Evil Dead II – Filming Locations

Evil Dead II was shot on a shoestring budget in Anson County, North Carolina, in the summer of 1986. Sam Raimi’s team also picked up some reshoots in Michigan, but the bulk of the film, cabin and all, came out of a small patch of land outside Wadesboro. A lot of it is gone now, but the ground is still there.

The cabin soundstage

J.R. Faison Junior High School, Wadesboro, NC

The production rented out the gym of this junior high, which had gone out of use, and built the two-story cabin set right inside it for about $500 a month. It let Raimi’s crew rig the camera rigs and wire gags the cabin needed without worrying about weather. The building has sat abandoned for years and has become something of a dumping ground, though fans still track it down.

The farmhouse

Diggs Road and Hollywood Road, near Wadesboro, NC

This white farmhouse, a few miles east of Wadesboro, served as the production’s home base, and the exterior cabin set was built on the same property. The same farmhouse also turns up in The Color Purple, filmed around the same time.

The finale, in the pits

Bonsal Ballast Pits, Lilesville, NC

The medieval castle Ash falls into at the end of the film is a plywood facade, mounted on power poles on a hill above these quarry pits off Highway 74, and shot from down inside the pit to sell the scale.

The opening tunnel

Fryingpan Tunnel, Blue Ridge Parkway, near Canton, NC

The shot right after the opening titles, of Ash driving out of a mountain tunnel, was filmed here. The tunnel dates to 1930 and sits high in the Blue Ridge Mountains, one of twenty-six along the parkway.

A few other Anson County spots turn up in behind-the-scenes footage, including the Anson County Airport and the water tower in Lilesville, though neither has been tied to a specific shot on screen.