Within the Woods (1979)

Interesting facts

Within the Woods is a 1979 horror short film written, directed and edited by Sam Raimi. Raimi drew inspiration from his earlier short film Clockwork, deciding to produce a proof of concept horror film to help build the interest of potential investors. Raimi cast his friends Bruce Campbell and Ellen Sandweiss as the two protagonists and produced the film for $1,600. Shot on location in a remote cabin in the woods, production was a difficult process because of the low budget. Several of the special effects presented in the film were done in a severely low budget manner, some of which were improvised on set.

Production

Before the development stages of Within the Woods, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were long-time friends who had grown up together. The duo had produced several low-budget films with Super 8 film during their youth. During the early parts of Raimi's career, he directed films that were mostly classified as comedies, such as Booby Bartenders, Shemp Eats the Moon and The Great Bogus Monkey Pignut Swindle.

While working on the film, it inspired Raimi to approach the horror genre with more enthusiasm, leading to the conception of his next short film Clockwork. The film featured a woman being stalked by a demented man, and launched an interest in Raimi to pursue working on more horror films.

The prototype film was called Within the Woods. In addition to Raimi's interest in various horror films, one of the main inspirations came in the writing of H. P. Lovecraft, who introduced the concept of the "Book of the Dead" to Raimi. Raimi studied the concept of magical books, in particular the Necronomicon, which formed the basis of the film. Campbell described the film as a combination of "creative writing and ancient history".

Raimi was able to secure $1,600 to produce the film. Raimi and Campbell collected a group of their friends and family who were interested in participating in the production of the film. The film was primarily shot at a farm house belonging to one of Raimi's friends located in Marshall, Michigan. One of the regular actors involved with Raimi's early short films, Ellen Sandweiss, was cast as the film's protagonist.

The effects of the film were entirely low-budget. Nearly every effect in the film was done via things picked up at a make-up and Halloween store located close to where the film was shot. The effects in the film were notably more intricate than the simple ones featured in Raimi's prior projects and contained mutilated bodies, stabbed body parts and demonic possession skin-attachments.

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