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Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on July 20, 2004, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
The screams of laughter have faded, the final bows have been made and the fake blood is being mopped off the stage as this writer meets with the creators of Evil Dead 1 & 2: The Musical in a downstairs room at the Cabaret du Plateau in Montreal, Canada. A loving, hilarious homage to the first two films in Sam Raimi’s famous horror trilogy, the show, which originated in Toronto, is being presented in conjunction with the Just for Laughs comedy festival; if you’re anywhere near Montreal in the next week, it’s an absolute must-see.
Evil Dead 1 & 2: The Musical is the brainchild of director Christopher Bond and writer George Reinblatt, who penned both the book and lyrics, with music by Frank Cipolla and Melissa Morris. Reinblatt’s adaptation tells the now-familiar tale of Ash (Ryan Ward) and his pals who drive to a “Cabin in the Woods” (the rousing first number), only to be terrorized and overtaken by vicious spirits born of an ancient Book of the Dead. Once Ash is the last man left truly alive, the daughter of the professor who discovered the book shows up with a couple of dumb males in tow, and more havoc ensues. The balance is equal part songs and splatter, as the characters burst into consistently clever and funny tunes when they’re not attacking each other and sending gouts of stage blood spurting all over the stage—and beyond. (The front tables in this cabaret setting are helpfully marked as the “Blood Zone,” where the audience is likely to get red-stained; needless to say, that’s as much an attraction as a warning.)
All the memorable setpieces are faithfully replicated, including an imaginative staging of the original movie’s tree-attack scene, and Ash’s famous one-liners from both Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness are perfectly delivered by Ward, who channels both the naive victim of the first film and the cocky zombie-fighter of the sequels. He’s supported by a fine ensemble boasting real comic and vocal, er, chops, including Alexandria Galante as Linda (Andrea Irwin played the role at the show Fango attended, and did so most appealingly), Matt Olmstead as Scott, Kylee Evans as Shelly, Danielle Meierhenry as Cheryl (who turns her first possessee into a hilarious cellar-bound wisecracker), Meredith Shaw as Annie, Trevor Martin as Ed and Mike “Nug” Nahrgang, who steals the show and brings down the house with his number as “Good Old Reliable Jake.” Their energy is infectious, and the love the creators have for Raimi’s films is palpable throughout (even as they occasionally poke fun at their implausibilities). A Necronomicon designed by original Evil Dead FX artist Tom Sullivan hangs over the stage for extra authenticity.
According to Reinblatt, honoring the films and pleasing their fans was a key concern throughout the creation and development of the musical. “Trust me, that’s the toughest, toughest crowd you can work for,” he says. “These Deadites, people who love this movie, love this movie. They love every aspect of it, and if I had screwed one thing up, they would have killed me. But the hardcore fans, the guys who have traveled from across North America to see it, have said, ‘You’ve done the movie justice,’ and that’s the best compliment we could get.
“The thing is, we did have to change some stuff,” he continues. “Apart from Ash, most of the characters have a different gimmick about them that they don’t have in the movies. It just leads to a more interesting musical, and I was scared, because we took out some things and added others, and at the same time I tried to stay true to the movies. And everyone seems to like it.”
The project was hatched two years ago after Bond and Reinblatt took in a production of The Rocky Horror Show and became inspired to create their own “cult musical,” as Bond puts it. “The Evil Dead movies were perfect for what George and I were talking about doing,” the director continues. “They were just really charming, with these fun characters. Sam Raimi had pioneered this new kind of trend of having comedy in horror films, especially in Evil Dead II, and in the musical, we’re just kicking it to the next level of absurdity, if you will.”
That included whipping up a collection of songs to match that offbeat tone. “The angle we wanted to take was that the lyrics would almost not match what’s happening,” Reinblatt explains. “Two people would be singing a love song, but it would be the stupidest love song given what they’re talking about, or two people sing a tango, but they’re saying, ‘What the fuck was that?’ That’s the whole joke—that these songs sound like regular musical theater, but they have this new twist to them, and that’s why our crowd, who doesn’t normally attend musicals, is enjoying musical-theater songs. Have you ever seen a musical, and some guy is up there singing and you think, ‘Jeez, I’d like to kill that guy’? We actually kill that guy in our show. It’s almost an anti-musical.”
