Editorials
38 Things We Learned from the 2013 ‘Evil Dead’ Commentary
I’m relatively new to the Bloody Disgusting family, but I feel the need to admit something that you might find disturbing, distasteful, and downright disappointing. Basically, and with the utmost respect for your feelings, I’m of the opinion that Fede Alvarez’s Evil Dead is the best entry in the entire franchise.
To be clear, I like Sam Raimi’s original trilogy well enough, especially 1987’s Evil Dead II, but the zaniness can’t help but neuter the horror for me. They’re fun movies! I’m entertained by them, but I’m just drawn to Alvarez’s meaner, gorier, and more tonally unrelenting take on the same material.
A new Evil Dead film is now in theaters, and just as 2023’s Evil Dead Rise followed this same brutal vibe, Evil Dead Burn is continuing that wet slide into utter carnage.
Now keep reading to see what I heard on the commentary for…
Evil Dead (2013)
Commentators: Fede Alvarez (director/co-writer), Rodo Sayagues (co-writer), Jane Levy (actor), Lou Taylor Pucci (actor), Jessica Lucas (actor)
1. The family watching in the basement at 3:11 includes producer Rob Tapert’s son and a local actor from New Zealand, the one with the disfigured face, who has survived two separate plane crashes.
2. The decision to flip the opening shot (post title) upside down came in editing as Alvarez recalled being unsettled by a shot from Raimi’s original Evil Dead. “Something that really impressed me about the original was all the camera work, and there’s a moment… where Bruce [Campbell] runs from one side of the room to the other, and the camera looks back and upside down.”
3. It was composer Roque Banos who came up with adding the siren sounds. His inspiration came after living in Los Angeles for a short time and hearing many, many sirens.
4. It was Pucci’s idea for his character, Eric, to have a beard and long hair – partly as a visual nod to the film’s 1970s vibe, and partly because “you never have to do anything” with it.
5. “In any good story you have one of the main characters taking a bad step in the beginning,” says Alvarez as David (Shiloh Fernandez) fails to simply turn around and apologize to his sister Mia (Levy). “He makes another mistake,” adds Levy when he ignores her pleas for help after she’s been assaulted by the tree, but Alvarez says that choice is far more understandable.
6. Pucci is asked if it was his choice to be playing with the deck of cards on the porch swing, but he says it was Alvarez’s suggestion. The director adds that he had just tried impressing Pucci with a card trick – turns out they’re both amateur magicians – and Pucci carried it into the scene. It’s also a nod to the original film.
7. The clock at 14:56 is the actual one from the original film.
8. Most of them agree that the blood would send them packing in real life well before the book would. They’d be curious about the latter.
9. “It smells like burnt hair” was improvised by Pucci.
10. The script called for dead crows in the basement, but Tapert suggested they try something different, so they went with cats. A dead one had been found “in an alley” somewhere, and they took a mold of it to craft additional prosthetic cat corpses.
11. All of the closeups of people touching the book feature Alvarez’s hands.
12. Mia’s front yard vomit consisted of cold soup.
13. Early scenes of a wet and angry Mia were preceded by her doing sprints or jumping jacks offscreen to make her seem more exasperated. She was so amped up while driving the car that Alvarez, who was hidden in the backseat, was scared “while Jane is going crazy.”
14. Levy recalls Alvarez suggesting a similar scene from Wild at Heart as a reference point for her own performance after crashing the car into the pond.
15. They shot the film mostly chronologically, and that left producers a little concerned as they were seeing a lot of character drama. “They didn’t know what we were doing, and they were really anxious to get to the horror.” Those concerns were put to rest when they saw the dailies for the assault and bunkbed scene that follows.
16. It was Tapert who suggested they include the tree vine assault, and Alvarez was happy to see it used as more than just a shocker. “Being raped is her being injected with the devil,” says Levy, and he adds that it moves the story forward rather than just disturb.
17. The shower burn was the first bit of graphic mutilation that the writers conceived when they started working on the script.
18. The attempted escape in the Jeep after Mia is burned originally included a shot of David trying to call for help on his cell phone only to be stymied by a lack of service, but Alvarez took it out. He doesn’t think the audience needed it, and he didn’t want it to knock viewers out of the scene’s intensity.
