I'd seen all the rocks in the world'. 'No, no - look closely. It's got mortar on it - notice it's shape? It's like a tooth, huh?! Y'know Sam Raimi said that he wanted the fireplace in Evil Dead to look like it had teeth'? '. . . Yeah? - Are you saying you got this from our - the fireplace at the cabin of the first Evil Dead'? 'Yoo-u betcha! Morristown, TN woah-ho-ho!' This guy and about five other yahoos picked on the locals long enough 'til someone told them where it was. The original cabin's burned down - thankfully - Uh, and um- they went and grabbed a piece of that bloody fireplace - so - uh - There's a time-capsule there hidden in case anyone really wants to go back and try and find it. If you believe that, I'll fix the air-conditioning in here."

"Do any of you have any initial questions? 'Cause afterward I will chat . . . about the movie - afterward - we don't have to limit to that movie or Evil Dead movies or whatever you wanna talk about - I don't give a rat's ass if you wanna talk about . . . that'll be after I spew baloney for about 45 minutes. You can do whatever you want in the lobby - within reason. Initial questions . . .

• Q:What was it like working with the really smart gorillas in Congo?
  A: Congo's as much fun as it is being here tonight - almost. Really smart gorillas? - You know what - I'm just a phony actor. They cast me in the movie - if it sucks it sucks! What can I do? It was a good book.

• Q:Why did they take out the original cut scene in Army of Darkness?
  (audience member)Because it sucked!
  A:You thought the original ending sucked!? Who said that? Raise you hand! Beat the sh-out of that guy! What's the matter with you ? Who's seen the original ending of Army of Darkness? Why wouldn't it be appropriate for that dumb-sh- to be stuck y'know in that destroyed world? Everyone keeps saying 'What about Evil Dead 4'? Well, there's your Evil Dead 4 - it's Ash fighting the robots, y'know? I'm not kidding.

  Alright, why did they . . .? Well, they butchered a lot of Army of Darkness. - Uh - for any of you DVD owners - uh, we just finished - myself and Sam Raimi - we just finished the commentary to the 96 minute version of the movie. The original version was - the, the - I say 'original' - the studio version was 81 minutes. There's 15 extra minutes of carnage and mayhem. I had this film in my closet - 'Cause no-one could find the elements to the movie, I said, 'Well I got this crappy copy' 'Oh! That'll do great!' So - uh the destroyed world scene will be included. There are four scenes that were deleted from any version of the movie that are in there in the editor's rough cuts - y'know just a real, crude, primitive scene - there's a tiny scene on DVD - you'll never wanna watch it for the 115th time - I guarantee it.

• Q:When is Running Time being put out on video?
  A: That's sort of an obscure movie that most of you will never see, but it's coming out like, Novemberish. Yeah - you can rent it in November then you can buy it in January. Buy it again in March - Whatever you wanna do.

  How 'bout Evil Dead 2 questions, 'cause this is what you're gonna see tonight. Anything you really want answered before you see the movie - is anything that critical to your lives?

• Q:Where's Freddy Kreuger's glove?
  A: Freddy Krugar's glove - You heard that his glove is somewhere in the movie - okay, I'll give you the least boring version of the story that I can.

  Who saw the movie Jaws? Who saw The Hills Have Eyes? In the movie The Hills Have Eyes, there's a scene in the trailer where the guy bites the head off a little bird and like drinks it's blood. And in the background you see a poster of Jaws being ripped in half. And Sam Raimi interpreted that as however scary Jaws was, it's nothing compared to what's happening in that horrible little trailer. So, In Evil Dead, in the basement, we took a poster of The Hills Have Eyes and tore that in half. Then Wes Craven had a kid watching TV at night in A Nightmare on Elm Street, and he's watching Evil Dead. So, we went, 'okay Wes -' so, in Evil Dead 2 , it's in the work shed - I don't know how visible it is - it's sort of a laser disc, DVD thing. Uh - but, yeah, there's a Freddy Kreuger glove that we hung in there with all the other crap. And I don't know who's done what to whose movie since. So, yes - very astute question. That's important to look for.

  I want you to look at one part in the movie. You know the big creature, Henrietta played by Ted Raimi? There's one point as she's sorta spinning in the air - I whistle and say 'Come on, let's go' and the thing , he turns and looks an goes 'Erghhhhh' - Look for a big stream of sweat coming outta his ear. It's about 2 feet of sweat . . .. Uh, it took Ted Raimi 6 hours to get into this dumb suit and it was Wadesboro, NC in the middle of June, July, and August shooting inside of a closed place about like this, and you add the lights on top of that and then we were shooting on a second story above that. So Ted had to have oxygen plugged into his face . . . and [had] just gallons of Gatorade intravenously connected. The make-up effects guys, they had little monster booties that they put on him and every day they would pour out the sweat and save it in little cups. They just thought that was the funniest thing. Yeah - so watch for that little trivia.

