This revised second Blu-Ray release started with another project; to crowdfund the costs to a scan a 35mm print of The Evil Dead in December 2021. A print was located in the US which was "...like new with perfect colour. It was a print that was struck by Anchor Bay in the early 2000s, not an original release". Considering that an original 1983 print would not only have red shift of some range, but also have been played to death, I figured this might be an even better option. Having restored an original 1983 The Evil Dead 35mm trailer scan in 2015, I knew it needed a huge amount of correction & restoration work, and that was just for two minutes of footage.

The Evil Dead's 35mm total scanning costs including print rental ($253.73), plus scanning, a 4TB hard drive, and postage to me ($448.76) came to $702.49. I managed to crowdfund $411.11, around 60%, covering the remaining 40% out of my own pocket. It was scanned on a Scanstation in 5K in Raw CinemaDNG format totalling 3.31TB (with around 30k files for each of the four reels), by a scanner in US. Once I decided to press ahead with the scan covering the shortfall myself, The turnaround was only 11 days between the print being collected to my having the 4TB HDD in my hands here in the UK, very quick! While the files are huge, having a RAW CinemaDNG scan gives a lot more latitude to tweak the various colour & exposure settings, than a scan with 'baked in' exposure which might be over or under ideal levels.

Once I got the print scan back, I was initially disappointed feeling it was a mixed bag. I was hoping this would simply be an original untouched print of the film, but it wasn't.

The 2010 Anchor Bay Blu-Ray release, and any digital projection you will see anywhere in the world, is likely the same tweaked version. There are a fair list of tweaks; including removal of gate-hairs, lens flairs, blending matte shots, blending jump cuts, motion steadying, and more. This 35mm print, was that same tweaked version, not the original untouched release. I was hoping that even if this "early 2000s" print was related to that Blu-Ray release, then it would be the original print which they would have scanned and digitized before adding the tweaks and outputting the final digital tweaked version. I wasn't even aware that the tweaked version existed as a physical print. They must have scanned an original print, tweaked it, and transferred that back to 35mm film for theatrical showings, and this was the version I had. All the above aside, I did say the scan was a mixed bag. The colours are really pretty decent, certainly far better than would have been on an original 80s print which would have required far more time (although I still did extensive work pushing the colours more to cold blues, from the warm colour balance of this print). In addition, the full original un-cropped frame is visible, whereas the Blu-Ray release was cropped down on each side (which varies from shot to shot as per the below screenshots).

I was initially hoping for a completely untampered print, and this tampered version was not ideal, but around 95% of the film itself was identical to the theatrical version, and knew I could drop this into an existing Blu-Ray restoration Premiere timeline I had, and much of the reversion work would be done instantly, and if in the future another 35mm print was to be located, then that could fill in the tampered-gaps. In terms of restoring this print, 3m 53s of footage was un-tweaked totalling 39 shots.




As per its above inclusion, in doing this restoration I was notified that the standard retail 4K UHD release of the movie had fewer tweaks, and upon checking I found that these seven former tweaks had now been reverted & removed or re-worked (timecodes are per my edit);


One unexpected issue was processing time. Each 5K frame was 5120x3840px @ 300dpi (28.1mb), with each of the four reels around 31,000 frames a piece (that's 123,709 frames @ 3.31TB total). I was running this on an i7-7700k @ 4.2gHz CPU with 16GB ram & GTX 1060 6GB GPU, and even then it took around 26 hours encoding time per reel! Rather than working on the 5K raw files which was painfully slow, I set a mid-point levels/exposure on that footage and re-encoded each of the four reels to a 5K Quicktime 16-bit ProRes 4444 MOV file (totalling 1.6TB). Then I worked though tweaking the levels, exposure and colours on that footage, which was faster. The colours/saturation on this print was very roughly the same as the 2010 Anchor Bay Blu-Ray, but I generally pushed the white balance more to the blue, as well as brightening some darker shots up to see more detail.

There was also a little light leakage from the sprocket holes on the right of the frame, so any darker shots which are brightened up, have a second copy overlaid, with masking of 90% of the left hand side of the frame, and a gradient of 10% off to the right, with darker blacks to compensate and make the whole picture look even.

One extra surprise was that looking at this 35mm transfer's optical audio and comparing it with the 1985 Japanese Herald Videogram Laserdisc true mono track, and the 2010 Blu-Ray stereo track converted to mono, it appears that the audio on the print was the original mono audio mix printed as dual mono, and had not been remixed or tampered with and I could use it as-is. Looking at the waveforms, there was very little difference between the laserdisc and 35mm audio, but there were fair differences with the Blu-ray audio. There weren't really any replacements/alterations in the Blu-Ray re-mix, but certain sound effects and music start & endings have been blended/faded better in to the mix, while others have been beefed-up.

There are also a number of alternate audio tracks with this presentation. There's an isolated music score, three commentary tracks, English subtitles, facts & trivia subtitles, and one further interesting entry. It's the music & sound effects track from the 1998 Elite Entertainment US Digital BetaCam Laserdisc Master tape. This appears to be the the same as the main audio, but without any speech so foreign distributors can dub the film into other languages. It's not quite the same as the regular audio even then, as it's stereo and all the sound effects seem very prominent, loud & level in the audio mix, whereas they're blended into the regular audio with some quiet and some loud. It's an interesting side-note all the same. Anyway here are all the optional tracks you have to choose from;

Tr01 - 2022 The Evil Dead US 35mm O/M Restored 5K Scan Optical Audio (Mono, with Adobe Audition NR)
Tr02 - 2022 The Evil Dead US 35mm O/M Restored 5K Scan Optical Audio (Mono)
Tr03 - Isolated Music Score (Stereo)
Tr04 - 1998 Elite Entertainment US SCE DigiBeta LD Master Music & Sound Effects Track (Stereo)
Tr05 - 2010 Anchor Bay US LE Blu-Ray Commentary Track (Stereo)
Tr06 - 1999 Elite Entertainment US SCE R1 DVD Commentary Track 1 - Bruce Campbell (Mono)
Tr07 - 1999 Elite Entertainment US SCE R1 DVD Commentary Track 2 - Sam Raimi & Rob Tapert (Mono)
Tr08 - English Subtitles
Tr09 - Facts & Trivia Subtitles

This version, was as close as I can make watching an original 80s 35mm theatrical print, with a completely un-cropped frame and the original mono audio mix. Hopefully another 35mm print will become available in the future, or failing that a 4K untampered open matte print which could be used to replace all the upscaled SD footage used. Just to add, as this has been edited in 5K resolution, as per the original scan, a 4K UHD release in the future (as technology allows), would be perfectly possible.

