Evil Dead

Evil Dead is perhaps the most famous independent film of all time! Sam Raimi wrote the book on low budget, DIY horror and influenced a legion of independent directors that followed in his footsteps — not the least of which was Joel Coen (of the Coen Brothers) who got his start working as an editor on Evil Dead. Sam Raimi has a style of filmmaking all his own and it’s amazing to see how many of them are on display in the Evil Dead, including the prodigious Three Stooges-esque slapstick! He also introduced the world to the man with the chin, the one and only Bruce Campbell. I think we can all be happy about that!

This could be the most important modern horror poster in existence! This poster is a silkscreen, pre-wide release poster from one of the independent and/or film festival screenings Evil Dead received before getting a proper wide-release from New Line Cinema. Interestingly, this poster has the New Line logo, which means it must have been used after the film was picked up for distribution in early January 1983, but before it’s wide release in mid-April 1983. There are only a handful of the screenings that happened during that interim period and this poster is most likely from one of two New York shows in May (as seen in this Variety ad with the same artwork). Also interesting, notice the title is simply Evil Dead, which is how the film was billed before before New Line retitled it (The Evil Dead) and changed over to the now iconic hand-art from M. Skilsky. The rarity of this early, pre-wide release poster simply cannot be overstated!