Some of you may recall that an odd Evil Dead poster was sold recently on eBay...
It was a very cryptic listing with almost no info. And when someone asked the dimensions, the seller responded with approx. 27x40". Not a good sign if this poster was actually printed in 1983 as the roman numeral date shows. I'm a huge fan of rare posters and Evil Dead, so after seeing this (thanks for posting Severen!), I contacted the seller -- lamenting that I missed the auction and was wondering if they happened to have a second copy. To my surprise, he did have a second copy in slightly better condition that he was planning on keeping for himself. However, after confirming that the dimensions were actually 27x41" (oops on his part!) I made an offer a bit above the original eBay sale and he accepted. Yay. While this was all happening, I was trying to prod and poke y'all for more infomation to see if it was indeed legit... but I ended up doing quite a bit of digging myself -- I reposted my findings below.
I asked the seller to verify the dimensions and he said he made a mistake... it is 27"x41" so it is the correct size for the time period. He also said he's had it for "25+ years" so that is also good news if true.
As for the name difference (Evil Dead vs. The Evil Dead), I've been doing some research there as well. The original name was actually Book of the Dead when it premiered in Michigan in 1981.
Raimi then met Irvin Shapiro who helped trying to get a wider release... he was the one who suggested the name change. According to this awesome site on the film's production and release (great read by the way!), his naming suggesting was "The Evil Dead", but I found this Variety ad (dated May 3rd, 1982) which shows that they also dropped the "The" for at least some of the early US screenings (sorry for the large image).
Notice any similarities in the image, title font and tagline? That Chainsaw-over-the-head still image was commissioned well after filming had wrapped by Shapiro as he wanted better marketing materials.
According to IMDB, the movie was shown off and on throughout the world between 1981 and early 1983 at various small screenings and film festivals... and (per the above link) it actually was picked up for UK distribution (and nearly immediate video release) starting in March 1982, well before New Line picked it up for a wide release in the US. That means those full size 30x40 Evil Dead quads (w/white borders) pre-date the 1-sheet by more than a year! For those of you familiar with the quad, it is also titled "The Evil Dead," not just "Evil Dead." However, I think the US and UK are the only regions where they kept the "The" for the final release. As we have seen (so far at least), The Netherlands, Turkey and Australia all use the same title font as this mystery poster and they drop the "The" in the title.
This all lends credence to this poster being an international 1-sheet, which, ta daaa... that Evil Dead site's collectible page shows and indeed lists it as an int'l 1-sheet poster (folded and everything)! To see their poster section, scroll WAAAAYYYY down towards the bottom.
Even in that small, shitty picture above, it clearly looks to be a matte finish poster as it would have reflections along the folds otherwise.
So is this case closed? Are we confirming it to be an official New Line printed, really rare and really awesome int'l 1-sheet?
After being convinced it was the real deal, I went ahead with the purchase. I just received the poster yesterday and it's definitely an odd bird.
1) The paper is thicker than regular poster print of the day... not quite card stock, but not far off either. What is weird is that even though the paper is thick, it appears to have a 'loose' density and has a matte finish on both sides. That is a bad description, but if you see the picture of the back side, you notice a lot of ink bleed through... I never would have expected that given the thickness of the paper.
2) The print quality seems pretty rough. Check out the half-tone dots in the close-up and the edges of the text in the Stephen King quote.
3) The inks are also matte and they are layered. I took an "off-axis" photo and you can definitely see that the black back ground was printed over the original red and skin-tone layers. This poster looks like it could very well have been screen-printed! Again, if you look at the photo of the back you can clearly see where the red went down first, then the skin-tone, then the black. Cool!
When taking into consideration the size, wear, paper stock, and feel along with my above research, I'm pretty comfortable assuming this poster is indeed from the original 1983 wide release. If nothing else, it could be from one of the many film festival releases.
Anyway, I'm not sure if there is much to add at this point, but I figured I would post this up here for future reference. Enjoy!