The Evil Dead II 35mm print scan came from a separate project being run by US fan The Aluminum Falcon. It was started in September 2021 and only fully completed in June 2022. This was to crowdfund an original 80s German 35mm print scan. While this was an original 80s fully-open-matte theatrical print, without subtitles, it was dubbed into German and some of the violence was censored & cut-out unfortunately. We got chatting, and he agreed to allow inclusion of his print on this release. The final Evil Dead II 4K DNG scan came out at 566GB total, with around 25K-29K frames for each of the four reels. This was around 16% of the filesize of my The Evil Dead scan as it's 4K rather than 5K (each 4K frame is 3208x2200px as opposed to 5K at 5120x3840px), plus while my scan's RAW fileformat has a lot more latitude in adjusting colours, levels & exposure, the file sizes are far bigger. To simplify sharing the raw files with me over the internet, he re-encoded them as four Quicktime 16-bit ProRes 4444 MOV files totalling 500GB, and uploaded them to a paid filesharing host. Being an original print, it required far more tweaking in terms of levels, colour and exposure correction than my The Evil Dead scan, and the source print's and white & black levels/balance was wildly more uneven, even from shot to shot in some places. While my The Evil Dead scan's full frame was a little wider than 4:3, this Evil Dead II scan's frame is virtually square meaning a matte to 1.85:1 removes around 45% of the frame. Zoom that in a little to neaten-up the left & right sides and you're over 50% of the frame gone on the cropped Blu-Ray release. Even the 'open-matte' version from the 2000 R1 US Anchor Bay DVD, is zoomed in and looses a some on all sides in comparison to the 35mm transfer. In total, 3m 00s of footage was edited into the 35mm scan, to replicate a full uncensored US theatrical print. Here is a complete list of the missing shots & sequences reinstated;


Very little of the scan's German language dual mono optical audio was used in the end. The PCM mono track from the 1997 US Elite Entertainment SE Laserdisc (EE3845REG) provided the main audio track. While it would have been an option to mix the two fading out the German speech to the English LD track, the optical track had a lot of heavy background static noise (like playing a old LP/record). Even when this was processed with Adobe Audition's noise removal filter (which I use on most projects a usually gives excellent results), it still did not sound too great. I went for the LD audio, and overlaid the German track over the leader and the reel changes just to get the pops & clicks, as well as adding some gentle 35mm static over the whole LD soundtrack so it didn't sound too clean. Upon watching this print, it becomes obvious that this was meant to be projected in 1.85:1, as a number of shots have post-production elements overlaid which don't cover the full height of the frame. The flying Deadite at the end is a good example; in the full open matte/frame shots, the animation is missing from the top & bottom. There are also a handful of shots were dolly tracks and boom mikes can be seen at the top & bottom too. Just to add, as this has been edited in 4K resolution, as per the original scan, a 4K UHD release in the future (as technology allows), would be perfectly possible.

As mentioned in Bruce Campbell's book If Chins Could Kill, there exists a TV version of Evil Dead II with the subtitle; "Severely Edited For Television". While never screened in the US, it was shown on Mexican television throughout the 1990s, under the title El Despertar Del Diablo: Part 2. It was dubbed into Latin American Spanish, with many new shots and whole scenes replacing some of the more violent moments in the theatrical version. It was thought to be a myth until a copy turned up in sections on YouTube in 2009. Between various footage removed and alternate footage added in, there is 16m 10s of new material here. Among other footage; there's more of Ash & Linda embracing & dancing, Ash burning the book, Ash driving to the bridge, eating cereal & choking, Ash dreaming, and flipping out in the workshed having killed Linda, possessed Ash in the forest eating a squirrel, more shots of Ash in the cellar, and more images flash as Ash travels back in time. For a detailed write up on this version, see this page In August 2016, a friend in the US got in touch to say she was in contact with a fan in Mexico; Rogelio Matamoros, who had a VHS to DVD transfer of the TV version, recorded from Mexican TV during the 90's. She got a DVD-R copy from him passed a copy on to me. I used this along with the theatrical open-matte version from the 2000 R1 US Anchor Bay DVD to create a composite version, using the DVD for the main portion of the film, editing in the VHS version where needed, to create the longest possible composite version.

Even though the DVD is lower quality than various newer Blu-Ray transfers, I went with this as it's the only open-matte version released on either DVD or Blu-Ray to date, and edits together perfectly in terms of framing/frame-size with the 4:3 TV version (rather than switching back & fourth between full-frame and widescreen, or cropping the TV version into widescreen). I also used the theatrical mono audio track from the 1997 US Elite Entertainment SE Laserdisc (EE3845REG). The mono track phased in and out of sync with the DVD transfer, so fairly extensive audio editing was required to achieve A/V sync.

The untouched TV version ran at 1h 30m 39s, and the 2000 R1 US Anchor Bay DVD ran at 1h 24m 18s. As some of the footage from the theatrical version was duplicated using alternate takes in the TV version, 2m 11s of footage was edited out of the theatrical version, and every last frame of of alternate takes & additional footage running at 16m 10s from the TV version was edited in. That gave a final composite running time of 1h 37m 18s, which is 13m 01s longer than the standard theatrical version, with 16m 10s of new footage. Some little new sections do play in Spanish language (where there was no English audio available), but the vast majority of the composite version plays in its original English. This is virtually the same composite edit used in my 2016 Book Of The Dead II DVD, although UK fan Garrett Gilchrist did a fantastic restoring the somewhat noisy and partially jumpy VHS transfer to greatly improve the overall picture quality. You can see a full list of all the TV version footage added into the standard theatrical version, to create the composite version. Just to explain the below terms; a 'repeated shot' is one which seems to have been borrowed from elsewhere to use as a cutaway from something violent or to pad out the running time. 'further shots' are new shots building on an existing sequence, and 'extended shots' are extended versions of shots already in the Theatrical version. An 'alternate sequence' uses alternate shots from the Theatrical version but showing the same action, and a 'new sequence' is an entirely new sequence. The timecode listed references the composite version's running time.