• Q:Does the chainsaw change hands?
  A: Does the Chainsaw change hands - Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't. I'll explain. There's a scene where the chainsaw appears to change hands, but if you'll look closely on your DVDs, you'll see that everything is flopped - everything is switched. Because as a film maker, Sam Raimi reserved the right - he said: 'He should be going in the left-to-right direction'. They just flopped the film so that the screen direction was correct - he didn't give a rat's ass about the chainsaw. So, yes - it did switch hands, and that's why.

  After the Film

  You know, it's like the subtleness of my performance that I like. My God, I am such a ham actor! It's unbelievable! But in retrospect we realize these things. However, it's such a ridiculous movie - isn't it? I see the movie so often doing commentaries -n- whatever for various re-releases. But there's a period where I hadn't seen the movie in about eight years, and I saw it again in New Zealand, of all crazy places and it was like - like someone else made that movie. I had no idea. We were in a stupor.

• Q:Did you help develop the Ash character?
  A: Yeah - I mean he started as this looser, idiot, moron if the first one who was worthless and by the end was less worthless. And in this one, pretty much became the guy you were stuck with. Then in Army of Darkness, he kinda just became and assh---. But I really enjoyed playing a character that normally in the studio plans, a thing like that never would have happened. They never let you read characters to be the ugly American causing the death of hundreds of people by being such a jerk.

• Q:Do you resemble the Ash character in any way?
  A: Me? What are you? Crazy? No, he's - uh - he's - I'm a little smarter than Ash. Oh- when battle comes around, you'd want him in your foxhole, but not for very long because you'll probably get killed if you're anywhere near him.

• Q:What was the chainsaw made of and how much did it weigh?
  A: Uh - it was plastic - mostly and it had a little grip inside - I put my hand in there and it had a dumb electric motor that would make the thing go around when it had to. But mainly we just wanted the smoke coming from it, we put in the 'puh, puh, puh . . .' later. But the only way to get the smoke coming out consistently was to run a tube down my pants and out for about 20 feet out to a -- What we found was the only thing, - only rig that would allow the smoke to go that far was actual tobacco. So, at the end of every shooting day, we'd sorta pull the plug and then they'd pull the tube out and it would leave this delightful little nicotine stain . . .. But it's the glamour folks!

• Q:Did you get hurt during the making of any of your movies?
  A: Hurt during the - Not enough, unfortunately to stop shooting. Uh - by the time Army of Darkness came around, continuity wise, we - we- Even though there are what would appear to be great lapses in continuity in the movie - Uh - by the time that movie came around, um - we had a plastic template we would put on my face so the makeup person knew where all the cuts were consistently, next to the chart [saying] well, this happened in Evil Dead 2 , this happened from Evil Dead 1 - we kept a list. In Army of Darkness, I had to flip a stunt man at one point and I gouged into my chin. The armor gouged my face. I was bleeding all over my breast-plate. I went to get it stitched up in the local emergency room and the guy didn't know which one to fix. And the beauty of doing sorta silly movies is that they just stitched me up and I went back to work, 'cause you couldn't tell - 10 cuts as opposed to 9 cuts. So - no, never really that badly injured - just mentally.

• Q:How long was the shooting?
  A: This film, Evil Dead 2, was shot for 12 weeks. It was a long time. This movie was about $3.7 million. But we were able to shoot for a long period of time. The 1st Evil Dead we shot for 12 weeks, Army of Darkness we shot for 103 days, which is - way too long. Way too long, especially when you cut out 15 minutes. You're cutting out weeks of your life.

• Q:Do you still see any of those people?
  A: Still see who? Those poor saps? Wow. Let's see - Evil Dead - Ellen, the woman who was trapped in the cellar all the time, Ellen Sandweiss, we went to high school with her. She's married, had 2 kids, [and] has a very normal life. But, unfortunately, her daughter now is asking to see the movie. She' s like, 'Yeah, but see, I got raped by a tree in that movie'. She's really beside herself. I said, 'just tell her that you got a case of Dutch Elm Disease and move on'. Uh- the guy who played Scotty [Hal Delrich] in the original movie is uh - last I heard was driving a truck somewhere in Michigan. We scared every one of 'em out of the film business. None of 'em talked to us when the movie was done filming - they hated us, because we abused them so horribly. Cry me a river, that's what I say. They didn't have to do 2 more after that.

