The Cabin as seen in Evil Dead II.
The Cabin, as seen from behind Linda's grave in Evil Dead II.
The Cabin, and the Woods surrounding it, play host to the horrific events befalling Ash,his friends and Professor Knowby in The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II and Ash vs. Evil Dead. While the films Evil Dead and Dead by Dawn are meant to be directly connected to each other (the short recap being due to rights issues) some of the damage to the cabin vanishes in the next movie, such the cellar door or the front door. In Ash vs Evil Dead, most of the damage is again gone bar the gun shot holes in the wall, notably the cellar door which Ash had cut in half when he was last there and the cellar steps which Ash was thrown through by Henrietta. In The Dark One, the last episode of the first season of Ash vs Evil Dead, it is revealed that the cabin itself is actually "alive" likely due to being possessed by the Kandarian Demon and was able to manipulate itself, make itself bleed etc possibly explaining why the cabin looks mostly undamaged. Signs of the cabin's sentience or otherworldly nature are shown in the first two movies when copious amount blood jetting out from gunshot holes in the wall and the deer-head and furniture coming to life to mock Ash.
The Cabin during the day
History of The Cabin (Films & TV)
Before The Evil Dead
The Cabin, and the land surrounding it, is owned by the Knowby family (although Scotty mentions he rented it in The Evil Dead). Sometime in the mid-1980's, Raymond Knowby and his wife Henrietta brought the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis to the cabin to translate the book in private, but Raymond accidentally unleashed a Kandarian Demon, causing his wife to become possessed by the demon. He shot Deadite Henrietta in the chest and buried her body beneath the dirt floor of the the cabin's fruit cellar. When Raymond attempted to leave the cabin, the Kandarian Demon attacked him, sending his soul to Hell.
The Evil Dead
A week has passed since Raymond and Henrietta vanished, and a group of five friends in their early to mid-20's arrive at the cabin and decide to spend the weekend there. The group unknowingly re-awaken the Kandarian Demon that Raymond had unleashed earlier in the week, and one by one the young adults are turned into Deadites, until only Ash Williams remained. Nothing noteworthy happens physically to the cabin during the first night, except two holes are punched through the front door when Deadite Cheryl attacks Ash.
Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn
Forced to spend another night in the cabin, Ash Williams is physically and mentally tormented by the cabin itself during this second night. While trying to kill his severed right hand, Ash gets a fountain of red and black blood sprayed in his face from one of the walls of the cabin after he shot it with what will become his trusty Boomstick. Not long after giving up on looking for the hand, everything in the living room of the cabin comes to life and begins to laugh. Ash, beginning to lose his sanity, joins the inanimate objects and begins to laugh himself. Later, When Annie Knowby turns the Kandarian Demon into a thing of the flesh, the trees surrounding the cabin begin to wrap themselves around the cabin, destroying parts of the fireplace and walls.
Army Of Darkness
The Cabin briefly appears in a flashback of the events of Evil Dead II.
Ash vs Evil Dead
Not much has been disturbed in thirty years since Raymond Knowby unleashed the Kandarian Demon in the woods: bullet holes still cover the walls where Ash fired the shotgun at his possessed hand and Jake's remains still lay on the floor of the fruit cellar.
Layout of The Cabin
As shown in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, there are five rooms inside the cabin: a main living room, one bedroom, a recreational room (which was formerly a second bedroom in The Evil Dead), a bathroom, and a kitchen. Below the cabin itself is the fruit cellar, which is significantly larger than the ground floor above it. There is also a narrow hallway between the kitchen and the bathroom that surrounds the bathroom itself.
Surrounding The Cabin
The Bridge
The Bridge as seen in the opening of Evil Dead II.
After the Bridge is destroyed
The bridge stretches across a large ravine, and is notoriously rickety and unreliable. In both The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, the bridge is destroyed and twisted to resemble a skeletal hand rendering it uncrossable.
The Work Shed
Where Ash finds the chainsaw, and dismembers his girlfriend Linda.
In Other Media
Comics
Dark Horse
The cabin's first appearance in a comic was in issue one of the 1992 comic adaptation of Army of Darkness. Like in the Army of Darkness film, it briefly appeared in the recap of the other Evil Dead films.
The cabin is the main setting of Dark Horse's 2008 comic re-imagining of The Evil Dead.
Dynamite Comics
The Cabin collapses on Ash (Army of Darkness: Old School #7).
The cabin briefly appears in two of Dynamite Entertainment's Army of Darkness comic storylines, including Ashes 2 Ashes and Old School. In the Old School storyline, Ash returns to the cabin to destroy the connection between the Deadite world and the land of the living. At the end of the story, the cabin itself collapses on top of Ash in an attempt to kill him one last time. Ash walks away from the destroyed cabin hoping that his friends spirits are finally at rest.
Space Goat Publishing
The cabin and Annie Knowby free fall into Hell (Evil Dead 2: Beyond Dead By Dawn #1).
In Space Goat's Evil Dead 2: Beyond Dead By Dawn #1, it is revealed that shortly after Ash got sucked back in time, the cabin (and a dead Annie Knowby) fell into Hell itself. Needing all the help she can get to try and escape, Annie creates a simulacrum copy of Ash from his severed hand inside the cabin.
Video Games
The Evil Dead (1984)
The cabin is the main setting for the first Evil Dead video game released in 1984. The Player takes control of Ash as he fights off waves of Deadites inside the cabin itself.
Evil Dead: Hail To The King (2000)
The cabin is one of the many locations in THQ's first Evil Dead video game.
Evil Dead: The Game (2011)
The cabin is the first level of the iOS exclusive Evil Dead mobile game.
Behind The Scenes
The Evil Dead
Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi's fictional history of the cabin.
The cabin in The Evil Dead was built sometime in the 1960's in Morristown, Tennessee, with the intent of being used as a hunting cabin by the owners of the property. The cabin was leased to the producers of The Evil Dead under the condition that they had to leave it the same way before they arrived, and filming took place from the winter of 1979 to late spring of 1980. Sometime in the early 1980's, shortly after the release of The Evil Dead, the cabin caught fire presumably due to teenagers sneaking onto the property and having a party. Only the fireplace remains at the site of the cabin, and soon that will be gone as fans of The Evil Dead trespass onto the property and steal the stones that made up the fireplace and end up in the hands of Bruce Campbell to autograph. Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi often tell the story of a man who visited the cabin during a thunderstorm while filming one night, looking for a elderly woman who lived in the cabin 80+ years ago, but this story is not true because, as mentioned above, the cabin was built in the 1960's.
Evil Dead 2
A new cabin and work shed was built in Wadesboro, North Carolina specifically for Evil Dead 2 in 1986. Unlike the cabin seen in the first Evil Dead, this cabin was simply an exterior, with the interior located in a local high school not far from the cabin exterior location. Also unlike the first Evil Dead cabin, this cabin was not destroyed by man, but time and weather have taken a toll on a set that was to only be temporary.
Reconstruction
In early 2016, fans of Evil Dead 2 took what few props remained and some parts of the cabin and workshed and planned to reconstruct both buildings and put them on trailers to bring to horror conventions. The fans created a Kickstarter page to help get the trailers, and met their goal.
Gallery
Further Reading
http://www.bookofthedead.ws/website/the_evil_dead_locations.html