If you haven’t read up on the history of how Evil Dead achieved distribution, I highly suggest researching it as it’s a fascinating story of tenacity and persistence from director Sam Raimi, film sales agent Irvin Shapiro, and many of the other cast and crew. Kind of like Wes Craven and the issues he had with A Nightmare on Elm Street (no studio would take the script until New Line, pretty much the last choice, took it on), Raimi was met with “No” after “No”, over and over again.
However, when he teamed up with Shapiro, the film was brought to Cannes for the film market. It was during a market screening there that none other than Stephen King himself was in the audience. “Stephen King was in the audience, and we heard, “Oh, he was really screaming and shouting during the movie.” And I was the biggest Stephen King fan in the world,” Raimi tells IGN.
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With such a great reaction from the legendary horror author, both Raimi and Shapiro knew that his endorsement would go a long way. Luckily, Shapiro also represented King and his movie Creepshow, so getting a hold of King wasn’t a problem. “So I called him…and said, ‘Could you give us a quote, what you honestly thought of the film?’ He said, ‘I won’t do that, but I will write a review. If there’s something in the review that you want to use as a quote, you can.’”
And, lo and behold, a review appeared in Twilight Zone Magazine and a quote was chosen, one that ultimately helped the film achieve its first sales and put it on its path of success and cult fandom.
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Raimi nostalgically states, “Without that [quote], the movie may have been lost, but with Stephen King’s endorsement, we were able to make our first sales. Then the film started to be successful where it had been sold. Then, after that British success, we were able to enter it into film festivals and awards. Then we were able to find an American distributor. So really, his endorsement opened the doorway for the film to be seen.”
For more on the history of the Evil Dead films, definitely read the rest of the interview.
