The Evil Dead: A Superfan's Odyssey Documentary

[EvilDeadChainsaws]

The Evil Dead: A Superfan's Odyssey​

[video=youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPssa6D62lw[/video]​

This documentary chronicles my journey as a British Evil Dead superfan. How seeing it changed my life, sparking an interest in making my own short films and experimenting with gore effects, leading me onto a career in special effects in film & TV.

Opening EvilDeadChainsaws.com & supplying Evil Dead: The Musical, creating BookOfTheDead.ws, making the Evil Dead - The Treasures Collection & Book Of The Dead DVDs, shooting footage at nine of The Evil Dead & Evil Dead II's locations, starting my huge Evil Dead collection, making a number of replica props, re-opening EvilDeadChainsaws.com & supplying Ash Vs Evil Dead, and much more.

From 1992 to 2015, this is my journey so far . . .


When I started working on this documentary around the beginning of October 2015, it was only intended to be a few brief shots of my Evil Dead collection display, along with a bit of commentary over the top, which I shot myself for the Canadian Hail To The Deadites documentary.

While that's still likely happening next year, once I started editing my own footage to get an idea of how Steve (HTTD Director) could cut the material together, then and filming & adding in new bits here and there over a few weeks, it got way longer than could ever reasonably be included in the few minutes allocated in his project, as well as including some material which wouldn't entirely fit with that either. I thought that there would be people out there who would be interested to see a standalone documentary. Not just Evil Dead fans, but also people interested in special effects and low budget film-making in general.

I shot over seven hours of entirely new footage, not including all my pre-existing video and photographic material, which was all edited down to the final documentary running at 58mins. It contains a lot of material which people will not have seen before, along with elaborating & expanding on some things people will, all in 1080p. You can see some screenshots below. If anyone is interested in a higher quality physical Blu-Ray disc version, shoot me over a PM. I won't be selling this as I've used a couple of little clips of footage to which I don't own the copyright, but I'm sure a like-for-like trade can be worked out.

 

[MaidOfKandar]

Congratulations! Looks amazing all over.

 

[Kain]

Amazing work!

 

[Elise41]

I'm watching it right now.

 

[Nick el Ass]

Very cool documentary, and collection.

 

[demonovation]

Awesome job as always. I am curious about that box of never before seen Evil Dead footage- that shot of Linda floating outside looked awesome. Any chance of this every seeing the light of day? Maybe Evil Dead Treasures Collection Vol. 2?

 

[EvilDeadChainsaws]

I am curious about that box of never before seen Evil Dead footage- that shot of Linda floating outside looked awesome. Any chance of this every seeing the light of day? Maybe Evil Dead Treasures Collection Vol. 2?

No, sorry. I got this from another fan on condition that I didn't release it, or put the whole lot on my website, and I'll be holding to that. We spent a fair bit between us having it all properly transferred, and it's up to him if he wants to release it publicly, but I doubt it. I think he made a promise to the person he got it off.

In terms of what it contains, for the most part it's just longer and alternate takes of what is there in the film already. There are a few new bits such as Linda floating outside, and the paintings bleeding in the cellar (presumably for the cellar blood-flood sequence). Much of it doesn't have sound at all, so it takes a real commitment to sit through all 4 hours in one go!

 

[Swofty]

That has to be the worst video I've ever .... only kidding mate! =) ..... great stuff ! .... when did you finally get clearance to tell all about your involvement in Ash V Evil Dead or was that a personal choice because of contracts and stuff ?

 

[EvilDeadChainsaws]

when did you finally get clearance to tell all about your involvement in Ash V Evil Dead or was that a personal choice because of contracts and stuff ?

Well since in the end I didn't supply the final screen used chainsaws, and they changed the design somewhat from what I sent, and what I sold them were not custom made special chainsaws, just standard unpainted medieval chainsaws, it doesn't matter really. I mean everyone has seen the chainsaws on the posters, so it's not like there are any secrets here.

 

[EvilDeadChainsaws]

Just completed the Blu-Ray cover for this, still got some tweaking & checking to do, but this is what it will look like. As you can see below I'm putting the 49min edited version of my locations footage on the same disc. All that footage was shot in 1080p, so it was just a matter of outputting it in HD rather than SD, then tweaking the start & end credits. I still have the disc menu to do (which will just be static, nothing special), make the disc art, then make the final disc. Should be done in the next few days.

 

[oldgame]

I am curious about that box of never before seen Evil Dead footage- that shot of Linda floating outside looked awesome. Any chance of this every seeing the light of day? Maybe Evil Dead Treasures Collection Vol. 2?

No, sorry. I got this from another fan on condition that I didn't release it, or put the whole lot on my website, and I'll be holding to that. We spent a fair bit between us having it all properly transferred, and it's up to him if he wants to release it publicly, but I doubt it. I think he made a promise to the person he got it off.

In terms of what it contains, for the most part it's just longer and alternate takes of what is there in the film already. There are a few new bits such as Linda floating outside, and the paintings bleeding in the cellar (presumably for the cellar blood-flood sequence). Much of it doesn't have sound at all, so it takes a real commitment to sit through all 4 hours in one go!

I'm happy there are still trust worthy people out there who stick to their word. But theres nothing worse when the fans no theres something out there and a few people hoard it. I'm sure it will eventually be released.

 

[Elise41]

I'd be hard pressed to believe that would happen. That print is in so few hands that if someone screws up and it ends up online, there's going to be consequences for sure.

 

[oldgame]

I'm saying that most people who visit sights like this would love to see the footage. I don't see a reason to not release it. Probably only super fans would sit through 4 hours of footage. New or unreleased footage is what gets the blood pumping for fans.

 

[Elise41]

Of course, but truth is there is a very good reason to not release it like burned bridges if you know what I mean.

 

[eViL DeAdiTe]

I'm saying that most people who visit sights like this would love to see the footage. I don't see a reason to not release it. Probably only super fans would sit through 4 hours of footage. New or unreleased footage is what gets the blood pumping for fans.

We all share your disappointment, but if you had a trusted inside source for rare footage and insights into things which are not meant to be accessible or known to the general public (regardless of the reason) you would likely not want to risk burning that bridge, or worse, putting anyone in jeopardy because you couldn't be trusted.

As Elise said, if there are very few people with access then it wouldn't be terribly difficult to trace the leak back to the source.