19. The flooded river at 35:16 “is a real river.” It’s the same one the Jeep passes through at the beginning, and they simply waited for a heavy rain and then filmed the result.
20. Alvarez asked the sound department to come up with a unique sound for the Deadites, and the result was the crackling, “bug in a jar” noise.
21. “This was the hardest thing ever,” says Levy at 37:54 as her character projectile vomits blood onto Olivia’s (Lucas) face. They did four takes of the scene with Lucas having to be completely rinsed off and reset each time.
22. That’s not digital trickery at 39:32 as Olivia’s reflection gives an evil grin. “This was a timing thing because the mirror had to go away from me, and as it went away from me I had to actually do that face.” We see mostly the back and slight side of her outside of the reflection at this point, and the result is a cool little shot.
23. The bathroom encounter between Olivia and Eric originally ended with her hitting her head, but Raimi watched the dailies and asked Alvarez to milk the horror and gore a little bit longer.
24. “So everyone actually kills each other,” says Levy, “Mia never kills anybody in this movie.” Alvarez adds, “That’s the whole beauty of the story; Mia is the only innocent person, she’s a victim all the way.”
25. Alvarez recalls that one of Raimi’s “three rules of horror” is that “the innocent must be punished.” Does that contradict the point immediately above? Maybe, but she went through hell, and at the end of the day, are any of us actually innocent?
26. He acknowledges that the film, like many horror movies, is filled with characters making questionable choices, but he defends most of them as being understandable given the context.
27. “It’s my first sex scene,” says Levy at 1:31:11 as her character licks Natalie’s (Elizabeth Blackmore) leg. “This one was her stunt double’s leg.” She adds that “Kiss me, you dirty cunt!” is the favorite thing she’s ever said.
28. Natalie’s attempt to rinse her hand wound was originally written to include a black worm coming out of the gash, “but we didn’t want to be too supernatural.” Mr. Alvarez, my good man, have you seen your own movie?
29. Alvarez sees the theme of the movie as accepting that sometimes the only way out of a problem is through it – and here that means killing your friends before dismembering or burning their bodies. A good lesson for us all, really.
30. Eric’s laughter at Natalie saying “My face hurts” was real as Pucci found the line – one that Alvarez added on the fly – to be very funny given the situation and the fact that both of her arms are gone.
31. “Those woods were really, really creepy,” says Pucci, and Lucas adds that their New Zealand filming location was near a Maori burial ground.
32. Mia, gasping for her life in the hole with the plastic bag over her head, was apparently Levy’s audition scene.
33. They see Mia’s resurrection – the real Mia coming back to life after her brother’s janky defibrillator attempt – as a reward from beyond for David finally apologizing to her like he should have done from the start. I don’t mind saying that this is an odd take given how clear this film (and franchise as a whole) makes it that there’s absolutely no good supernatural entity looking out for these characters. Characters in these movies are absolutely and utterly fucked, and they should probably just accept that. Alvarez ultimately concedes that you can also just believe that the defibrillator actually worked.
34. For those who missed it, the necklace chain on the ground at 1:16:51 is in the shape of a skull as a nod to the scene in the original film where Ash (Campbell) goes for a necklace and sees a skull.
35. The machete comes through the wall at 1:20:10 and slices Mia’s leg, and they used Natalie’s prosthetic arm for the shot – it’s getting cut at the elbow.
36. They went through various versions of the Abomination Mia (Randal Wilson), including one that was made up of all five of the friends.
37. The original ending saw Mia walking on the road, but they cut it. The image still made it into the one-sheet poster.
38. The end credits feature extremely bloody shots filmed at high speed and meant to reference various beats from the film itself in tighter, close-up detail that viewers might have missed.
Quotes Without Context
“You kind of want to put the rape idea in people’s minds.”
“The car, of course.”
“I would definitely open the book.”
“Swimming through the swamp was fun.”
“Duct tape fixes everything.”
“How come David is such a bad boyfriend?”
“This kiss, I was really suffocating her.”
“I’m such a perv.”
“It’s like Beetlejuice.”
“Fede kept telling me this is my Bruce Willis moment to pump me up.”
Keep up with more horror commentary breakdowns here.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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