00:01:05:07 to 00:02:23:09 - Replaced opening credits
00:03:33:14 to 00:03:33:14 - New sequence; Ash & Linda embracing & dancing
00:07:30:15 to 00:07:33:10 - Repeated shot; trees outside
00:07:39:07 to 00:07:44:00 - Repeated shot; trees outside
00:08:42:23 to 00:10:28:01 - New sequence; Ash returns to cabin, burns book, and cries for Linda
00:11:04:10 to 00:11:14:17 - Further shots of Ash flying through the trees
00:14:43:25 to 00:15:19:29 - New sequence; Ash driving to the bridge, eating cereal & choking
00:18:13:21 to 00:18:16:21 - Repeated shot; wall clock
00:19:44:14 to 00:20:13:05 - New sequence; force POV, Ash dreaming and shots looking round the cabin
00:21:42:10 to 00:21:47:03 - Further shot of piano playing itself
00:21:51:12 to 00:22:00:02 - Further shots of Ash's reaction, and steam coming out of piano
00:24:01:24 to 00:24:02:20 - Repeated shot; Ash's POV through the window
00:26:01:16 to 00:26:07:07 - Repeated shot; force POV shot
00:26:55:01 to 00:26:56:29 - Further shot of possessed Linda's head
00:27:28:22 to 00:27:30:28 - Further shot of workshed interior
00:27:34:11 to 00:28:20:06 - New sequence; Ash flips out in the workshed having killed Linda
00:28:45:17 to 00:30:21:09 - Alternate sequence; Ash re-enters cabin, looks round, gets gun and goes to chair
00:30:25:05 to 00:30:28:09 - Alternate Ash reaction shot
00:30:44:25 to 00:30:53:27 - Alternate Ash reaction shot, and rocking chair
00:37:36:01 to 00:37:41:12 - Repeated shot; cabin from hillside
00:39:18:23 to 00:39:20:25 - Repeated shot; mounted deer head on wall
00:42:09:01 to 00:42:22:21 - Further shots of items laughing in the cabin & Ash's reactions
00:42:47:11 to 00:42:50:15 - Further shot of items laughing in the cabin
00:42:52:18 to 00:43:12:05 - Further shots of items laughing in the cabin & Ash's reactions
00:50:10:03 to 00:50:31:20 - Further shot of Henrietta's attack aftermath
00:53:14:24 to 00:53:20:25 - Further shot of Jake's reaction to Evil Ed
00:54:36:24 to 00:54:39:18 - Repeated shot; dark sky with moon
00:54:43:14 to 00:54:46:21 - Repeated shot; trees outside
00:57:57:27 to 00:58:46:12 - Alternate & further shots, Ash & Annie look round side room
01:01:07:16 to 01:01:07:16 - Further shots of Bobby Jo running through forest
01:02:22:19 to 01:02:35:00 - Further shot of Bobby Jo being dragged through forest
01:04:52:04 to 01:05:00:02 - Further shots of Ash, Annie & Jake's conversation
01:07:59:26 to 01:08:04:21 - Further shot of Jake hitting the tree
01:09:35:10 to 01:10:22:25 - New sequence; Annie looks round cabin rear, then outside seeing Ash
01:10:37:29 to 01:10:38:18 - Further quick shot of Annie stabbing Jake
01:11:28:20 to 01:11:36:26 - Further shots of Ash pounding on door while Annie screams
01:12:29:09 to 01:12:33:14 - New shot; possessed Ash in the forest eating a squirrel
01:13:57:12 to 01:14:07:10 - Further shot of Annie screaming with Jake's blood on hands
01:14:54:03 to 01:15:24:26 - New sequence; possessed Ash remembers dancing with Linda
01:19:17:01 to 01:20:34:13 - Further shots looking round the first cellar room
01:29:25:07 to 01:29:28:07 - Further shot of Ash fighting Rotten Apple Head
01:30:59:14 to 01:31:13:26 - New sequence; images flash as Ash travels back in time
01:31:22:09 to 01:31:54:13 - New sequence; more images flash as Ash travels back in time
01:33:32:10 to 01:34:01:11 - Extended shot, pullback on Ash freezes with title

While this is presented here in standard definition, and the Mexican sections are in VHS quality, it's unlikely that this will ever see a better release, unless someone from Mexico happens to have a higher quality VHS transfer. That aside, this is still a rare curio from Evil Dead II's history.

The Evil Dead's prototype Within The Woods, has a special place in many Evil Dead fans' hearts. Every bootleg copy I know of, comes from the same ultimate source tape. The story goes that back in the late 1990's, Tom Sullivan lent his shorts compilation tape to Scott Spiegel. Scott was having a party and showed it to some friends, but his VCR chewed-up the tape. Tom's damaged tape had three break-ups; over the opening titles at the beginning, when Bruce is found dead in the woods, and when Ellen is searching for a weapon to attack possessed Bruce after coming out of the cellar. Every known bootleg version out there regardless of quality is from that ultimate source tape and has those three break-ups, including the version presented here. To date, there have been three Evil Dead fans & collectors I've come in to contact with, as owners of noteworthy VHS compilation tapes either in terms of high quality or rare inclusions. Of the total five source tapes they collectively own, three came directly from The Evil Dead cast/crewmembers, so are as high a generation bootleg as was possible to track down. Each tape has been loaned and transferred personally at least twice over the years, with the highest quality setup I had at the time. All five tapes were transferred together in February 2022 for the creation of my 2022 Evil Dead Shorts & Trailers Blu-Ray Set. Below you can see comparison screenshots showing the raw VHS capture, and the final processed & restored version you can watch on this Blu-Ray set. The transfer was done with my latest 2022 capture setup; JVC HR-S7900U NTSC VCR to DataVideo TBC-1000 Time Base Corrector to ATI TV Wonder 600 USB all via S-Video. The VCR was set to EDIT mode, which removes all smoothing filters applied by the VCR itself. That does give quite a grainy image, which then has noise reduction applied once captured, using the excellent ABSoft Neat Video filter in Adobe Premiere, along with the Digital Anarchy Samurai Sharpen filter just to sharpen up the details, along with colour & levels correction. That workflow combined with a top notch quality tape can give results approaching S-VHS or BetaCam transfers. While this tape wasn't exactly top notch quality, the result was still a real improvement, and certainly the best quality bootleg version currently out there.

For big-ticket items in my collection like this The Evil Dead raw footage and Greg Nictotero's 8½ hours of Evil Dead II Behind The Scenes camcorder footage, what I can and cannot include depends on who owns the footage (ie, which collector originally bought/sourced it, whom I got my copy from). So the 3h 25m of The Evil Dead raw footage was bought buy UK collector Michael Witchy a few years back, and he has kindly allowed its inclusion here. The Evil Dead II camcorder footage however, is owned by another collector and was not able to be included in this set. The 3h 25m 44s The Evil Dead raw footage plays here as it was personally transferred from nine numbered BetaCamSP tapes. Each one ranges from 15-27mins in length, probably containing the contents of one or two 16/35mm film reels each; accounting for the short length. This primarily seems to be a random jumbled assembly of alternate and longer shots that specifically aren't in the film. To clarify, there are a number of shots where there is a gap/jump at a certain moment, such as the light bulb exploding in the cellar, the actual explosion is missing in one take, same for one of the takes chopping up Shelly's leg for example, because what was in that gap was cut into the in the film, leaving a blank space in this raw footage. It was from these nine tapes (tapes one, two & three mostly) that the twenty-minute 'Behind The Scenes Footage & Outtakes' featurette on the 1999 US R1 Elite Entertainment Special Edition DVD was edited together. This is entirely different to the The Evil Dead: Treasures From The Cutting Room Floor raw footage featurette on the 2007 US R1 Anchor Bay Entertainment 3-disc Ultimate Edition DVD. Six of the nine tapes had no audio. While much of the shooting was indeed done without sound, there are some shots where the clapper board is visible with a sound number, so sound would have been recorded at the time but it's just missing on the tapes. This set was never meant for the public to see in its entirety, so it probably never mattered to anyone involved. They were just created for Elite to assemble their raw footage featurette.



Most of that footage had a fair to strong red tint to it (although some shots are quite yellow, green or blue too), which would had been down to the storage of the 16mm film in the years before it was scanned by Anchor Bay in 1998. What started as tweaking the colours on the worst shots, got progressively more involved, to the point that I had edited and tweaked the colours each one of the hundreds of shots individually. Removing the red tint was also complicated by the fact you're removing colour from blood and other reds sections which are meant to appear red, so it's a balance. The whole thing was slightly sharpened using the Digital Anarchy Samurai Sharpen plug-in, and given a film grain overlay with Gorilla Grain's 35mm film scans.

