Editorials
20 Things We Learned from the ‘Evil Dead II’ Commentary with Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and More
Sam Raimi is a filmmaker for all tastes. Horror fans know him best from The Evil Dead and Drag Me to Hell, comic junkies love his Spider-Man trilogy, Academy voters supported A Simple Plan and probably also saw Oz the Great and Powerful, and your dad loves his underrated baseball movie, For Love of the Game. Some of us even consider The Quick and the Dead to be his best film, but we would never admit that on a horror-focused site.
Raimi is finally returning to the horror genre for the first time since 2009 (unless you count that one scene in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) with his latest feature, Send Help. In honor of this, we’re looking back at the movie that arguably made his name outside the indie circuit – 1987’s Evil Dead II.
After bombing in theaters with Crimewave, the gang found a guardian angel in Stephen King, who had previously given them a boost with a blurb on The Evil Dead. King is the one who convinced Dino De Laurentiis to pony up the cash for a sequel, and the rest is history.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Evil Dead II (1987)
Commentators: Sam Raimi (director/co-writer), Bruce Campbell (actor), Scott Spiegel (co-writer), Greg Nicotero (special make-up effects artist)
1. De Laurentiis’ company, DEG, wasn’t allowed to release an X-rated film at the time, so they had to create a stand-in production company. It was called Rosebud Releasing Corporation, and since both Raimi and Campbell “were in love with logos,” they decided to make one for Rosebud. They designed the look – a stop-motion rose growing in front of a WB-like backdrop – before handing off the animation duties to someone whose name they can’t recall.
2. The tape recorder belonged to Campbell’s dad, and they used it to add sound to the Super 8 movies they made as kids. It’s the same recorder from The Evil Dead and one of the very few items to be in both films, seeing as the set was newly rebuilt for this movie.
3. The exterior-use cabin was built on personal property where The Color Purple was also filmed in North Carolina, while the functioning cabin set (used for interiors) was actually a two-story set built in a high school gymnasium.
4. The pov shot that starts at 6:43 was filmed by Raimi on a dirtbike with a camera mounted on its front. An early take ended poorly when the crew failed to open the second door in time for Raimi to pass through.
5. The connected shot of Ash (Campbell) flying backwards through the air took an entire day to film and was shot on a long road in South Carolina.
6. The script supervisor, Francoise Charlap, exited the film’s early preview in NYC with tears in her eyes because they had failed to include her name in the end credits. “Well, she should have supervised that,” adds one, while the others recall how she would threaten to quit every day over Raimi moving furniture between shots and Nicotero applying mismatched blood splatter. “She did a very good job.”
7. De Laurentiis wasn’t thrilled that so much of the film was just Campbell running around alone.
8. The character of Bobby Joe (Kassie Wesley) was originally inspired by Holly Hunter, who lived with Raimi, Spiegel, Joel Coen, Ethan Coen, and Frances McDormand for a bit in Silver Lake, CA. They wanted her for the role, but Spiegel says producer Robert Tapert insisted they needed a “sexy chick” instead. It all worked out for Hunter, though, as she landed a lead role in Broadcast News that same year, for which she received an Academy Award nomination.
9. Ash stabs his own hand at 30:02, and the effect was done with a prosthetic hand made from gelatin. They had to keep it refrigerated beforehand as they were filming in near one hundred-degree temperatures, and Raimi still loves how it moves and jiggles. The eyeball that flies into Bobby Joe’s mouth was also a gelatin creation.
10. The shot of the blood shooting out of the wall holes (and later, from the hole in the floor) required multiple fifty five-gallon drums of fake blood. They couldn’t film in the room for a full day afterward as they had to wait for it all to drain out.
11. Campbell mentions, perhaps facetiously, that one of the trims to the film made in the UK was of the shot where a man kicks Ash while he’s unconscious – “because you can’t kick a man while he’s down.”
12. They all agree that the only person tortured more on-set than Campbell was Ted Raimi, who’s buried beneath prosthetics as Henrietta. “He had no idea what he was getting into.” Nicotero gives a shout out to the great Mark Shostrom, who designed and applied the Henrietta make-up.
