HCF EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH ORIGINAL ‘EVIL DEAD’ SPECIAL EFFECTS MAESTRO TOM SULLIVAN

The name Tom Sullivan will be familiar to any horror fan worth his or her salt as the creator of the still impressive special effects for Sam Raimi’s horror micro-budget classic The Evil Dead, still perhaps the perfect example of how a group of people with very little money but loads of enthusaism and talent can create something special. Horror Cult Films is privileged to have a little chat with the man.

Dr Lenera: Did you have any idea at the time that you were working on a film that would become a horror classic and lead to two sequels?

Tom Sullivan: Not at all. I had a lot of faith in Sam to make a kick-ass film and he sure relied on my abilities and I did my best to deliver. But I remember talking in the kitchen of our Morristown, Tennessee home with the cast and crew and we thought if it wound up being shown for one weekend in a drive-in we’d be on the board. We could say we made a feature film. It worked out really well.

DL: Do you think Sam Raimi went too far with the controversial tree rape scene in The Evil Dead?

Tom: My problem with it is I didn’t think Cheryl would behave like she did after the attack. I remember Sam had a screening of Evil Dead for the Evil Dead 2 cast and crew and I sat next to  him. When the vine rape scene came up, Sam buried his head in his hands and said, “why did I turn this into pornography?”.

DL: Were you surprised when The Evil Dead was banned as a Video Nasty in the UK?

Tom: Censorship always surprises me. The UK ban was finally lifted and England was overrun by deadites. They were warned.

DL: What were your inspirations for the look of the Deadites?

Tom: Dick Smith’s Exorcist demon was the influence for Cheryl. The others were caricatures of the charactors. Linda was idolized by Ash so we made her a manikin doll. Scotty turned into a dog because he betrays Ash and his friends. Shelly was disfigured by black veins for no reason other than that design was my first design for Linda when she is dragged out of the cabin. I changed it later.

DL: In my opinion, the most impressive special effect in The Evil Dead is the climactic disintegration. Can you describe how this great scene was achieved?

Tom: Bart Pierce and I spent three months doing clay animation and combining In Camera mattes so we could combine live action goo and falling hair to make the effect more realistic. Bart had the idea of double exposing each stop motion frame and he pulled that off flawlessly. We would expose two frames and Bart would rewind one frame and we would animate, making minor changes to the clay puppets and then we shot two more frames. It softened the strobing that stop motion tends to have.

DL: Did Raimi have any conceptions/ideas for effects scenes that you were unable to realise due to the low budget?

Tom: I’m proud to say no. I am pretty confident I did all he asked for and more.

DL: What was it like working with Chris Walas on The Fly 2?

Tom: It was like my college education on special effects. Chris was the director and I had the privelege of working under the amazing Jon Berg. He was the stop motion animation director for the Hoth Battle sequence in The Empire Strikes Back. I only worked on pre-production and didn’t go to Vancouver for the main shoot. I did some concept sculptures with a bunch of the other artists and went to sculpt and make molds of the critters. But I was a small part of a talented crew.

DL: Have you seen the remake of The Evil Dead and what did you think of it?

Tom: As a hard core horror film it works really well. When that girl cut her face open I freaked. Clever marketing for fans expecting some of that Evil Dead dark or slapstick humor. There is not even an unintended guffaw in that movie.

DL: What is your opinion of CGI? I think it’s a great tool but is overused.

Tom: This subject comes up all the time and clearly fans are 100% for practical over CGI. I actually love CGI when done by the growing group of talented artists given the time and money to do it right. When I see Jackson’s King Kong, or Pacific Rim or the new Godzilla I see real living creatures actually there. Syfy channel sometimes doesn’t have those rescources but then there are a lot of practical effects films that look pretty awful as well. Like you say, it’s a tool and can only be used for good or evil.

DL: What do you think of the state of the genre today?

Tom: The cliche’s are grating on me. I’ve seen so many horror films (but not all of them, they scare me) and I can usually spot the way the scenes are going. Going through the motions does not a good horror film make.

DL: I’m sure I remember reading a few years ago that you were about to direct a ghost story? Is this project still in the pipeline?

Tom: It was called The Last Ghost Story and I had written the script based on incidents and reported ghost sightings at The Homer Mill, a world class haunt attraction. Sadly it burnt down two weeks before we were going to negotiate our first funding contract. Later, I did a lot of research on film distribution and decided low budget film makers can’t make money on your film. Disappointing but that’s show biz.

DL: What are you currently working on?

Tom: I’m marketing my copyrighted Intellectual property. And I do guest appearances at horror conventions. That’s plenty for this old man.

DL: What are your top three horror movies?

Tom: Robert Wise’s The Haunting. Every director should study this film. No blood, no gore, effects are at a minimum and it scares the crap out of me. John Carpenter’s The Thing. It seems perfect in about every way. Rob Bottin’s work is still astounding. As many times as I’ve seen it I think Sam’s The Evil Dead is up there too. See it with audiences and you’ll see reactions like no other film gets.

DL: Thanks very much for taking the time to talk to us.

Tom: It’s been a pleasure.

Sullivan is the subject of an acclaimed documentary directed by Ryan Meade entitled Invaluable, which is about his life and career and is full of material about the filming of the Evil Dead films with cast and crew members. You can buy the DVD here:

https://ryanmeadesmovies.wix.com/invaluablemovie