This set contains just about everything from my previous Evil Dead related DVD/Blu-Ray sets; The Evil Dead - The Treasures Collection DVD (2008), Book Of The Dead DVD (2012), Book Of The Dead II DVD (2016) (except Attack Of The Helping Hand & Torro, Torro, Torro, available officially through Super8Shorts.com), Book Of The Dead Raw Footage DVD (2018), Evil Dead - The Rare Collection Blu-Ray Box-Set (2018) (except any unrelated Super-8 Shorts, and the Greg Nictotero's 8½ hours of Evil Dead II Behind The Scenes camcorder footage), and the Within The Woods Film Can DVD (2019)

A number of extras on D1 & D2 were copied from Disc 4 (All 'Best' Quality NTSC Compilation) of my 2022 Evil Dead Shorts & Trailers Blu-Ray. These were all-new 2022 transfers using the latest & best equipment I had. This includes my current-best quality copy of Within The Woods, along with the Book Of The Dead Trailer & PM Magazine Detroit, a Tom Sullivan Interview, along with two reviews, The Evil Dead On Siskle & Ebert and another unidentified review.

A number of new items were added from YouTube, some still online and some long gone. This includes The Fast Track (1983) on disc 1, Movie Mania (1983) on disc 2, and In Review, Sam Raimi (1986), Nightmare Theater (1987) , & In the Spotlight - Scene 2 (1989) on disc 5. They were all upscaled to 480p using Topaz Video Enhance AI, and given a film grain overlay with Gorilla Grain's 35mm film scan. Again while I'm not generally a fan of upscaling for upscaling's sake, the results were far superior to a resized frame in Adobe Premiere.

Of the 61 total source videos across the whole set, 14 were natively PAL, and the rest NTSC. Given than European PAL Blu-Ray players will normally play PAL & NTSC content, but US NTSC players largely will only play NTSC content, converting all the PAL videos to NTSC was necessary. This meant getting Adobe Premiere to interpret each 25fps video as 23.976fps progressive; slowing it down, as well as resizing it from 720x576 to 720x480. Any hard-interlaced videos were then processed with a de-interlacing plug-in, which only treats the specific interlaced parts of each frame, rather than the whole frame, to create 23.976 progressive frames per second. Were possible, items were encoded from the original uncompressed source files, but around half were the PAL MPEG2 files themselves, re-encoded. The audio was processed in Adobe Audition. Each audio track was stretched by around 4% to sync up with the longer video in Premiere.

That aside, adding in most of the content was fairly simple. There were a few entries (besides the two movie 35mm edits) which required far more work to include. The Bruce Campbell & ED1 Live, & ED2 Live, were a major headache. The video was broadcast online at 30fps progressive. Getting this to something which would playback on a Blu-Ray player, took fair effort. After some tests, I found I could slow the video to 29.97fps progressive, then encode that as 29.97fps interlaced, giving smooth motion without any stepping with camera movement and only an imperceptible loss in quality. There was some stuttering in the main movie playback, but not on Bruce in the wider frame, so this was how it was broadcast.

Slowing the video then meant the audio was out of sync. I also discovered that the audio in the captured streaming video, phased somewhat in and out of sync, so I had to chop the audio into 10 minute sections and manually sync the start & end of each section. I then found that for some reason which still eludes me, even though the A/V was synchronous on the Premiere timeline, it would be a few seconds out of sync in the encoded video. After a lot more fruitless experimentation I resorted to just adjusting the audio in premiere, outputting a file, adjusting the audio more, outputting a file, until after a few evenings' work, I had a final files which were roughly in sync the whole way though. They're still not perfect, but it's the best I can do; taking videos which were never meant to be Blu-Ray compliant, and tweaking it until they (just about) are. I'm sure these two Lives' will be properly released on streaming services at some point, but until they are, this is a decent enough stop-gap for those who missed if first time round.