13. “This was our lame attempt to get an R-rating,” says Campbell as we watch Ash chop a possessed guy with an ax, causing green blood to splash all around. It didn’t work, and after realizing the necessary trims would end up being far too excessive, they decided to release it unrated instead.
14. The scene where Bobby Joe is attacked by the tree branches and vines was a little different in early drafts of the script. Originally, they had a group of convicts who were tormenting Ash, and one of them was going to be grabbed, dragged, and split in two by the tree.
15. Ash replaces his missing right hand with a chainsaw, but a brief shot at 1:09:12 sees him holding up a piece of the book with his right hand. They flipped the shot (left to right) in the edit to stay consistent with the character’s screen direction and simply missed the incongruity at the time. Campbell says he still gets emails complaining about it.
16. Henrietta comes bursting through the trap door, grabs Annie’s (Sarah Berry) hair, and begins spinning around above her head – and at 1:11:36, you can see a large tear in her crotch with Ted Raimi’s clothes visible within. “This was the last week of the shoot,” says Nicotero, “and the suit had been destroyed.” Also visible while filming in the intense heat of a North Carolina summer? Raimi’s sweat can be seen pouring out of Henrietta’s ear at 1:11:56.
17. That’s a fake foot on Henrietta’s head before it blows up because the cast and crew had to exit the room for safety reasons.
18. The giant “rotten apple head” that bursts through the front door as the cabin is being destroyed was left behind after the shoot. They discovered later that a local haunted house attraction had acquired it and used it in their haunt that October.
19. While Sam Raimi makes some voice cameos throughout the film, his only proper onscreen appearance comes at the end as the knight who lifts his face guard to hail the hero from the skies. He says that his wife has barred him from appearing in any more of his movies. “That’s her contribution to the industry.”
20. Nicotero was joined by Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman on the film, and it was right after this that they formed KNB EFX Group, which would go on to become a powerhouse in the world of practical effects.
Quotes Without Context
“There’s been some confusion of whether Ash would be stupid enough to go back to the cabin for another night, which, of course he is.”
“I’m terrified of all these bluescreen shots.”
“I remember making jars of goop for you.”
“We’ve gotta shout-out Bruce’s jaw.”
“I love it when actors get beat up, they don’t get beat up in movies anymore.”
“I should have helped you with a camera thing there, probably, and relied less on your, quote, acting.”
“Never walk backwards in a horror movie, folks.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
On July 13th, 2026, the world lost one of its brightest stars.
Beloved New Zealand actor Sam Neill passed away from pneumonia after a long battle with stage 3 lymphoma. The multifaceted movie star will be remembered by mainstream audiences for his iconic role as Dr. Alan Grant in Steven Spielberg’s 1993 masterpiece Jurassic Park, as well as powerful turns in A Cry in the Dark (1988), The Piano (1993), and Hunt for the Wilderpeople (2016), and prestige TV series The Tudors and Peaky Blinders. But horror fans know him as one of the genre’s most surprising Scream Kings.
Through a handful of memorable starring roles, Neill spent the 80s and 90s bringing life to a wide variety of characters and finding humanity in the most unusual leading roles, regardless of how heroic or villainous.
The Final Conflict (1981)
After a decade on the stage and screen in New Zealand and Australia, Neill made his international debut as Damien Thorn in Graham Baker’s The Final Conflict, the third installment of The Omen franchise. Now a 36-year-old businessman, Damien is fully aware of his devilish parentage and hell-bent on world domination. But rather than a hooved and horned monstrosity, Neill’s Antichrist is a suave businessman who leads his followers in an expensive suit and seeks to bring about the apocalypse through deceptive altruism rather than grand proclamation.
Despite his austere demeanor, the man’s true evil knows no bounds. When a prophecy foretells the second coming of Christ, known in the film as “the Nazarene,” Damien commands his followers to commit widespread infanticide, murdering all baby boys born on a specific date. He seduces a high-profile reporter while transforming her teenage son into a bloodthirsty disciple, then uses the child as a human shield. This tricky role allows Neill to demonstrate his trademark versatility, easily charming the outside world while dropping his suave mask of normalcy behind closed doors. Though certain aspects of The Final Conflict are admittedly dated, Neill’s performance feels eerily prescient. He’s mastered the heinous portrayal of a politician willing to sell his soul for power that will ultimately bring about the end of the world.
