Longtime fans know that Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead originally began its life as a short proof-of-concept film titled Within the Woods, but did you know that the 1981 horror classic was almost never titled The Evil Dead at all? Sam Raimi’s original title for the feature length version of Within the Woods was The Book of the Dead, and it wasn’t his decision to change it.
Raimi explains to Empire Magazine during a chat about new movie Evil Dead Rise, “The original title of the [original] movie was The Book of the Dead. But film-sales agent Irvin Shapiro sat Rob [Tapert], Bruce [Campbell] and I down and said, ‘We’re changing the title, boys. Advertising space in the newspaper is paid for by the inch, kid. We’re not going to have a five-word title. ‘Dead’ can stay. You can have one other word. You can call it 101% Dead, or Evil Dead.”
Raimi recalls, “I thought, ‘But those are the worst two titles I’ve ever heard in my life! Evil Dead sucks! How can something be evil and dead?’ I just thought it was so stupid.”
“So I chose the lesser of the two horrible titles,” Raimi continues, noting that he has since come around to the title. “But now I’ve started to like it. It’s pretty good.”
Another fun fact about the original The Evil Dead? Back in 1982, Stephen King caught a screening of the movie at the Cannes Film Festival, which at the time did not have a U.S. distributor. In fact, studios including Paramount passed on the film, feeling that it was just too aggressive in its approach. Too raw. Too scary. Too gruesome. Too… much.
New Line Cinema eventually picked up The Evil Dead, and the rest is history. Who does Sam Raimi credit with legitimizing his debut feature and bringing it to the attention of New Line? That’d be Stephen King, who wrote a glowing review of the film for Twilight Zone Magazine.
You can read Stephen King’s The Evil Dead review right here!
Evil Dead Rise brings the franchise back to theaters on April 21, 2023.
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