While growing up in Royal Oak, Michigan, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell loved movies and made several 8mm films together. By the time they got to college, they followed the old adage that the best way into the movie business is by making a horror film — a genre they were fans of — and created a $1600 short called Within the Woods, which they used as a calling card and proof of concept for greater ambitions.
By then, other upstarts like producer Rob Tapert, writer Scott Spiegel, and makeup effects artist Tom Sullivan had joined the fledgling production group led by Raimi and Campbell. Thanks to their efforts on Within the Woods, they raised around $90,000 to begin production on what was then called Book of the Dead, a feature-length expansion of the premise that first hit theaters 45 years ago today.