Possession (1981)
Though Andrzej Żuławski’s Possession is often remembered for Isabelle Adjani’s stunning depiction of a woman on the edge, Neill delivers an equally unhinged performance as Mark, a spy returning home from a lengthy assignment in divided Berlin. Upon discovering that his wife Anna (Adjani) wants a divorce, Mark desperately tries to hold his family together even at the expense of her sanity. Filmed the same year as The Final Conflict, Neill dives headfirst into this visceral role, managing to evoke sympathy for the distraught father who becomes ever more desperate to regain control. Inspired by his own divorce, Żuławski resists blaming either party for the separation, instead showing the chaos and heartache that comes in the wake of a family’s dissolution.
Once considered to replace Roger Moore as the next James Bond, Neill has fun with the international spy persona as Żuławski’s plot grows increasingly bizarre. But the skilled actor never lets us forget that Mark is a flawed human being struggling to keep his life from falling apart. A second character emerges in the film’s mesmerizing climax, allowing Neill to lean into full villainy with a glassy-eyed stare that chills to the bone. Now a cult classic, Adjani and Neill bounce off each other’s seething rage, creating one of the most effective cinematic duets in the history of horror.
Jurassic Park (1993)
When Steven Spielberg’s creature feature first hit theaters, Neill was by no means a household name and hardly a traditional leading man. Without the swashbuckling swagger of Harrison Ford, the mega-watt smile of Tom Cruise, or the chiselled jaw of Brad Pitt — all famous action stars of the era — Neill felt like an unconventional choice for this massive role. But he perfectly captures the essence of Grant, an aloof academic who prefers dig sites to fancy fundraisers and social events. Despite an aversion to children, the dinosaur expert finds himself tasked with saving the theme park’s youngest survivors who gradually break down his emotional walls. Grant’s transformation into a courageous caretaker is a landmark deconstruction of traditional gender norms wrapped in the guise of a rugged outdoorsman.
Neill proves to be the perfect action star, effortlessly navigating Spielberg’s stunning set pieces without losing the character’s relatable hook. But perhaps the film’s most touching moment is Neill’s childlike wonder at seeing a dinosaur for the first time. Stunned to speechlessness, he channels the audience’s wondrous joy when Grant first spies a real, live Brachiosaurus. But he seamlessly weaves this infectious awe into serious concerns about the creature’s existence, amplifying the story’s prophetic messaging. Jeff Goldblum may utter the film’s iconic warning, but the duality of Grant’s performance perfectly illustrates the scientific imperative, reminding us that just because we can doesn’t mean we should.
Neill would go on to lead Joe Johnston’s 2001 sequel Jurassic Park III, in which Grant is again tasked with saving a child. In 2022, he would appear in Colin Trevorrow’s legacy sequel Jurassic World Dominion, which merges the franchise’s two distinct eras while bringing the carnage onto mainland shores. Despite turning in strong performances, neither film is able to top the magic of Spielberg’s original or Neill’s captivating performance as the stoic leading man. But his nuanced depiction of Alan Grant inspired a generation of would-be paleontologists and quiet kids who could now see themselves as courageous academics capable of surprising strength.
In the Mouth of Madness (1994)
After catapulting to worldwide fame, Neill returned to horror proper to lead John Carpenter’s mind-bending In the Mouth of Madness. We first meet John Trent (Neill) as he’s dragged, kicking and screaming, into a padded cell. An unknown stretch of time later, he recounts an unbelievable story while covered in protective crosses scrawled into his skin — and the cell’s walls — with black crayon. A private investigator, Trent has been tasked with locating Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), a world-famous yet elusive genre author whose work has been driving his ravenous readers to disturbing acts of random violence.
