Although 'Its
Murder!' was a failure it did produce one stand out moment. A scene
in which a woman drives alone at night featured a shock-tactic of
having a dark figure spring up dramatically from behind, accompanied
by a sudden crash on the soundtrack. The boys noticed this was the
only scene in the movie that got a reaction and thusly they started
to think...
Inspired by
their growing ambition and noticing a growing success in horror
movies, Raimi and Tapert decided they got probably get a proper
movie made. Tapert contacted his family solicitor in 1979, Phil
Gillis, and began to get the legal side worked out to forming a
limited partnership of what was to become Renaissance Pictures.
It was Tapert who really lit the fire under them to ge tsomething
started. As a 'dry run' or tester for their new direction Raimi
decided to make a couple of horror shorts the first was Clockwork,
made as [art of a film course. Details are below:
Clockwork
(1979)
Story:
A woman is darkly persued by a stalker in her own home
Cast:
Cheryl
Gutteridge, Scott Spiegel
Trivia
/ Production Notes:
-
The crew rented rooms on the MSU campus to film
- They used mattresses taped to the walls to muffle the screaming
needed by Cheryl Gutteridge
- They were evicted on the first night of filming
Stills
/ Images:
Scott Spiegel (l)
Raimi (r)
Raimi (l) and
Cheryl Gutteridge
Cheryl Gutteridge
The
second was Within the Woods. For more
information on this please go to the Within
the Woods section via the options on the left hand menu.
These
were not the only movies made. There were a few others but these
are the main ones and the ones that are always discussed or mentioned.
Among other noticable others were 'The Jimmy
Hoffa Story' and it's sequel 'The J.R.
Hoffa Stroy part II'. Both played for laughs and high on
the trademark slapstivk. Bill Warren's book 'The Evil Dead Companion'
has a comprehensive list of all the shorts made; check it out.
