Within the Woods (1978) and Sam Raimi's early short films

This week on Dead by Dawn we just watched the early shorts of Sam Raimi including the Evil Dead precursor Within the Woods from 1978.

These bootleg vhs quality short films of Sam Raimi are all available on youtube.  These shorts are the first examples of many of the innovative techniques, sound design, and camera work utilized in the Evil Dead Films. Can you believe that Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were only 19 years old?

The first short we watched was Clockwork from 1978. This was directed by Sam Raimi, starring Scott Spiegel and Cheryl Guttridge. 

Next we watched Attack of the Helping Hand (also from 1978) starring Sam Raimi, directed by Scott Spiegel (co-writer of Evil Dead 2) and photographed by Bruce Campbell.  Killer hand, sound familiar?

After that we went into 1978's Within the Woods which shares the basic plot structure of Evil Dead and we get the first monster POV shots. 

Our last short we watched was Panic Attack from 2009 which was the short film that launched director Fede Alvarez into the director's role of 2013's Evil Dead. How did this visual effects heavy robot invasion film get him the visceral gory remake?

We also checked out a variety of interviews with Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert from the years after Evil Dead was completed but had yet to find distribution.

How could you not love this guy? 

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Thanks for listening!