And with those killings comes plenty of spurting crimson. Getting the blood to gush and spray across the set is the responsibility of set/special FX designers Peter Higgins, Carlos Henriques and Olmstead. “They’ve just done a great job,” says Reinblatt. “They have a system called the BDS…”
“Blood Delivery System,” Cipolla explains. “It shoots blood at, I believe, up to 120 PSI, but they have to tone it down so it doesn’t get all over the curtains and the ceiling.”
“The whole goal with that,” Reinblatt continues, “is that it’s always a surprise where the blood is coming from. You don’t know that it’s going to pop out from where it does. Our set is so small, but almost every inch of it is rigged for some special effect. On stage, if nothing’s happened yet, it’s probably gonna happen soon!”
A large percentage of it happens to Ward, a “huge fan” of the Evil Dead films who originated his onstage Ash role in the initial Toronto company. He got involved after reading an ad for one of the show’s first workshops. “When I saw that, I thought, ‘Aw, it’s probably some guys who like Evil Dead and are just having a good time,’ ” Ward recalls. “But I love Evil Dead, so I went to see if I could get in on it. And then I got cast and read the script, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is good. This is awesome. To play Ash in Evil Dead is like a dream for me. Especially in a production like this.”
The actor got right into the spirit, even encouraging the show’s creators to not hold back on the splatter. “When we first started, there was a bit less blood,” he recalls. “I was like, ‘More! More blood!’ because Bruce bites it in the face so bad in the movies—he just gets sprayed. And I wanted to go for it, because I know if I was sitting in the audience, and there was a ton of blood, I would go crazy.” Playing the grue-strewn role does take its toll on the actor: “It’s tough on the two-show nights,” he admits. “By the end of the weekend, I’m ready for a day off, but if the crowd’s really into it, it’s not hard. They feed you with their energy, and what’s great about the show is that the audience gets so involved. I mean, they repeat the lines back with you. It’s really rare for an actor to play to that kind of crowd, and it was a great idea to stage it in a bar.”
“The main thing that inspired me,” Reinblatt adds, “was the idea of giving people something crazy to do. I said to these guys, ‘There’s dinner theater, and this is party theater.’ People are covered in blood, people are screaming, people are yelling back. I want everyone in front of the stage to be having a great time, not just sitting there in a suit and clapping politely. Most days, you’ll see people dressed in white in the front row trying to get blood on them…”
“People wiping their programs in the blood to take home as a souvenir…” Bond interjects.
“And then selling them on eBay!” Cipolla laughs.
“But the thing with our audience,” Reinblatt continues, “is that they can be wild, but they never do anything so crazy that it’s disruptive to the show; it all adds to the experience. People are clapping, standing on their chairs and dancing, and it’s all fun.”
Like Rocky Horror, Evil Dead 1 & 2: The Musical has developed its own cult of fans who come to see it repeatedly, sometimes traveling great distances. Back in the show’s early days, Cipolla recalls, “We had a group of guys from Rochester who drove to Toronto every weekend to see the show. They would come to all four performances, and they would just love it. We would end up having beers with them because we were like, ‘You guys drove so far…’ ” He adds that the amount of detail packed into the production and lyrics is one of the things that keeps people coming back for seconds and more. “I’ve seen this show more than 100 times, and I still see new things that I don’t notice every day. There’s so much happening, you can see it multiple times and get something different out of it every time.”
As for whether fans outside of Montreal will be able to share the experience, Reinblatt says that there are no concrete plans to open in other cities at the moment. “It took a lot of work just to get here, so who knows?” Reinblatt says. Playing further areas “is the dream, but we’ll see. Right now this is the only thing on our calendar.”
“But keep checking our web page for news,” Bond adds. “ ’Cause we are going to be going somewhere else.”