Below you can read detailed write-ups of all the additional/extras inclusions across the set, which are not covered in the above sections. The Evil Dead - UK Palace Pictures Re-Release Replica Intro (1990 - 2m 03s)
I wanted the main movie first disc here, to play like a HD version of The Evil Dead's 1990 Palace Pictures UK VHS re-release tape, a tape close to many a British Evil Dead fans' heart. You can access the menu with the menu button of course, but if you do nothing you will see the following play in order; an intro copyright message, the Palace Pictures ident, the Evil Dead II US theatrical trailer, my The Evil Dead 35mm restoration, the Book Of The Dead trailer, and the Within The Woods super-8 Short. The intro sequence as presented here is made up of AI upscaled SD content, and existing HD content. The Evil Dead - Deleted Scenes (1983 - 11m 01s)
Up to now, deleted & extended scenes could only be seen in the various raw footage featurettes. The sections presented here have been edited & mixed from various retail sources available, to create full additional scenes. These include the 'Treasures From The Cutting Room Floor' & 'Book Of The Dead - The Other Pages' featurettes from the 2007 US Anchor Bay Ultimate Edition R1 DVD, along with the Behind The Scenes Footage & Outtakes from the 1999 US Elite Entertainment R1 DVD. Book Of The Dead Trailer (1980 - 3m 36s)
This is a four minute trailer narrated by John Cameron created late in 1980, from the rough cut of the then titled Book Of The Dead. It was produced in order to raise more funding mid-production. As it was edited from a 97 minute rough cut, rather than the final 85 minute theatrical version, some shots run longer, and there are snippets of footage you'll not see in the final movie. This version was personally transferred in 2022, from VHS tapes borrowed from US fan Kevin/DeusExMcachina. While the quality is quite poor, this is still the best quality bootleg version currently available. The Evil Dead US Theatrical Open-Matte Trailer (1983 - 2m 14s)
Scanned at 2k in 2015, this was transferred from a personally owned 35mm film reel by a company in London called 'i-dailies'. this is currently the only 1080p presentation of The Evil Dead's open matte trailer available worldwide. It's completely open-matte right up to the edge of the frame, showing considerably more of the picture in this transfer, than any previous release. The Evil Dead Japanese Trailer (2003 - 1m 18s)
While identical to the US theatrical trailer, this version features Japanese titles, overlaid text, and a Japanese voiceover. It's copied from the 2003 Japanese JVD Special Edition R2 DVD. The Evil Dead Japanese 20th Anniversary Trailer (2003 - 1m 27s)
This was a trailer created specifically for the film's 20th anniversary Japanese re-release, and is entirely different to the US theatrical version. It's copied from the 2003 Japanese JVD Special Edition R2 DVD. The Evil Dead Italian 35mm Open-Matte La Casa Trailer (1984 - 3m 48s)
This is a 2K Scan of the Italian 35mm theatrical trailer. It's edited differently to the standard US trailer, with La Casa title cards; its Italian title. It was kindly provided for inclusion here by Italian fan Mario Zombie. PM Magazine Detroit (1981 - 7m 29s)
PM/Evening Magazine was a US television series in a news & entertainment format. It was syndicated to stations throughout the United States. In most areas it was broadcast from the late 1970s into the late 1980s. In Detroit this was carried by WJBK as PM Magazine Detroit & PM Detroit. Circa mid-1982, the production filmed a piece on the local up and coming 'Renaissance Pictures' team; Sam, Rob & Bruce, shot shortly after their return from Cannes, but while they were still looking for a US distributor. It also includes footage from the October 1981 Book Of The Dead premiere. Although widely available in a truncated version on various bootleg VHS & DVDs, this is the full 7 minute & 28 second segment transferred in 2022, from VHS tapes borrowed from US fan Cliff/Demonovation. Belgium News Interview with Sam, Ted, & Tom (1982 - 4m 17s)
This is an unbroadcast short TV interview with Sam Raimi, Ted Raimi & Tom Sullivan, recorded on September 2, 1982 for the Le Carrousel aux Images program broadcast by RTBF; the state broadcaster of the French-speaking part of Belgium, during the production team's visit to France to promote The Evil Dead. It's presented here AI upscaled from the INA online archive. The Fast Track (1983 - 26m 36s)
This was a local Detroit show called 'The Fast Track' presented by Cynthia Pancalla. This episode was shown around May 6, 1983; three weeks after The Evil Dead had opened in the New York area, and around the same time as the movie's Detroit Metro area release. It features interviews with Bruce & Rob talking about the production. This is an AI up-scale from an existing YouTube video. The Evil Dead - Japanese Herald Enterprise Inc Laserdisc (1985, SF078-5044 - 85m 36s)
This laserdisc is arguably the best standard definition transfer of The Evil Dead ever made available. Two major things separate this version from every other; its colour timing, and its picture framing, although it does suffer from burnt in Japanese subtitles, but they're fairly unobtrusive. The bluer & colder colour timing for this transfer, while a subtle change, seems to alter the whole 'feel' of the movie and seems much scarier because of it. Additionally there is also quite a difference in picture framing. This laserdisc version has around 10% more picture on each side of the frame, more than all the other 80's/90's transfers. It is also one of the few releases with the original mono audio track. This was kindly transferred from Laserdisc to DVD by UK OriginalTrilogy.com forum user Miles/Moth3r in 2008. The Evil Dead - Greek Video Standard VHS (1985, 161 - 89m 28s)
The Book Of The Dead titled version was never generally released theatrically or on home video, but there were a couple of rare exceptions. As far as is known, there were four releases; the 1984 Greek 1st issue 'Diamond' label PAL VHS, then the later 1985 Greek 'Video Standard' label PAL Greek VHS, and also the 1982 Mexican 1st issue 'Videomax' label NTSC VHS and then the 1995 Mexican 'Videomax' label re-release NTSC VHS (all four in English language with local subtitles). The movie itself plays shot for shot identically to the general theatrical version, but with four minor differences; the movie title, an alternate sunrise shot at the end just before Ash walks out of the cabin, Ash's scream resonates for a few seconds with a black screen before the end credits roll, and the text on the last page of the end credits. This complete VHS transfer plays in the original English, with Greek subtitles. This tape was loaned to me for transfer in 2022 by Kyle; UK webmaster of EvilDead2.com. The source tape was long play, so the transfer quality is not as good as it might have been. The Evil Dead - Mexican Videomax VHS (1995, AA2903 - 86m 28s)
This complete Mexican VHS transfer is identical in content to the above Greek version, playing in the original English, but with Spanish subtitles. This version is a composite of two transfers, one lower quality tape loaned to me in 2018 by UK fan Jonathan Burnett, and a second higher quality tape with a few jumpy bits loaned in 2022 by French fan Anthony. Both the source tapes were long play, so the transfer quality is not as good as it might have been. The Evil Dead - UK Palace Pre-Cert VHS (1982, PVC2018A - 92m 15s)
This is a transfer of the UK Palace Pictures 1982 pre-cert VHS tape. The BBFC censorship cuts made to The Evil Dead for an 'X' cinema certificate in 1982, were identical to the 1982 video version, with 49 seconds removed. This trimmed the pencil screwing around in Linda's ankle, Shelley chewing off her hand and subsequent dismemberment, and various other edits here and there. It's the full VHS tape including the copyright screen, the Palace Pictures Ident, Basket Case, Female Trouble & Eraserhead trailers, and the censored film itself. The Evil Dead - UK Palace Pictures Re-Release VHS (1990, PVC 2018A - 85m 14s)
This is a transfer of the UK Palace Pictures 1990 re-release VHS tape. When the BBFC reconsidered The Evil Dead for re-release following its withdrawal after the VRA came into force in 1985, 1m 06s of further cuts were made beyond the 49s of cuts were made to obtain the 'X' certificate. This included trimming the tree rape, Shelly attacking Scotty & her dismemberment, Linda attacking Ash, and the final meltdown. It's the full VHS tape including the copyright screen, the Palace Pictures Ident, Evil Dead II trailer, and the censored film itself. Movie Mania (1983 - 22m 56s)
Movie Mania was a New York/Manhattan Cable Public Access TV show hosted by film historian Ed Hulse. This first episode of the third season was shown around April 22, of 1983, the week following The Evil Dead's New York release. It features an interview with Sam and Bruce talking about the production. This is an AI up-scale from a long-deleted YouTube video. Tom Sullivan Interview (1983 - 5m 52s)
Creature Features was the generic title for a genre of horror TV format shows broadcast on local US television stations throughout the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, sandwiched with comment & interviews. In the San Francisco Bay Area, this ran on KTVU Channel 2 from 1971 to 1984, hosted first by Bob Wilkins, and later by John Stanley, who took over in 1979. Around the same time as the US theatrical release of The Evil Dead, Tom Sullivan moved to San Francisco for a time. Circa 1983, he was interviewed by John Stanley, discussing the film and showing a number of his props over two segments totalling six minutes. Here, you can see both sections transferred personally in 2022, from VHS tapes borrowed from US fan Cliff/Demonovation. At the Movies with Siskel and Ebert (1983 - 2m 32s)
This was a US movie review show hosted by Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert, broadcast circa April 1983. It was personally transferred in 2022, from VHS tapes borrowed from US fan Cliff/Demonovation. Another The Evil Dead Review (1983 - 1m 01s)
This is a short unidentified US TV movie review, which was personally transferred in 2022, from VHS tapes borrowed from US fan Cliff/Demonovation. It starts and ends abruptly, as it did on the original source tape. The Evil Dead - Japanese Herald 40th Anniversary Presentation Excerpt (1996 - 1m 18s)
This is a section edited from a 67m 16s promo laserdisc released for the 40th Anniversary of the Japanese distributor Herald Enterprise Inc. (1956 to 1996). The 1m 18s section presented here covers their 1985 The Evil Dead laserdisc release. It plays as a montage of film clips overlaid with Japanese text. This was uploaded to YouTube by a Japanese user in 2016. Bruce Campbell & ED1 Live (2021 - 106m 13s)
This was a worldwide virtual viewing event, broadcast live online on January 23, 2021, in which Bruce gives a live on-screen commentary to The Evil Dead. He shares memories, stories, and anecdotes from the film, as well as answering questions from viewers. Being a live event, Bruce's voice gets drowned out a little in loud sections, but this is how it was broadcast. The copy presented here was captured and shared on a private BitTorrent site shortly after broadcast. The Evil Dead - Book Of The Dead Revisions Comparison (1985 - 1m 50s)
The Evil Dead, was originally titled Book Of The Dead. This version isn't generally available, save some rare exceptions. There were four releases; the 1984 Greek 1st issue 'Diamond' label PAL VHS, then the later 1985 Greek 'Video Standard' label PAL VHS, and also the 1982 Mexican 1st issue 'Videomax' label NTSC VHS and then the 1995 Mexican re-release (all English language with local subtitles). The movie itself plays identically to the theatrical version, with four minor differences; the movie title, an alternate sunrise shot at the end just before Ash walks out of the cabin, Ash's scream resonates for a few seconds with a black screen before the end credits roll, and the text on the last page of the end credits. This sequence transferred from the 1985 Greek VHS, shows these 4 differences, in comparison to the US theatrical version. The Evil Dead - BBFC Edits Comparison (1990 - 6m 01s)
When Palace Pictures submitted The Evil Dead to the UK censorship board (the BBFC) in 1982, 49 seconds of cuts were required to obtain an 'X' certificate, both for cinema & video release. Despite being cut, the video version was soon vilified as a 'video nasty' prompting police seizures from video stores around the UK and its disappearance from stores for nearly eight years. In 1990, the BBFC passed the Palace Pictures re-release VHS with an '18' rating, after the removal of a further 66 seconds. It wasn't until 2000, that it was passed as '18' uncut for the first time. This sequence transferred from that 1990 Palace Pictures VHS, illustrates those 115 seconds of cuts in comparison to the US theatrical version. You can read the BBFC notes for each cut at the top of the frame. The Evil Dead - Elite Entertainment To DVD Comparison (1999 - 0m 31s)
The 1998 US Elite Entertainment Special Edition Laserdisc & 1999 DVD, have a number of little editing changes supervised by Sam during the remastering process. This included the removal of a lighting strike, (this shot has been left untouched in all subsequent home releases). In addition, a digital zoom was added when Cheryl is first possessed and turns round to the group watching, to emphasize the 'shock' in the shot. This sequence edited from that 1999 Elite DVD, shows these differences in comparison to the US theatrical version. The Evil Dead - Blu-Ray To DVD Comparison (2010 - 6m 00s)
The 2010 US Anchor Bay Blu-ray has a long list of tweaks, including window reflection & background light removal, flipping & blending shots, digitally removing dirt, hair, lens flares, and even Rob Tapert from the background of one shot. This sequence edited from that 2010 Blu-Ray, details these differences, in comparison to two un-tweaked theatrical versions. It's Murder! Super-8 Short (1978 - 70m 09s)
This is a broad comedy with an intricate plot and lots of characters. Scotty Spiegel plays a detective, investigating the death of a father, and the whereabouts of his will. Both Jane Bradley (Cheryl Guttridge), and Uncle Jasper (Sam Raimi), try to kill the detective at every opportunity to stop the will being found, so they can inherit their father's estate, while Milton (Richard Smith), the son and rightful air, assists the detective. A grand car chase ensues, and good finally triumphs, more or less. Made in 1978, this 68 minute Super-8 feature is a broad Hitchcock-esque slapstick comedy directed by Sam, with a large cast, death defying stunts, even a car chase! While a commercial failure, one scare moment always played well, and gave the group their first glimpse of the power of the horror genre. You can see the seeds of The Evil Dead in some of the gags & set-pieces. The version presented here, has been up-scaled from an MPEG-1 25P PAL (352 x 288) VCD, picked up by US fan Sean King at a New York comic fair around 2006. Clockwork Super-8 Short (1979 - 7m 14s)
