My association with The Evil Dead spans nearly my entire career at Anchor Bay. It began in 2001, with the release of The Evil Dead: The Book of the Dead. Anchor Bay had previously released The Evil Dead on VHS and DVD, with collectible cases & multiple covers to some success. They had similar success with its two sequels Evil Dead II, and Army of Darkness, in regular and collectible (and even official bootleg) editions.

The Book of the Dead was a brand new remastered edition supervised by Sam Raimi with new bonus features. In addition to a standard DVD release, we did a collector's edition replica of the film's key prop with art by Tom Sullivan, prop-maker on the movie. This was a big project with a major brand when DVD was really starting to take off. This meant multiple component and versions, plus a vast array of marketing materials and a lot of input to be managed. On top of that there was a big screening event to celebrate the release. The book itself required coordination between the artist, and the factory in china, fine tuning and tweaking to create a right product. The release also featured a standard edition with the same new master and features, but no book. This was also quite daunting, as the previous version had used 5 different covers and a good deal of our limited art assets. We emulated the classic movie poster using existing photography, but with the title treatment based on our previous release to fuse old and new. The release in both standard and Book of the Dead formats was a huge hit, as was the launch and subsequent theatrical screenings. The initial run sold out and would go back to print, remaining active for years.

My next dance with the Deadites was the Boomstick Edition. Anchor Bay had released Army of Darkness several times before. There were 2 versions available at that time, a theatrical cut and a director's cut. They had been released together years earlier, but that version was out of print. We released a new 2 disc edition with new art, and new liner notes from star Bruce Campbell. We took some foreign key art that prominently featured the shotgun (Boomstick) and taking a cue from the actual title card of the movie, Bruce Campbell vs. Army of Darkness Boomstick Edition was born. Despite just basically being a re-release, it did very well and found a unique identity among the host of Evil Dead releases, the number of which was beginning to become a running joke among fans.

The success of the first Book of the Dead, made a second inevitable. With a new sculpt and art by Tom Sullivan, The Evil Dead 2: Book of the Dead was released, this time with a sound chip so it screamed when you poked it in the eye. It too was very successful as was the inevitable 2-pack. Unfortunately we lost the rights to Army of Darkness before a third Book of the Dead could be made.

If the Boomstick Edition combined all the previous Army of Darkness material into one new catalog edition, why not the original? We combined all of the content for every release into, The Evil Dead Ultimate Edition. After exploring several looks, including a scrapbook (did we really need another book?) we went back to original theatrical key art, along with homages to its original VHS releases to stress its classic nature. This was released under the Anchor Bay Collection banner, a series of classic horror releases. This New old look was be re-purposed for subsequent DVD releases. As new technologies arose so did new catalog opportunities, and The Evil Dead got its inevitable Blu-ray release. There was another key art design, once again referencing the past by reworking elements of the earlier DVD release with the movie poster, as we continued to find new ways to rework limited assets into fresh looks.

That would have seemed to be the end, but in 2015 Starz, the parent company for Anchor Bay, debuted a new TV show, Ash vs Evil Dead, which continued the franchise, picking up years later. Anchor Bay naturally handled the home video release. The success of the show coupled with our own past success with the property meant this was a big release, including; collectible packaging, Steelbook & lenticular cover Blu-rays, with a strong push in print, online and in store promotions.

Ash vs Evil dead like the film that inspired it, went on to great success on home video, It is fitting that it was my last large project at Anchor Bay, since it really was my first big project there, and one I have unintentionally become intertwined with. I hope some day I will be able to be a part of the franchise again in some way, but for now, I can just enjoy it as a fan.

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