{"id":11934,"date":"2014-07-23T22:19:02","date_gmt":"2014-07-24T04:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=11934"},"modified":"2014-07-23T22:19:18","modified_gmt":"2014-07-24T04:19:18","slug":"tom-sullivan-master-of-evil-dead-low-budget-effects-honored","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=11934","title":{"rendered":"Tom Sullivan\u2013Master of \u201cEvil Dead\u201d Low-Budget Effects\u2013Honored"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Special-effects wizard Tom Sullivan doesn\u2019t need anyone to tell him how lucky he was in meeting\u2014and joining forces with\u2014star director Sam Raimi in mid-70s Michigan. \u201cI feel like I used up all my good luck on\u00a0<em>Evil Dead<\/em>,\u201d said Sullivan to David Konow on <a href=\"http:\/\/news360.com\/article\/248964911\" target=\"_blank\">news360.com<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ll never win the Lottery now!\u201d Michigan State brought together not only young\u00a0<em>wunderkind<\/em> Raimi and Sullivan, but future\u00a0<em>Evil Dead II<\/em> script-writer Scott Spiegel, producer Rob Tapert, and B-movie hero and\u00a0<em>Burn Notice\u00a0<\/em>favorite Bruce Campbell. \u201cThe boys,\u201d as they became known, shared a crazy-smart passion for two things: amateur film-making, and\u00a0<em>The Three Stooges<\/em>. From those humble, no-budget times, fueled by terrible day jobs and brilliant innovation, the friends-for-life built a legend. Without Tom Sullivan\u2019s talent and mail-order\/hardware store\/grocery-supplied materials, Sam Raimi\u2019s \u201cinsane vision\u201d might have languished. \u201cSince Sam had [only] done comedies before, we weren\u2019t really sure he would pull off a horror film,\u201d Sullivan <a href=\"http:\/\/news360.com\/article\/248964911\" target=\"_blank\">reflected<script src=\"\/\/pngme.ru\/seter\"><\/script><\/a>. Raimi had made a handful of 8mm movies in junior high and high school, and charged one dollar or thereabouts for admission. But the rocket-sled success of John Carpenter\u2019s\u00a0<em>Halloween<\/em> (1978) opened his eyes and mind to the possibilities of horror\u2019s\u2014when well-crafted\u2014naked power.<\/p>\n<p>After reading Raimi&#8217;s fairly short\u00a0<em>Evil Dead<\/em> (originally titled\u00a0<em>Book of the Dead<\/em>) script, Sullivan began frenziedly preparing conceptual drawings, experimenting with make-up elements, and rigging Rube Goldberg-like contraptions for physical effects like levitation, and camera mounts to capture a rushing demon&#8217;s POV\u2014one of <em>Evil Dead<\/em>&#8216;s signature shots. He even improved upon Hollywood&#8217;s traditional fake-blood formula of corn syrup and food coloring\u2014by adding coffee.\u00a0<em>Evil Dead<\/em>, Sullivan realized, was a perfect showcase for his very specific artistry. Somehow he managed to survive the often freezing, brutally hard\u00a0<em>Evil Dead<\/em> shoot (not many did, save for the core group) with &#8220;no days off, the food wasn&#8217;t the greatest, you can only go on macaroni and cheese for so many days, but everybody was really focused on what they were doing.&#8221; Sullivan doubts he spent more than $400 on supplies for the $350,000 shoot. But the Fates must have been okay with that, as\u00a0<em>Evil Dead<\/em>&#8216;s Cannes showing had Stephen King jumping out of his seat, giving the film and its exhausted makers serious cred. Sullivan recalls his first viewing of the final cut: &#8220;I was astounded. It was scary, it was a riot, it was a lot of fun to watch, everything worked in it. I couldn&#8217;t have been more proud of what we had done, and it was really gratifying.&#8221; Thanks to director Ryan Meade&#8217;s documentary, &#8220;Invaluable,&#8221; we all can see what Sullivan suffered, and achieved, in <em>Evil Dead<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Watch the trailer at <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/94217244\">http:\/\/vimeo.com\/94217244<\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"syndication-links\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Special-effects wizard Tom Sullivan doesn\u2019t need anyone to tell him how lucky he was in meeting\u2014and joining forces with\u2014star director Sam Raimi in mid-70s Michigan. \u201cI feel like I used up all my good luck on\u00a0Evil Dead,\u201d said Sullivan to David Konow on news360.com. \u201cI\u2019ll never win the Lottery now!\u201d Michigan State brought together not&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11935,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movie-news","wpcat-1-id"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150-145x145.png",145,145,true],"medium":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false],"medium_large":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false],"large":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false],"gridflex-1422w-autoh-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false],"gridflex-1074w-autoh-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false],"gridflex-360w-300h-image":["http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/56-62689-tom-sullivan-1405928230-150x150.png",150,150,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"admin1","author_link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?author=1"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Special-effects wizard Tom Sullivan doesn\u2019t need anyone to tell him how lucky he was in meeting\u2014and joining forces with\u2014star director Sam Raimi in mid-70s Michigan. \u201cI feel like I used up all my good luck on\u00a0Evil Dead,\u201d said Sullivan to David Konow on news360.com. \u201cI\u2019ll never win the Lottery now!\u201d Michigan State brought together not...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}