A love letter to fans of horror fiction, we delight in watching Trent explore literary easter eggs that lead him down jarring rabbit holes. A late-night road trip takes Trent and Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), an editor for Cane’s publishing house, to a tiny New England hamlet teeming with darkness. While investigating an ominous cathedral on the outskirts of town, Trent realizes that he’s somehow been transported into the author’s interdimensional story and become its unwitting protagonist.
Neill serves as a skeptical everyman and the audience’s conduit through this bizarre tale of literary monsters that find a way to burst through the page. An often overlooked Carpenter film, In the Mouth of Madness spirals into insanity, but Neill keeps us grounded throughout each outlandish twist. A shocking conclusion leaves us gaping at our screens and contemplating our own relationship with horror fiction. After all, does free will truly exist? Or, like Trent, are we merely pawns in someone else’s monstrous creation?
Event Horizon (1997)
One of the scariest movies ever set in space, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Event Horizon builds upon the heroic image Neill established for himself in Jurassic Park. Dr. William Weir (Neill) is a physicist temporarily joining the crew of the Lewis and Clark to assist in their latest rescue mission. Seven years after vanishing without a trace, a spaceship called the Event Horizon has suddenly reappeared near Neptune’s orbit. As the creator of a top-secret gravity drive designed to facilitate faster-than-light travel, Dr. Weir has been sent to explore the ship and find out what happened to its missing crew.
Still haunted by his late wife’s suicide, Dr. Weir is a sympathetic figure, particularly in comparison to the harsh Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne) who commands the crew of the Lewis and Clark. But Weir’s desperation to return to the infamous ship hides a sinister secret that leads his fellow astronauts to the threshold of hell. Neill’s talent for playing the everyman pays off in spades as the formerly sympathetic widower transforms into a disciple of this frightening dimension. Resembling a long-lost cenobite, Weir claws out his own eyes and prepares to drag the crew into a world consumed with sadistic pain.
Daybreakers (2009)
Neill returns to his Omen roots in Michael and Peter Spierig’s action-packed film as a secretly sinister businessman. But rather than the Antichrist, Charles Bromley (Neill) is a proud vampire convinced of the species’ superiority. With human blood in short supply, Bromley Marks Corp. is working on a synthetic substitute to prevent the human race from impending extinction. While hematologists perfect the formula, Bromley oversees disturbing fields of humans chained to massive machines that systematically harvest their blood.
Neill chills in this sinister role with vampiric yellow eyes, a pale complexion, and subtle fangs. But more upsetting is the fact that he honestly doesn’t believe he’s wrong. Once diagnosed with cancer, Bromley was delighted to find that vampirism would totally reverse his illness and grant him the gift of eternal life. He begged his daughter Alison (Isabel Lucas) to turn alongside him, but she has rejected her father’s controversial choice and is now hunted by his bloodthirsty goons. In a heartbreaking moment of clarity, Bromley brings his daughter to the brink of death, then turns away in disgust when she will not embrace his undead lifestyle.
Daybreakers is a surprisingly thrilling exploration of survival and sustainability. Similar to a plot Damien Thorn would hatch, Bromley’s ultimate plan is to placate the vampire population with synthetic blood while allowing the human population to replenish itself. With a larger stock, he plans to sell authentic humans at a premium, hunting these poor souls to season the meat. Bromley rejects a cure that would reverse the vampiric disease, choosing to enrich himself over saving the world. The strangely captivating villain’s end is a cathartic nightmare and fitting punishment for a wealthy man who places himself above everyone else.
In the Mouth of Madness
While the world may remember Neill for his signature role as a gruff but compassionate paleontologist going head to head with a raging T-Rex, horror fans may picture the versatile actor maniacally rocking back and forth in a filthy Berlin apartment, commanding a boardroom of corporate vampires, disappearing into the darkness of a haunted spaceship, sermonizing to satanists, or giggling over popcorn in a deserted movie theater. Or perhaps you have another favorite role in the beloved actor’s stellar career. But whether he was playing a hero or villain, Neill brought undeniable humanity to every role, redefining our idea of masculinity and the very nature of goodness vs. evil. By bringing such disparate characters to life, Neill challenged audiences with a variety of complex roles, asking us to examine the humanity of each character no matter how flawed or virtuous.
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