The strong reaction from the audience to the scares in It's Murder! prompted Sam to write a short film called Clockwork in early 1979, which was made as part of his MSU film course. It's a short, effective suspense piece about a woman (Cheryl Guttridge) who suspects that she's not alone in her home. Outside in the snow, a figure (Scotty Spiegel) watches. As she goes to bed, he enters the house waking her up. After playing for suspense, he attacks her in a bleak ending. Made in 1978, this 7 minute short was Sam Raimi's first foray into all out horror film making. It was made only a few months before Within The Woods, but this was a far smaller production than It's Murder!. While primarily preceded by slapstick comedy films, it served to illustrate that horror was commercially viable option. It's also worth mentioning that Tom Sullivan created the opening titles. Clockwork is very rare in terms of offline/physical trading between fans. The version presented here has been up-scaled from the best quality source available; an MPEG-1 25P PAL (352 x 288) VCD, picked up by US fan Sean King a New York comic fair around 2006. Evil Dead II - UK Palace Pictures Replica Intro (1987 - 3m 29s)
Much like the first disc in this set, I decided to replicate the 1987 Palace Pictures VHS release introduction to play before the Evil Dead II main feature here. This required a little more work than the first disc, as the original trailers on that tape were entirely unrelated, so I kept the idents and bumpers, and swapped in an XYZ Murders trailer. I discovered in doing so, that there didn't seem to be an official high quality version of the theatrical Crimewave trailer out there, let alone a scan of the earlier XYZ Murders trailer. The trailer shown on the official Blu-Rays is a VHS transfer, and not a good one at that. I upscaled the best Crimewave theatrical trailer VHS transfer I had, and edited in the XYZ titles from a lower quality capture, along with replacing the soundtrack, to give the best possible composite of the original XYZ Murders trailer. Evil Dead II 'Severely Edited For Television' Mexican VHS (1990s - 90m 12s)
This is an untouched/raw transfer of the Evil Dead II 'Severely Edited For Television' TV Version as recorded from Mexican TV during the 1990's. The TV version runs at 1h 30m 39s, and the standard Theatrical version runs at 1h 24m 18s. Between various footage removed and alternate footage added in, there is 16m 10s of new material here. Among other footage; there's more of Ash & Linda embracing & dancing, Ash burning the book, Ash driving to the bridge, eating cereal & choking, Ash dreaming, and flipping out in the workshed having killed Linda, possessed Ash in the forest eating a squirrel, more shots of Ash in the cellar, and more images flash as Ash travels back in time. The film plays in dubbed Spanish, without subtitles, and there are periodic truncated advert breaks. The quality is fairly good, although it reduces somewhat and the frame becomes a little jumpy towards the end of the film. This transfer was used to edit the Evil Dead II theatrical/TV version composite, on my 2016 Book Of The Dead II DVD. Evil Dead II - Japanese Shochiku Laserdisc (1987, SF078-5254 - 84m 35s)
This laserdisc follows The Evil Dead's Japanese Herald Videogram laserdisc, in being open-matte, with far more vibrant colours than the more recent DVD & Blu-Ray transfers. It was originally intended that this be the main source for the Evil Dead II 'Severely Edited For Television' TV version composite edit, but the open-matte transfer from the 2000 US Anchor Bay R1 DVD was used instead, as this laserdisc's picture was a little too soft & grainy, as well as having Japanese subtitles throughout. This was transferred from Laserdisc to DVD by UK OriginalTrilogy.com forum user Miles/Moth3r in 2014. Evil Dead II Partial Workprint (1987 - 34m 17s)
This is an incomplete workprint of Evil Dead II, consisting of the first twenty and last ten minutes of the film. It features temp music, original production audio (pre-ADR) and a small selection of short deleted scenes. This is a composite of two transfers; one longer but lower quality, and a second higher quality but truncated transfer. The quality is generally quite poor, although it's not as bad as some other transfers out there. It's mostly made up of a 1:1 copy from a workprint DVD obtained from The Asylum Of Oblivion bootleg website in 2008. Vern Hyde's Evil Dead II Behind The Scenes Camcorder Footage (1986 - 72m 00s)
Not to be confused with Greg' Nicotero's footage, this seems to be transferred from tapes shot by Vern Hyde and his effects crew, which leans towards more general on set footage, rather than special effects. It was originally copied from a Behind The Scenes Collection DVD running at 72m 00s, obtained from The Asylum Of Oblivion bootleg DVD website in 2008. Evil Dead II Talent Show Camcorder Footage (1986 - 65m 53s)
This is 1h 5m 53s of camcorder footage covering the Evil Dead II wrap talent show & dinner afterwards. Among other entrants; Sam & Bruce sang the Baby Moses and the Thrillers greatest hit; Eight Mile Line, with Greg Nicotero on guitar. This seems to have been shot by Vern Hyde and his effects crew. It was bought as a DVD-R, on eBay from a US seller in Georgia, in 2011. That disc also contained 43m 20s of on-set footage from Darkman. The seller said he got it from the "effects coordinator on the films"; which was presumably Vern or one of his crew. Evil Dead II US Theatrical Open-Matte Trailer (1987 - 1m 41s)
Scanned at 2k in 2016, this was transferred from a personally owned 35mm film reel by a company in London called i-dailies. This is currently the only 1080p presentation of Evil Dead II's open matte trailer available worldwide. It's completely open-matte right up to the edge of the frame, showing considerably more of the picture in this transfer, than any previous release. Evil Dead II French Theatrical Trailer (1987 - 1m 50s)
This is a general release French language trailer for Evil Dead II, transferred from the French VHS of The Morning After (1986). It's identical to the US theatrical version, save the French voice-over. Evil Dead II UK Censored Open-Matte VHS Trailer (1987 - 1m 16s)
The UK VHS trailer was pre-cut by the distributor Palace Pictures to obtain a 'U' (suitable for all) rating. This censored trailer appeared on a number of Palace VHS UK releases, and was transferred here personally from the 1990 UK Palace Pictures The Evil Dead re-release VHS (PVC2018A) in 2022. Evil Dead II Palace UK TV Spot - Longer & Shorter Versions (1987 - 0m 41s)
Featured on the 2003 UK Anchor Bay Evil Dead Trilogy 4-Disc R2 DVD Box Set, these Evil Dead II UK national TV spots were edited from the Dead Good Marketing featurette on disc 4, into a standalone video. There are two slightly different edits shown; longer and shorter versions. They were both shot in an old cinema on Wardour Street while Sam was in the UK promoting Evil Dead II. Channel 4's Censored Weekend Evil Dead II Intro (1999 - 2m 26s)
Evil Dead II was shown uncut on UK TV Channel 4 on February 20th, 1999 as part of their Censored Weekend. Presented here is Mark Kermode's introduction, giving a brief history of the movie's UK censorship problems. This was added from a torrent uploaded to private tracker Cinemageddon.net in 2011 by user Siccoyote. Jason Goes To Hell Workprint Excerpt (1993 - 0m 58s)
This is an excerpt from the Jason Goes To Hell Workprint, showing the original Evil Dead II Book Of The Dead & Kandarian Dagger props, featured without Tom Sullivan's permission. It was obtained in 2012, edited from a complete workprint. Evil Dead II: Behind The Screams (1998 - 27m 43s)
Not to be confused with the retail DVD featurette of the same name, this Laserdisc extra is a compilation of the behind the scenes camcorder footage Greg Nicotero shot on the set of Evil Dead II, transferred from the 1998 US Elite Entertainment 'Blood Red' laserdisc. While some of the same footage was recycled into the later The Gore The Merrier DVD featurette, much of it is still unavailable on any retail DVD. This transfer was obtained in 2008 via OriginalTrilogy.com user The Griff. Bruce Campbell & ED2 Live (2021 - 125m 00s)
This was a US-only virtual viewing event, broadcast live online on April 24, 2021, in which Bruce gives a live on-screen commentary to Evil Dead II. He shares memories, stories, and anecdotes from the film, as well as answering questions from viewers. Being a live event, Bruce's voice gets drowned out a little in loud sections, but this is how it was broadcast. The copy presented here was captured and shared on a private BitTorrent site shortly after broadcast. The Incredibly Strange Film Show - Series 1, Episode 5 (1988 - 39m 47s)
This was a programme profiling offbeat directors hosted by Jonathan Ross, which ran for two series over 1988 to 1989 on UK TV Channel 4. Episode 5 of Series 1 was first broadcast on the 2nd of September 1988, and featured Sam, Rob, Bruce, & Scotty Spiegel. It covered their early Super-8 days, to Within The Woods, The Evil Dead, Crimewave and Evil Dead II, and up to Night Crew. Anchor Bay included this specific episode on the bonus disc of their 2003 UK Evil Dead Trilogy Box-set R2 DVD, but likely at Sam's request, all the Super-8 short clips, along with the footage from Crimewave was omitted, while some of the missing sections were replaced with alternate material (38m 38s as broadcast, edited down to 34m 09s for DVD). This is a VHS transfer of the original uncut 1988 TV airing, transferred in 2011 by UK collector Elliot/Deranged, which was traded in 2019 for inclusion in another Blu-Ray project. In Review, Sam Raimi (1986 - 24m 29s)
This interview by Gregg Goldstein with Sam Raimi, was broadcast on the New York cable TV programme In Review in early 1987 during the promotion of Evil Dead II. It's a 1:1 copy from an Evil Dead II workprint DVD obtained from Stumpy Discs bootleg website in 2007. The ending is truncated here, as it was on the original source disc. Nightmare Theater (1987 - 29m 53s)
This was a US show hosted by Mike Stanley broadcast mid 1987, following the March theatrical release of Evil Dead II. It features an extensive interview with Denise Bixler (Linda), as well as covering her earlier career. This is an AI up-scale from a long-deleted YouTube video. In the Spotlight - Scene 2 (1989 - 49m 24s)
This was a local Ohio show broadcast on the student-run volunteer television WHBS in 1989. Here, two high school students'; Kyle Pierson & John Horton, interview Tom Sullivan about his work on The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II, showcasing many of the props he created. This is an AI up-scale from an existing YouTube video. This Is Horror, Sam Raimi Excerpt (1990 - 10m 02s)
This interview with Sam was filmed for the syndicated TV series Stephen King's 'This Is Horror (aka World Of Horror or Shadow Theatre). It's taken from the Nordic DVD; the only DVD release anywhere in the world, and features burnt-in Dutch subtitles. It was traded via UK fan James/DJSmokingJam in 2008. Evil Dead II BBFC Edits Comparison (1987 - 0m 23s)
Evil Dead II was passed by the BBFC on May 22nd of 1987 for release on UK home video, with 2 seconds of cuts. These were to two shots in the sequence where Ash is kicked in the face by Jake and thrown in the cellar. This is a side-by-side comparison sequence of both those cuts, with the VHS transferred personally from the 1987 UK Palace Pictures VHS (PVC2090A) in 2012. Evil Dead II Trailer BBFC Edits Comparison (1987 - 1m 28s)
The UK VHS trailer was pre-cut by the distributor Palace Pictures to obtain a 'U' (suitable for all) rating. This censored trailer appeared on a number of UK Palace VHS releases. This is a side-by-side comparison sequence of the censored version, next to the standard US theatrical trailer, with the VHS transferred personally from the 1990 UK Palace Pictures The Evil Dead re-release VHS (PVC2018A) in 2010. Evil Dead II 'Severely Edited For Television' Comparison (1987 - 25m 00s)
This is a side-by-side comparison sequence showing the differences between the standard theatrical version, and the Evil Dead II 'Severely Edited For Television' TV Version as recorded on Mexican TV during the 1990's. Between various footage removed and alternate footage added in, there is 16m 10s of new material here. The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II: A Location Odyssey' (2012 - 51m 05s)
This is personally shot 2012 locations camcorder footage, presented here in its edited form, running at 51 minutes. it's basically what's shown on BookOfTheDead.ws with a few extra minutes. The locations covered include The Evil Dead's Cabin site, Bluff Road Bridge, Clinch River Road/Riverside Road, & Old Highway 25E all around Morristown Tennessee, and Evil Dead II's Cabin, Production House, Bonsal Ballast Pits, J. R. Faison Junior High School, & Anson County Airport in North Carolina. Elite Entertainment DVD Ident (1999 - 0m 16s)
This is a 1080p AI up-scale from The Evil Dead's 1999 US R1 Elite special edition DVD, created for inclusion before the 35mm presentation of Evil Dead II. Evil Dead II - Palace Pictures VHS (1987, PVC 2090A - 98m 40s)
This is a transfer of the UK Palace Pictures 1987 VHS tape. Evil Dead II was passed by the BBFC on May 22nd of 1987 for release on home video, with 2 seconds of cuts; to two sequences where Ash was kicked in the face by Jake. This is the full VHS tape including the copyright screen, Palace Pictures ident, Trick Or Treat trailer, the film itself, with more trailers following; She's Gotta Have It, The Magic Toyshop, Assault On Precinct 13, Night Of The Living Dead, River's Edge, Good Morning Babylon, & Slam Dance. Army Of Darkness - Close-Up UK Documentary (1991 - 28m 53s)
This was a short documentary shown on the UK TV channel Sky Movies circa 1995, with a SkyOne Hercules TV show preview following. This was transferred in 2022, from a VHS tape kindly loaned by UK fan John Shelton. Army Of Darkness - Behind The Scenes Hi-8 Camcorder Footage (1991 - 25m 30s)
This was footage kindly provided by Flash Film Works in March 2018, labeled as "Footage from the production". Flash Film Works was founded in 1993 by William Mesa; the Visual FX Director for Army Of Darkness in 1991 while at Introvision International. It includes video shot on location outside the Medieval castle, crew working on a number of the film's scale models, and film shot during the introvision process (this section has no sound). Army Of Darkness US Theatrical Trailer 2K 4-3 Open-Matte (1992 - 1m 58s)
Scanned at 2k from an original 35mm film trailer in 2015, this is currently the only 1080p presentation of the Army Of Darkness' open-matte trailer available worldwide. Considerably more of the frame is visible in this transfer, than any previous retail release. Army Of Darkness French Trailer (1992 - 2m 20s)
This is a 2K 35mm scan of the French language theatrical trailer, cropped to 1.85:1.

