Hello to all those faithfully reading and hopefully enjoying this effort to make even the worst horror movie more watcha... aw, screw that - I'm not that good. If a movie makes you cringe because yet another batch of unlikable teens that are pushing 30 are inching toward their deaths, having a party no one does anywhere ever, a paranormal movie is boring you to tears with unending pans of empty rooms, or thanks to CGI technology when people finally bite it, their blood squirts everywhere except on the victim, the ground, the people next to them... you're in good company and this is the right place for you.

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

DID I MENTION I HAVE A FACEBOOK PAGE?

Warning: Shameless Plug Ahead

Yeah I know, I pretty much trashed Facebook in my previous post, but I AM still using the thing for games mostly. All my 'friends' must be pissed at me about something because those who haven't dumped me aren't talking to me. So I gathered up some 'game friends'.

Sooooo.... in part to get away from some of the games, and to kind of steer people to my blog page, I set up a horror page on Facebook. The name was changed several times since they changed the way they index these stupid things several times, so Miss Murder's Dungeon Of Horror is there because it has three key words in it that might show up on lists. I have a whopping 56 people on it. I don't get it. I looked around for comparisons.

One page had TWO entries from 2012 - that's it. It had 84,000 people on it. WHAAA??? Another was a new page started toward the end of December - it has 3,300 people on it. Again I could count the number of posts on one hand.

I've tried - worked hard on it. I've had movie quizzes, trivia, links to this blog (of course) as well as what movie I've just reviewed, everything I could think of. Fifty-six people. Oh, having more people IS possible - all I have to do is PAY for it. See there's an option where you can 'boost' an entry to have more people see it. 

That means that if you post 10 times a day, your followers will maybe get two or three of them. BUT pay the bucks and MAYBE all 10 posts will show up. MAYBE. If you're willing to spend ten bucks a day FB can promise that MAYBE you can get (in my case) 15-32 more likes. Ten bucks for a maybe.

So this is a shameless plug for anyone who uses Facebook to at least LOOK at my page - you don't have to like it: https://www.facebook.com/dumbandboringmovies .

Yesterday I had a page full of trivia on the original Evil Dead movie, then a note or two on the sequels. Just 'cause I'm a nice person, here they are:


The 1981 Evil Dead was very VERY hard to try to get made and to the public. As an example of what the film was about, in 1978 Sam and Bruce made a 30 minute movie called Within The Woods. With a little searching, you can find it on the internet.


The Evil Dead was made in 1981 by a 22-year-old up and comer named Sam Raimi. It starred a buddy of his, 23-year-old Bruce Campbell. It is a cult classic and is considered the-movie-that-could, since it was so low budget and almost everything was an experiment in trying unconventional movie filming and special effects. It is considered by Stephen King to be on of his favorite movies.

From the original short 'Within The Woods' Sam Raimi kept working on the story and soon it became The Book Of The Dead. The name was soon changed to 'The Evil Dead' although devoted fans soon just started calling it 'Evil Dead'.


Despite the short film Sam Raimi directed (Within The Woods) he still had trouble finding ways to finance the movie (the budget goal was $100,000, or about $320,877.41 today). The film slowly got enough to start, but not without loans, some coming from Bruce Campbell himself. And filming was slow, hard and full of experimentation.

Ted Raimi, Sam's brother, was often used as a body double, known as a 'Fake Shemp'. The term comes from when Shemp Howard of The Three Stooges died suddenly during a film shoot and so a body double was used in some scenes that needed re-shot. The term stuck and is still used today.

On the set of the original Evil Dead, props and effects often were either made up on the spot, or so primitive they were almost laughable. One effect that caused considerable trouble was the contact lenses they used for the 'demon eyes' effect. They were extremely thick, took ten minutes to apply, and could only be worn 15 minutes at a time since they didn't allow the eyes to 'breathe'. Another drawback: There was no seeing through them - when they were worn, the actor/actress was essentially blind. When you see Ash fighting off a weapon-wielding demon, he's really fighting not to get hurt - since they could not see, they could not avoid hitting him and he had to really work to stay out of the way.

In The Evil Dead, Ash Williams drives a 1973 Olds Delta 88. This was Sam Raimi's car, bought brand new by his father. He called it 'The Classic'. This soon became Sam's stamp in his films, the car appearing somewhere in just about every movie he made (even if briefly). The last one I personally saw it in was Drag Me To Hell. In the reboot of 'Evil Dead' in 2013, a nod is given to the iconic symbol when in one of the opening scenes the main character, Mia Allen, is found sitting on the rusted body of 'The Classic'. At least they wanted you to think so. It IS an Olds, they even busted the left headlight like in the original ED, but the front is different - the rusted heap she sits on is actually a '74 Olds.

The film was shot in Michigan and Tennessee. Because of budget constraints, this would become home to several of them for a couple of months. While there were phones, the cabin had no plumbing and no heat. The crew consisted almost entirely of Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's friends and family.



Pain. Bruce Campbell learned all about what being in constant pain was during the filming of The Evil Dead. Besides the constant abuse he suffered from the stunts, when they first started filming, he tripped over a root and severely messed up his ankle. Sam Raimi, wanting the movie to be a good one, liked that Bruce now limped and even poked his injury with a stick, just to make sure he was still in pain. But hey, they were friends, right? Talking about pain... during filming, which included camera angles and last minute inventions of setting up shots, a newbie cameraman accidentally hit Bruce Campbell in the mouth with the camera. He lost several teeth.


Sam Raimi never intended to have an Evil Dead 2. He was done and wanted to go on to other things. Buuut some of those things didn't do too well and since he was offered a 3.6 million ($7,382,440.14 today) dollar budget he kind of... went for it. And so did Bruce.

Just a brief mention of the is/is not sequel to the second Evil Dead. It's been called Evil Dead 3 Army of Darkness, Army of Darkness and Bruce Campbell vs. Army of Darkness. It had a $12 million (about $29 million today) budget. It is more campy and has more comedy than the first two. And Bruce looked sexy as hell in it. It was... groovy.


See? We have fun... <rolls eyes> so if you're ever nearby give it a look...

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