• Q:Are you and Sam and the other guys gonna make any other movies, and if so, what kind?
  A: I don't know what - You know, I've sorta been working with Sam all along, just not directly. I - y'know, work on these cheesy TV shows: Hercules and Xena. So, he's technically my boss - he doesn't even know I'm in 'em I don't think. What's her name? Xena Warrior Woman? The show that I get all that money from.

• Q:Were the incantations from the Necronomicon just made up off the top of the head?
  A: No, those were real. I had to somehow use the powers of light to rid the powers of darkness - Thank God for that. Uh- it was Sam really just probably staying up too late drinking too much coffee - I don't know - Why? What does it seem like to you? Why'd ya ask the question? Do you dabble in the occult?

  No - I was just wondering if it was any particular language that someone had studied or had an interest in.

  Bullsh-ese I think is what it was.

• Q: Were each of the movies meant to be separate?
  A: Well, we didn't think - we didn't know that we would ever make a 2nd one, so we killed me at the end of the first one, but it made money, so we brought me back to life. And then, Sam Raimi assumes at some point you could - you could cut the recaps off and you could cut all 3 movies together. So, those of you with home editing systems just feed it in, cut out the recaps, and try -n- take it all the way through - I pity you. There was a screening of all 3 movies back-to-back in Austin, TX not to long ago - Wow, wow, it's amazing.

• Q: Do you keep any props?
  A: No - no, too cheesy. I just think 'What? I'm gonna put it up in my den? Family pictures, a sawed off shotgun . . .' No - no, although I found its - once a couple of crew members found out that you can sell used appliances - from like the make-up appliances that actors pull off their faces at the end of the day and throw 'em in the garbage. They root through and did 'em out and sell 'em at conventions: 'This is from Evil Dead 2 on Evil Dead's face'. Y'know, sell it for 25 bucks or whatever. Polaroids from film sets disappear at the last week of shooting too. 'Cause they're originals, they're on set like reference shots. So, does that answer your question, or - generically.

• Q: Did you do your own stunts?
  A: Yeah, I do more than the average phony actor, yeah. Well, because I knew Sam so well. We had a routine . . . in high school, where we would do all these dumb stunts with no pads -n- stuff. So Sam would go: 'Well, just flip yourself'. Ya just keep doing it all day long. 'Y'know other actors wouldn't do that', but - uh, Sam's like: 'I don't give a s--, just flip yourself'. And the way he shoots it too - y'know, he gets his camera right in here so you - you really have to do it. But you can't do everything. There's some stuff, like there's a stair fall in Evil Dead- in this film - that I didn't do 'cause you can actually like, kinda, maybe break your neck. Mr. Stuntman did that. And insurance companies um - there's certain things that they won't cover for. They - they'll say 'You can go ahead -n- do it, but if you kill yourself, we're not gonna pay for it'. Aren't they sweet

• Q:Explain the "Shemp" thing.
  A: Well, all the women in the audience can plug their ears, 'cause we were Three Stooges fans. Violence is good, violence is funny, violence is golden. The more of it the merrier, and after school, we would go home and watch the stooges - they were on at like 4 o'clock. So, we, y'know, had space-food sticks and watched the stooges. They used to make a bunch of 'em at the same time because they worked for Columbia Pictures. And when they would build big castle sets, before they tore 'em down, the stooges would come in and throw pies and stuff. So, they were always trying to finish them off, and Shemp had a heart attack. So, they had to bring someone in who didn't look like Shemp at all. He'd come in and go 'Oh, oh, oh, oh', and they would dub in Shemp's old lines and they would just try and get him out of the scene. 'Shemp, guard the door', 'Rrrright!' We thought it was the cheesiest thing we'd ever seen. So, in the background of all our Super 8 movies, we'd always have people walking around like this (arm hiding face). You watch any old episode of Starsky and Hutch, it's just great to watch the stuntmen shemping for the actors. So, it became a term: 'What's the guy like?' , 'Eh- he's kind of a Shemp', 'What're you doing Saturday night?', 'Nothing, I'm just Shemping'. Y'know, and so, in Evil Dead all the way through are fake Shemps. It's anyone we got a shot of like feet walking or hands because the real actors had left. Those were fake Shemps, but you couldn't really tell who they were. And that's the story.