Given the volume of material in this set, I thought a booklet would be needed to explain what all the entries were. After some experimentation, I found that A5 folded in half fits perfectly in to the insert space in a 6-way Blu-Ray case. I opted for two booklets, both modelled after the respective official Palace Pictures press kits. The artwork was more-or-less copied from each original, just requiring a little work to change the movie title on each. The booklets were printed on two different shades of off-white paper to give the illusion of differing ages, and even had rusted staples too. For the first run of copies in September & October 2022, I duplex laser-printed 120 of each booklet (2 double-sided pages per sheet, at a total of 540 A4 sheets, or 1080 sides!). I then chopped all the sheets in half, to give the 240 booklets. I had found in tests, that the pre-rusted staples I was using, sometimes struggled to punch through the 4-5 sheets of thicker paper used in each booklet. To get around this, I made a little frame with a spring loaded arm so I could punch two little pilot holes through the sheets, then staple through the holes in the same place (pictured in the the gallery further down). This also meant that all the booklets were stapled in exactly the same place, which appealed to my sense of neatness.

Each booklet was then creased back & forth along the staple, roughed each corner, and folded in half. I made a little wooden press to get a sharp fold, then folded back and forth to distress the fold a little (also pictured further down). I chopped 240 brown DL-sized envelopes down, in which to put the booklets, and they were complete. The envelopes lent the booklets a little extra protection during shipping, and prevented them from rubbing against and transferring the printed disc arts. With the second version of this Blu-Ray set, I thought some black & white 6" x 4" lobby card photos would make a nice addition to the mini press-kits, as they'd normally be found together as a set. Rather than copy & re-print existing lobby cards or promo-photos which most fans will have seen, I went though my two 35mm scans taking 175 screenshots from each. From those I selected 36 from each film, and edited each one to very roughly produce something in-keeping with their respective press kits. Each Blu-Ray set comes with four randomly selected cards from each film (eight in total). The 120 sets which made up the revised set duplication run, meant getting just under 1000 cards printed at a local photo shop. It was a lot of work for such a small addition, but hopefully people will appreciate it.

