Fango just spoke with ever-friendly EVIL DEAD starlet Ellen Sandweiss, who reveals that yet another DVD of Sam Raimi’s splatter classic is taking shape for a spring 2007 debut. “For this release, we—meaning the Ladies of the EVIL DEAD [also including Sarah York, née Teresa Seyferth, and Betsy Baker], have been making a documentary for a couple of years now, and it is just about us and our travels. We didn’t know what form we wanted it to take, but we knew that we wanted to do something, so we started collecting footage early on. Finally we found a home for it, which is this new DVD of THE EVIL DEAD. So our new Ladies of THE EVIL DEAD documentary will be on that, and I believe there will also be a couple of little Easter eggs of us at conventions and so forth.”
Sadly, according to Sandweiss, her pre-EVIL DEAD collaboration with Bruce Campbell and director Raimi, the now-legendary WITHIN THE WOODS (a condensation of DEAD used to raise financing for the feature), will still be missing in action. “There’s no WITHIN THE WOODS,” laughs the actress. “At one point I thought I would make it my mission to have Sam release it, but then I thought, ‘Ah never mind.’ ”
Meanwhile, the actress—who can be seen in Dante Tomaselli’s SATAN’S PLAYGROUND, out on DVD next week – admits that an EVIL DEAD reunion, of sorts, has recently taken place. “I was just in Bruce’s latest movie,” she says. “He didn’t write it, but he pretty much did everything else—produced, directed and starred—and it just wrapped shooting a couple of weeks ago. It’s called MY NAME IS BRUCE and it is pretty much about Bruce Campbell. It is kind of a spoof/sci-fi movie, not a horror flick per se, and I have a cameo playing his ex-wife. Once they cast me in the role, they changed the name of the character to Cheryl, which was pretty cute [laughs]. Basically Bruce plays a very self-mocking version of himself as a loser/has-been ex-actor trying to save his career. It is very funny, and the cool thing about it is that Bruce lives in Oregon and he had the movie set built on his property.”
And that’s not all; Sandweiss also has a chiller called THE DREAD on the horizon, featuring contributions by EVIL DEAD alumnus Tom Sullivan. “Tom actually acts in THE DREAD,” the actress notes, adding, “But he also did some of the special effects and designed the film’s monster.”
As for the continuing rumors about an EVIL DEAD remake, Sandweiss admits, “I know about as much as the fans do. One minute you hear it is happening, and the next you hear it isn’t.” For more on the Ladies of THE EVIL DEAD, check out their website here.
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