Brandon Peters's Evil Dead franchise retrospective part I: Within the Woods (1978)

Brandon Peters has returned!  Leading up to the April 5th release date of the new Evil Dead remake, Mr. Peters will be doing his voodoo with the Evil Dead series.  He begins not with a retrospective review of the first Evil Dead film, because that would be too easy.  No, first he's giving us a look at Within the Woods, the 1978 short film that Sam Raimi made in order to get funding for The Evil Dead.  As only a casual Evil Dead fan, I've frankly never heard of this one, so this was as informative for me as I hope it will be for you.  So without further ado...

Within The Woods

1978

Director: Sam Raimi

Starring: Ellen Sandweiss, Bruce Campbell, Scott Spiegel

Not Rated

You're only cursed by the evil spirits if you violate the graves of the dead. We're just gonna be eating hotdogs.

                        ~Bruce

Sam Raimi's desired vision for The Evil Dead could not come to fruition unless he had more money than he could come up with himself.  So, in 1978, he decided to make a short film, as sort of a trailer to hope to scare up the money to make the full film (yes, that was a pun, sometimes I just can't help it).  Raimi's movie premiered in front of a midnight screening of Rocky Horror Picture Show to a good reception and he was able to acquire most of the his desired budget to make The Evil Dead.