Shortly after meeting Alvarez, he gave us a guided tour of the sound stage version of the cabin set. He prefaced it with the following warning: The first rule is dont touch anything, the second rule is dont touch anything, and the third rule is dont steal stuff. At the beginning of the tour, Alvarez stopped and played a piano tune from the original Evil Dead film. If you look for blood, you will find blood everywhere,” said Alvarez as he guided us through the main floor of the cabin. Its safe to say that someone dies in every room.
The effects are being done almost entirely practically. Anything that isnt being done practically is being done in post conversion, but not via CGI.
Alvarez shared the actual breakdown of practical effects versus those done in post with us. The effects are 95% practical. We are not doing any CGI. The other 5% are real post effects. For example, you are going to see some fire today. But, on the scene, there will be no fire. Then, we will reshoot the scene and add the fire, because, we dont want to kill the actors. We dont do CG blood. Everything that we do is real, its practical. Sometimes a post effect will just mean that you put two real things together.
We got to check out a version of the Necromonicon that’s being used in the film.
It’s not being called the Necromonicon, however, because of copyright issues. It seems that someone owns the book that was used in the original film, so there will be some design changes and the book will likely just be called the Book of the Dead. The book was made of synthetic skin that looked and felt very much like actual skin. It’s stitched together and bound in a very home-made kind of way. I was amazed by the attention to detail. Pages that may not even be shown in the film have been created and inserted to lend authenticity to the appearance of the book. The book’s creators spent countless hours putting it together.
Every step of the production process is being done with the utmost attention to detail. Even down to the final wardrobe choices, every last detail has been explored and exhausted. The cast screen tested in many, many different wardrobe choices before finally arriving at the perfect look for each character. The final decisions were made in concert with the wardrobe specialist as well as the actors. Judging from the painstaking attention to detail that’s gone in to set design and wardrobe, its safe to say that authenticity is paramount. Sarah Voon, the films costume designer gave us some input on Fedes approach to wardrobe. Fede is quite organic in the way that he works. So, hes got a strong idea, but if youve got a better idea, then he is willing to go with that. Or, if something isnt working, he will change it at the last minute.
Evil Dead is due out April 12th. Stay tuned for more coverage as we near that release date!
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