The artwork & menus for this release drew from a few of my previous DVD projects. The double-sided/reversible cover was duplex laser-printed. The obvious source on which to draw, were the various artworks by Graham Humphreys. The Evil Dead's side was adapted from Graham's base artwork for the 1990 Palace Pictures UK VHS re-release, much like my 2012 Book Of The Dead DVD. For the Evil Dead II side, I toyed with his UK quad poster artwork to see what might be possible, but felt it had been used on so many official & unofficial releases, I decided to take things in a completely different direction. I always liked the photocopied hand-drawn artwork & layout of 90s UK horror fanzine; Killing Moon (created by Alex J. Low), so borrowing from issue 2's front cover (drawn by Ross Collins), I produced a black & white poor-quality-photocopy effect cover. This involved creating an initial 'clean' version of the artwork, and overlaying a number of textures & effects to make it look like a really bad photocopy. The same basic cover artwork was used in my 2016 Book Of The Dead II DVD.

Replicating the menus used on my 2012 Book Of The Dead DVD, wasn't really an option here. While the previous menus looked great, they were very restrictive in terms of changing items and adding new content. They were created for the specific content which was on those discs and didn't lend themselves to chopping & changing easily. I used the VHS-effect menus from my 2016 Book Of The Dead II DVD as a basic design template for all the discs; redesigning them in HD. The Evil Dead's disc menus used a Palace Pictures background graphic with overlaid text, and the Evil Dead II menus somewhat recycled the photocopy style cover artwork. These were then overlaid with various effects in Adobe Premiere to make them look like they'd been transferred from old VHS tapes. There was a fine line in degrading the quality to replicate the VHS 'look'. I did try properly transferring test menus to & back from real VHS tape, but the results were a little too soft making the smaller text unreadable. For the original project release, it took nearly two months from June 4, 2021 to August 8, 2021, to get to the stage of compiling each disc in Adobe Encore, watching each one, correcting any mistakes until I had the final master versions of each disc. Additions to this second revised & updated version were spread over the following months in bits & pieces up to August 2022.