Re-cutting The Evil Dead Franchise Into One Movie

It is a gross misunderstanding that Evil Dead 2 is a remake of The Evil Dead. It is in fact, a sequel. Now, yes, it does somewhat rewrite the events of the first movie. In the initial six minutes the viewer is given a Reader’s Digest summary of what had happened in the previous film. For the sake of time-length, the other characters from the first movie have been removed during this section, which is the source of this never ending confusion. However, if you were to remove that section of ED2, the two movies would line up quite nicely. And that got me thinking... what if you were to combine all three movies into one epic-movie.

AoD: Theatrical

First, a bit of background. One of my first memories is walking into the VHS rental shop in town with my mother and seeing the gigantic cardboard display for Army Of Darkness. A ripped Bruce Campbell with a woman at his leg, chainsaw as a hand with the tagline “Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.” I mean, what a fucking fantastic piece of imagery (one that now hangs on my living room wall). Unfortunately though I did not watch this movie as a kid, as my mother was a bit self-serving with her precious VHS rentals. As she didn't have any interest in the film, she would tell me that it was far too adult for me, and instead would rent whatever even more horror/suspense film she wished.

AoD: Boomstick
Edition

Eventually I did watch the movies at a friend’s house in high-school and have been hooked ever since. So much so that I immediately went out and bought the entire collection on DVD. Unfortunately for me, I decided to look at DVD reviews of the series and come to find out, there were more than a handful of releases and each of them had differing bonus content. Well, some of them were too expensive so I gave up looking for them in stores (The Boomstick Edition for one), but I did discover that my neighboring Blockbuster had the best version of the original movie... one that was selling for $50 on Ebay. So, to save it from some cretin scratching a precious artifact, I did what any teenage fanboy would: I rented it and swapped the disc out with my own. Even though I have bought the movies at least a half-dozen times since then (thanks you quadruple-dipping assfaces at Anchor Bay ;-) that is still a version that I own and hold sacred, Blockbuster sticker on the DVD and all.

It is with this great passion that I have always wanted to see the franchise not just back to back (which I have too many times), but fully, without break in one continuing movie. How long would it run? Would the intentional comedy/horror aspects of Evil Dead 2 line up with the unintentional comedy of the original? And can you go from the tone of The Evil Dead to Army Of Darkness within one full sitting? Well it was these questions that I set out to find answers to.

Sources:

I took 1080p Bluray rips of each of the movies to work with (and yes, I used the dreaded 16X9 "black-box" version of the first movie to make the experience feel more solidified). That’s "The Evil Dead", "Evil Dead 2", "Army of Darkness", and "Army of Darkness: Directors Cut". After I scanned these movies a few times, it became apparent to me that simply starting off with Evil Dead was going to be too big of a jump to eventually end up within Army of Darkness… the tones are just too dissimilar. It was for this reason that I also dug up cut-scenes from the Evil Dead games: "Hail To The King", "Fistful of Boomstick", and "Regeneration".

Hail to the King, Fistful of Boomstick,
& Regeneration.

Side note: Hail To The King has horrible gameplay, but the story is worth checking out as Ash revisits the cabin years after AoD’s end. Fistful of Boomstick is a genius game that is a direct sequel to HTTK and the gameplay is great. Regeneration is a reimaging of the franchise where Ash didn’t get sucked into the vortex at the end of ED2. All three games feature brilliant performances by Bruce Campbell and are well-worth checking out.

Ingesting:

I then took all of the sources and brought them into Premiere. Although I am trying to use Avid exclusively these days, Premiere is the most convenient thing in the world and will transcode the footage in the background allowing you to get started right away. When doing a project of mixed formats of source footage, it is the only way to go. I knew when I started that I wanted this to be Ash’s tale, and the video games had some excellent voice-over that would allow me to do exactly that, but if you were to watch cut-scenes from a video game, it would take you directly out of the movie experience.

Editing:

That’s why I had to adopt the ending of the theatrical cut of Army of Darkness. This allowed me to use the footage of him in the S-Mart talking to Ted Raimi, use some videogame audio, and spin that as if we joined him as we had just began to regale the story to him. Unfortunately this also committed me to ending the movie back at the S-Mart, which although is a far inferior ending when compared to AoD-Directors cut, it was necessary.

Major Edit 1: Intro

I took the opening lines from the game HTTK, and then cut in a few more lines from FoB, from there I EQ‘d the two readings to make them feel a bit more similar. We open up to the S-Mart, establish the conversation, and get into the two main plot-points that drive the entire franchise: A girl and the book.

Both ED2 and AoD have a short synopsis of what the Necronomicon is, but I chose to use AoD’s as the budget was higher and it’s more visually interesting. As he speaks of his love, I chose to show Linda from ED2 because we will soon see a different actress playing her in ED, and I wanted the audience to be able to associate her as the same character. I leave her on screen for a romantic moment, but I don’t allow her to speak or really act. This keeps her in the audiences mind as an archetype, but not a character.