• Q:Are you doing a documentary on your fans?
  A: Yes I am, it's called Fanalysis. You guys don't like that do you? No, no - I interview you. You don't look that stupid. You gotta admit there's a lot of - Characters out there worth exploring from a serious documentary point of view. Great studies in insanity.

• Q:What's your favorite Ash line?
  My favorite Ash line? What's yours?
  Um
  Yeah - see? It's not so easy is it?
  'Hail to the king, baby.'
  A: I kinda like 'gimme some sugar, baby'. Sam Raimi, of course, is the genius behind that. Originally, I was just gonna kiss her. Just gonna go over and kiss her. And - uh - we couldn't find Sam anywhere. We were ready to shoot the shot - it's like 'Where - what's he doing?', we hear giggling over in the corner. 'What are you doing?', he goes, 'I know what you're gonna say', 'What? What? What?', 'Gimme some sugar, baby', 'But - No, no -', 'You're gonna say it mister'. [producers/directors] get mean if you tell them no. 'You'll do it 'till I tell ya no to do it', 'Alright, fine, I'll say "give me some sugar, baby"'. But -uh, I got a lot of e-mails from people saying that they had tried it in bars and got their face slapped. It doesn't work in modern day - only 300 years ago.

• Q:What are you working on now?
  A: Um - what am I doing right now? - I'm writing a book. Yeah, I have a deal with a company called Saint Martin's Press . . . currently called Flying Under the Radar: Confessions of a B-Movie Actor. Uh - because I - I think that people, would [prefer to read it] rather than seeing those 4 minute clips on Entertainment Tonight. It doesn't give you anything like the real picture. A lot if it's funny, al lot of it's entertaining, a lot of it's horrible, miserable, and I thought I was a good chance to tell the other story about the other 98% of the people in the film business rather than just sorta the big shots who were in all of the big fancy movies. Because there are a lot more people doing that than there are y'know doing the other 2%.

• Q:Will there be an Evil Dead 4?
  A: Yes there will - When monkeys fly outta my butt. No really, it's just -uh, - it's just economical thing, not enough of you saw the movie when it came to - the theatrical run. Army of Darkness did just okay at the box office. It has a great after-life. But no-one - no studio executive is gonna sorta wake up and get all excited about part 4. Direct to video - that's snoresville though, man. I'm sick of that direct to video crap. One of these days I'll get in another movie that'll actually get to a theater. You know but it is - the market has changing, so, who knows? Plus y'know, they're kinda a pain in the ass to make, I don't know how to break it to ya.

• Q:How much are we gonna get to see you on Hercules and Xena this year?
  A: Why, have you been watching the shows? Well, I'm sorta behind the scenes almost as much now. I've been directing and bossing that Kevin Sorbo around. 'You say what I tell you to buddy'. I get to torment him like Sam torments me . . . "Hey Kevin - ah - this is where you flip yourself. Come on ,come on do it!" They'll be getting a plane ticket and handing it to me. Yeah that would work.

  Uh - I sorta come and go. I just - I directed the last episode that will ever be aired, the big season finale - not even the season - the series finale. And um, I'm in the last one that they filmed - my ex-wife was played by Traci Lords. I guess she's pretty well known, huh? For educational movies.

• Q:Did you receive any residual money from the video game Duke Nukem, which stole every line that Ash ever said?
  A: What? Um, No, no. Y'know it's sort of - what do they say? Imitation is flattery. Imitation is lack of imagination in my opinion . . . they're just losers who can't figure out their own stinking dialogue. They're just lazy. And that's really what it boils down to. But other than that, it's a great game.

• Q:Of your bit parts that you've done, like Lois and Clark, and X-Files, and all those - which one's your favorite?
  A: The smallest one. The smallest bit. They're all kinda fun, just some shows are more interesting to work on than others, y'know. X-Files was sort of an interesting show. It's a real machine they've set up there, and everyone's making so much money. They can't really pay you much because those other 2 are getting a lot of money. But - uh y'know it's kinda fun to be just sort of a working stiff actor.

• Q:What was your favorite role?
  A: Well the Evil Dead movies get the best reaction by far. There's no question about it. TV was fun, like the Brisco show because more people even a low rated TV show in one night than all the Evil Dead movies put together. I mean it's just - that's the way it is. I mean you get on a show like X-Files, -n- the email that I normally get just doubled overnight because so many people watch that show. It's weird. It's the difference between - creatively, these are the most fun - they're not fun to make at all . . .. Television's sometimes creative, but not really because they have to make them really fast.

