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Groovy! Beyond Fest Welcomes Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell & Edgar Wright

There are few star and director teams that could get a crowd as pumped as the audience was last Saturday night at Beyond Fest. In 2014, John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis appeared together to introduce Halloween for the first time EVER (yes, really! How is that possible???) and this year the folks at the fest may have outdone themselves when they brought Evil Dead duo Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell together to discuss the madness that was the making of Evil Dead I & II with uber-fan and director extraordinaire Edgar Wright. Yeah. That totally happened!

While introducing the film, Wright remarked, “The first time I ever heard about Evil Dead when I was ten in 1984, it was a ‘Video Nasty’ and it was banned by the British Board of Film Censors. It’d been released on cinema and then when it was released on video there was a number of complaints and Sam Raimi actually appeared in court in London on obscenity charges…”

As the original film played to a packed house, the laughs and screams echoed throughout the Egyptian Theatre, and as the credits rolled, Wright and Campbell took the floor and introduced surprise guest Raimi. From there, Wright meticulously walked Campbell and Raimi through the lore and history that is the making of The Evil Dead like only a dedicated Deadite could. While Raimi and Campbell had worked together as recently as the pilot episode for the upcoming Starz series Ash vs. Evil Dead, it was clear that the two had a sincere affection for each other, laughing and giving the other a hard time like they were nineteen year old kids again. Wright sat in for an energized audience, giggling and gasping along with the stories that we were hearing for the first time.

Finally, an hour had passed without a dull moment and Wright, Campbell and Raimi said goodbye to a standing ovation as they were whisked out of the theater, and the audience enjoyed the mayhem of Evil Dead II. Once again, in addition to catering a cinephile’s perfect evening, Beyond Fest provided a one of a kind experience, bringing three iconic filmmakers together to discuss one of the most popular cult franchises in movie history. Groovy!

Beyond Fest continues at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood through Sunday, October 11. For tickets and showtimes, visit their website here.

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