Craven / Raimi Poster Tieback

 The Evil Dead

Sometimes I am years/decades behind. Actually, based on my Dvorak discovery, sometimes I'm centuries behind. But these discoveries are all new (news) to me. One example is my recent deep-dive into The Evil Dead series.

I am happy to say that I had the chance to watch the original back in 1982 on VHS. I scared the crap out of me. Honestly, I remember thinking "how can this movie be so friggin' scary?!" But that was the last of it until this year (2014) when my 13 year old son started looking into the whole Ash mythos. That's when I discovered the cult status of the series and the superhuman Ash personality. [Bruce Campbell is The Man]. What I saw was the progressive shift from high-quality horror in the Evil Dead to comedy in Army of Darkness. I didn't quite understand what was happening and so I watched the series a few times to see if I could figure it out.

Watching a movie under a microscope is different than just enjoying a movie. It helps bring out a new level of detail. It was when I realized that everything in each shot was intentionally put there by the director. Maybe elementary to you, but new to me. And these are the eyes I used watching Evil Dead for the 3rd time.

Scene: Ash and his friend are in the basement of the cabin for the first time
This is a tense scene. We don't know what is going on yet and anything could happen. So after the jump scare Ash is introduced to the tape recorder and Necronomicon. But...what is the torn poster in the background?

I didn't notice it the first few times.
This time however I wondered "what is a movie poster doing in this basement in the middle of the woods?" Then I recognized it as a poster for The Hills Have Eyes.

I asked my son (who I was watching it with) if he had a clue. Nope. So I was on to something and immediately knew that The Hills Have Eyes would be the next showing. What was going on?

Watch Evil Dead Now

So, Saturday evening we ended up with Wes Craven and The Hills Have Eyes.
Now this is a neat film - from a kitsch perspective.
You probably won't be scared, the gore is super low...and I don't remember an over abundance of swearing. Also to a minimum is story, quality acting and budget. It was fun, the kind of fun you have seeing a cheesy movie at an old cinema. But I had already forgotten why I was watching it in the first place, until my son pointed out "oh, look at the torn Jaws poster".

Yes!

It went by quickly.
I would have missed it if he hadn't pointed it out.
Remember, I'm new at watching for this level of detail
So there it was!
Raimi in '79 was referencing Craven from '77 that was referencing Jaws from '75.

Now why?

Watch the Hills Have Eyes Now 

Though I had the threads, I now wanted to figure out what the message was.
My guess was that since I thought The Hills Have Eyes was a bit silly, that Raimi was poking fun.
From what I found online, that is wrong.

Sam Raimi is said to have really liked Craven's movie, and the torn poster wasn't a shot at him, but a tip of his hat. Ok...it was '79, I can believe it. But there was more:

In Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street, he continued the admiration by having a scene in which the kids were watching Evil Dead. Cool [I have to verify this for myself]. And then even more, after that Raimi admired Craven yet again by placing Freddie's glove into the tool shed that Ash uses in Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn.

This was a really fun Easter Egg to decipher.
I encourage all of you to check it out for yourselves.