• Q:How did you do that shot where you're getting thrown through the trees and spinning around?
  A: The shot where I was getting thrown through the trees? I was Sam's little video game that day. They - um - they had a big X, a big metal X that I was strapped to. They actually had to tear my clothing in the back and feed it around the metal frame and then stitch it up on the backside. So I really couldn't move, so I had to take care of whatever business I had to beforehand. So, then - and that was on a crane arm that would go up and down, and down a road about 2 miles. And people were below it with branches - they would slap me. And Sam was at the controls - so he could spin me in either direction. And he could stop it with me upside-down, and just wait - and he would do that. 'I need to get all kinds of angles - all kinds of this stuff', 'Yeah, I bet you do'. . . .And when we were setting up the shot the mechanical effects guy goes, 'Hey, Bruce - uh - what'd you have for breakfast this morning?', I go, 'Why you wanna know that?', 'Well, 'cause it ain't gonna be in you for long!' Okay- it was one day on that shot. Because it was a number of takes cut together because there was a blur to it all, and because the branches were obscure - every so often we could make a bunch of hidden cuts. And so, really, it was just a full day of shooting.

• Q:Do you ever get freaked out by the amount of adulation that you get?
  A: You gotta understand though, as soon as I leave this building - I vanish. I can go shopping, it doesn't matter. I can do anything. I can go anywhere at any time and do anything. It's only when I kind of get in these groups where -- y'know, then you're - you guys are sorta focused - But like, I live in a small town up in the Pacific northwest, and, A: They don't give a sh--. They don't - they go 'You look - you look like - you look - well -haven't I met you?', 'No', 'Okay'. So, no that's the real advantage of um- of not sort of becoming a household name. I much prefer it actually. Because can you imagine, a lot of these phony celebrities, they have to put on disguises. What a drag that would be. 'C'mon over Frank, bring the moustache and beard - I'll be the blonde guy today - 'cause -uh -I'm gonna go shopping.' Y'know, or they send people out. It becomes a very insulated life. No, that wouldn't be any fun at all. It's fine just sort of drifting about. Plus, the camera-man on this movie, his theory was that no one would recognize me on the street unless they got within about 6 inches of my face. . . . I did a TV movie with Ernie Hudson called Tornado, and Ernie was , 'Hi, Bruce, how are ya, nice to meet ya'. We actually hadn't really known each other, he didn't really know me from Adam. But there was one scene where we're kinda - a tornado is coming, and Ernie is down below in a cellar, and I'm up above him with the lid open, and it looked like - like one of the trap-door angles - from his perspective, and he goes, 'I know who you are!!' . . . it was that warped angle, that was how he recognized me. So, I'm pretty safe to the naked eye.

• Q:Did you enjoy working on Escape from LA?
  A:Escape From LA? Yeah, it was a lot of fun, because they sorta created that part. There really wasn't anything officially in there. And every once in a while, y'know, there's a little bit of camaraderie between genre people and John Carpenter knew who I was. And Rick Baker, who's a really great effects guy did the makeup, that was about 5 hours. So what we tried to do was make it look like a horror movie - like a plastic surgery gone horribly wrong. So our reference pictures were like Michael Jackson - y'know, I did get that little turned up nose. It was a good experience. Kurt Russel's about as normal of a movie star as you can get, 'cause he's been around so long.

• Q:I heard that Sam Raimi actually ran you over in the final shot of Evil Dead, is there any truth to that?
  A: Sam Raimi - you say he ran me over in the last shot of Evil Dead. We actually tried to perpetuate the lie for years. What we said was that Sam mounted the camera on a motorcycle, and we saved it until the last shot, and he rode it through the cabin and just smashed into me. But that's not true.

• Q: What made you guys change the ending of Evil Dead 2 , when you did Army of Darkness?
  A: I believe that was a rights issue, when we did part one, we didn't know we were gonna do part 2, and we did part 2 . . . we couldn't get the rights to the first one, of all the stupid things. So, we went, 'Let's get another Linda, and then we'll sorta recap it like he went to the cabin with just 1 friend instead of like 3 other friends - No, no, no - no-one saw the first one'. But the worst thing - people think Ash was stupid enough to go back to the cabin another night - and he is. And when part 3 came around, we couldn't get the rights to the footage from part 2. And then Bridget Fonda wanted to have a cameo, so we 'Yeah, okay, you can be Linda this time'. So, I wish I had a logical answer, but uh- that's why they so warped all the recaps, we just have to assume that people aren't fully up to speed

  So, thanks for coming, it was really short notice, but I was really nice to see all of you guys.

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