We then cut into establishing footage of the car driving toward the cabin in ED2. No characters are seen in this, but the production value of the car overhead is much better than anything in the original. As we see it, we then cut into dialogue from The Evil Dead. Now we’re into the meat of the first movie.
Here is a link to a downloadable Mp4 version of the edit

Major Edit 2: Listening to the tapes

To branch the first two films, I wanted to use a bit of footage from the second movie cut into the first. So as they sit down to listen to the tapes, I chose to take scenes from ED2. These not only look much better, but allow the viewer to leave the cabin and see the actual discovery of the Necronomicon. This additionally sets up the characters of Annie and Ed from the sequel, thus softening the blow of watching two separate movies as one.

However, I didn’t just want to remove an entire chunk from ED and substitute in the sequel, you still needed to feel as if you were in the moment with the original characters. To accomplish this, I cut in character reactions from the group, but I also cut in the section where they turn off the tape after the girls get freaked out as it builds tension. After the tapes played, we of course needed to be back into the original movie, which requires the tree coming through the glass. Now we’re off and running again until the end of the first movie.
Here is a link to a downloadable Mp4 version of the edit

Major Edit 3: Joining Evil Dead & Evil Dead 2

This is where we join Evil Dead to Evil Dead 2. Now there are a few points where this is possible, but in one way or another they always seem to screw up continuity (and not just because Ash ages years between movies). That’s why I chose the lesser of the Evils (pun intended) and placed the cut after he throws the last bit of dirt on the camera lens in the original, then we open up to the sequel as he puts the cross in the ground.

This however leaves Linda with a head, and when she emerges from her grave later she is decapitated. While this is unfortunate, it is better than having Linda switch actresses, and then switch back again, which was my other option. Also, when she pops back out of her grave later, it has bit more of a comedic element with the dancing that distracts the viewer from even noticing. Bam! Back into the rest of the movie we go.
Here is a link to a downloadable Mp4 version of the edit

Major Edit 4: Joining Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness

This one is a no brainer. At the end of ED2 we get to see him spat out into the mid-evil ages, but it doesn’t line up with AoD so out it goes. Both movies however display white flashes while he is about to exit the the portal, so that was my edit point. Now we've landed in the Directors cut of Army of Darkness.
Here is a link to a downloadable Mp4 version of the edit

Major Edit 5: Joining Army of Darkness: Directors Cut and Army of Darkness

At this point, I unfortunately have to have Ash wind up back at the S-Mart, which as I said earlier, is the lesser of the two endings. But, for our purposes, it does tie the entire trilogy up into one nice bow. Now the Theatrical cut ends with him riding off into the sunset and then it cuts directly back into the S-Mart. However, you get a little bit more with the Directors Cut as it shows him being sealed off in a cave, getting comfortable, then taking the sleeping-liquid (yes, I kept him ingesting one extra drop). I even let my cut run up until the emergence of him from that cave, and THEN we cut back into the S-Mart for the traditional ending.

As for the credits, at this point I could have joined all of the previous credits together and subbed in new music, but as that was not part of the experience I cared about, I simply left in the traditional Theatrical AoD credits.
Here is a link to a downloadable Mp4 version of the edit

Conclusion:

So is this a stronger movie now that we have eliminated the differing backstories? Yes and no. Yes, if you were to sit down and watch them back to back this version would make WAY more sense to you. But at the time they were made there were many years in between each of them. At that point you get a bit more artistic license to retell the previous story a bit differently. Honestly, maybe it’s just me explaining away several versions of stories that quite don’t line up, but THAT is how I’ve always viewed these movies: I feel these are Ash's stories, and since he is such a bad person, this is just a tale he keeps exaggerating and each time he tells again, he embellishes more of the story.

This sort of takes that away, and in my opinion, tells more of a story about a man who has had horrible things done to him. As a result, you watch him slowly disconnect with reality. He starts out honorable at first, then slowly twists to where he finds the Deadite interaction funny in ED2, then ultimately get’s so full of himself that he considers himself the savior of the world at the end.

In the end, I personally prefer the theatrical version of the movies, but it must be said, this is a new and different way to experience them and it runs 3 hours and 55 minutes.

This video is NOT meant to compete with purchasable version, so I encoded it a a very low bitrate for download from my website. If you'd like the full-res 720p version, contact me and we can arrange a trade.
Note: This is a h265 encode, so make sure you're using the latest version of VLC to watch this.
http://anticurrent.com/EvilDead/EvilDead-UltimateCut-h265.mkv

UPDATE:

Epic Edit Cover

Several people have emailed me and asked to purchase a copy of the movie. Let me stress that it is NOT for sale, but I'd love to get it to you. However in doing so, I cannot condone the filmmakers of these not getting paid.

So here's what I'll do. Anyone that wants the full 720p copy simply do the following:
1: Email me (address can be found easily on my website) a photo of you holding all three movies (any version).
2: I'll send you my physical address, you send me a USB (the file size is 13.3GB) with a self-addressed stamped envelope to send it back.
3: Within 24 hours of receipt I will send the USB back to you.

UPDATE: 5/19/15:
After numerous complaints, the downloadable version of this has been fixed. In order to make an easily downloadable file out of the four hour movie and have it watchable, I utilized the new h265 encoding format and it comes in around 500mb. In order to play it, make sure you have the latest version of VLC. The link can be found above.