60 free Evil Dead trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Evil Dead trivia quiz covers the whole franchise Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert built out of a $1,600 Super 8 prototype called Within the Woods. It runs from the freezing Tennessee cabin shoot of The Evil Dead (1981) through the splatstick of Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, the 2013 reboot with Jane Levy, the three seasons of Ash vs Evil Dead on Starz, Evil Dead Rise, Evil Dead Burn, the video games and the off-Broadway musical. Expect questions on the Necronomicon and its Sumerian passages, the chainsaw hand and the boomstick, the Oldsmobile Delta 88, S-Mart, the Fake Shemps, Stephen King's rave at Cannes, the video-nasty ban in Britain, and the behind-the-scenes stories of who got hurt making these films. Roughly a third of the questions are easy for anyone who has seen the trilogy, a third are medium, and the rest are for people who have listened to every commentary track. Every answer has been checked against an encyclopaedic source and each question links to the page that confirms it.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Who wrote and directed the original trilogy of Evil Dead films?
Sam Raimi
The Evil Dead was his feature debut; he turned 20 just before shooting began and called it his 'rite of passage'.
Q 02What is Ash Williams's full first name, as his sister calls him in the original film?
Ashley
Bruce Campbell has said the name is short for Ashley, and Raimi toyed with the full name Ashley J. Williams for Army of Darkness.
Q 03What was the title of the 1979 short film Raimi and Campbell made as a prototype to attract investors?
Within the Woods
It was shot over a three-day weekend for $1,600 and screened at their old high school to prove a feature could work.
Q 04In which state was The Evil Dead (1981) filmed, in a remote cabin with no plumbing?
Tennessee
The crew had wanted to shoot near Raimi's hometown of Royal Oak, Michigan, but this was the only state that showed any enthusiasm for the project.
Q 05Which horror novelist's rave review of The Evil Dead at Cannes in 1982 helped it find a distributor?
Stephen King
His quote calling it 'the most ferociously original film of the year' went straight onto the posters.
Q 06What was the first film's working title before distributor Irvin Shapiro said it sounded boring?
Book of the Dead
Raimi brainstormed alternatives and settled on The Evil Dead as the 'least worst' option.
Q 07Where did Ash and his friends go to college, according to the original film's plot?
Michigan State University
Raimi and Tapert were themselves Michigan State students when they started planning a feature film.
Q 08Which two of Ash's companions in the first film are his girlfriend and his sister, respectively?
Linda and Cheryl
Cheryl is the first to be possessed after the trees attack her in the woods, and Ellen Sandweiss returned to voice her in the 2013 film.
Q 09Besides corn syrup and food colouring, what did Tom Sullivan add to The Evil Dead's fake blood?
Coffee
Gallons of the Karo-syrup mix were made, and it took Campbell hours to scrub the sticky stuff off himself.
Q 10What nickname, inspired by Raimi's Three Stooges fandom, was given to stand-ins replacing unavailable actors?
Fake Shemps
His brother Ted Raimi was a Fake Shemp many times before graduating to playing possessed Henrietta in the sequel.
Q 11Which future Oscar-winning filmmaker was an assistant editor on The Evil Dead, cutting the shed scene?
Joel Coen
He borrowed the prototype-short trick to raise money for Blood Simple, and stayed friends with Raimi.
Q 12In the UK, The Evil Dead was famously branded and banned as what kind of release in the 1980s?
A video nasty
Its video version was banned when the Video Recordings Act passed in 1984, and the fully uncut version was not passed until 2000.
Q 13What did Raimi call the camera-on-a-plank rig, carried by sprinting operators, that stood in for a Steadicam?
The shaky cam
Q 21To dodge an X rating, Evil Dead II was released unrated in the US through a shell company with what name?
Rosebud Releasing Corporation
Raimi designed and shot its logo himself: a rose blooming in time-lapse against a painted sky.
Q 22Where did Evil Dead II shoot its exteriors, using a Color Purple farmhouse as its office?
Wadesboro, North Carolina
De Laurentiis wanted them in his Wilmington studio, but the crew preferred to be three hours away from the producer.
Q 23At the end of Evil Dead II, Ash and his car are sucked through a vortex to which period?
The Middle Ages
Raimi ran through the swamp with it himself for the shots of the unseen force stalking the cabin.
Q 14Which studio gave The Evil Dead its wide US release in April 1983?
New Line Cinema
New Line released it into cinemas and onto VHS at the same time, an unusual move for the era.
Q 15The 1987 sequel was subtitled what in its publicity materials?
Dead by Dawn
Its opening recap quietly deletes Ash's friends from the first film; only he and Linda go to the cabin this time.
Q 16Which Italian producer funded the 1987 sequel after the author who championed the first film phoned him?
Dino De Laurentiis
He agreed within twenty minutes once he heard how well the first film had done in Italy, but insisted the sequel stay in the cabin rather than the Middle Ages.
Q 17In Evil Dead II, what does Ash attach to the stump of his right arm after cutting off his possessed hand?
A chainsaw
The prop was a real saw with its petrol engine swapped for a 12-volt motor, teeth filed down, and tobacco smoke pumped up Campbell's trouser leg.
Q 18Which Ernest Hemingway novel sits on top of the pile of books Ash uses to trap his severed hand?
A Farewell to Arms
The whole hand fight grew out of Attack of the Helping Hand, a teenage short by co-writer Scott Spiegel inspired by Hamburger Helper adverts.
Q 19Which horror villain's clawed glove hangs in the cabin's tool shed in Evil Dead II?
Freddy Krueger
It answered a scene in A Nightmare on Elm Street where Nancy dozes off watching The Evil Dead on television.
Q 20Who played the possessed Henrietta in Evil Dead II, sweating litres inside a full-body latex suit?
Ted Raimi
The sweat is visible on screen dripping out of the costume's ear as Henrietta spins over Annie's head.
That medieval premise was Raimi's original pitch for the sequel; De Laurentiis wanted a cabin film, so it waited for the third movie.
Q 24What model of car does Ash drive through all three original films?
Oldsmobile Delta 88
In Army of Darkness he uses the textbooks in the boot to build a steam-powered death machine out of it.
Q 25In Army of Darkness, what three-word phrase must Ash say to safely retrieve the Necronomicon?
Klaatu barada nikto
The phrase is lifted from the 1951 film The Day the Earth Stood Still; Ash mumbles and coughs his way through it and dooms the kingdom.
Q 26In Army of Darkness, Ash works at which department store?
S-Mart
By Ash vs Evil Dead thirty years later he has drifted through a series of dead-end jobs at branches of Value Stop instead.
Q 27Which line does Ash deliver after killing the Deadite in the store at the end of Army of Darkness?
Hail to the king, baby
The upbeat ending was reshot in a Malibu lumber store after Universal rejected Raimi's post-apocalyptic finale.
Q 28In Raimi's original, rejected ending for Army of Darkness, Ash oversleeps and wakes up where?
A post-apocalyptic London
He was supposed to swallow six drops of potion and took seven; Universal found it too depressing, and Raimi liked that both endings exist.
Q 29What was Army of Darkness's working title?
Medieval Dead
The final title was Irvin Shapiro's idea from back during Evil Dead II; the film is dedicated to him.
Q 30Who played Sheila, Ash's love interest in 1300 AD, in Army of Darkness?
Embeth Davidtz
Bridget Fonda appears too, in the reshot opening as Linda; Traci Lords auditioned but didn't get the part.