The Evil Dead is an American horror film franchise created by Sam Raimi. The films focus on the protagonist, Ashley J. "Ash" Williams, played by Bruce Campbell, who deals with "Deadites", which are undead antagonists created by the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. The original series includes The Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead II (1987), and Army of Darkness (1992). The franchise has since expanded into other formats such as video games and comic books. A musical opened in Toronto in 2003 containing material from all three films, and a remake of the first film is currently in development and due for release in 2013.

In January 1979 Bruce Campbell was a college dropout who had just quit his job as a taxicab driver. Sam Raimi was studying literature at Michigan State University with Robert Tapert finishing his economics degree. While putting the finishing touches on It's Murder! Tapert suggested doing a feature length film to Raimi. Raimi felt it to be impossible citing that they could never pull off the funding. Campbell didn't mind stating that "I could always move back home." Tapert was fearing that he would become an expert in fisheries/wildlife while Raimi was afraid that he would go back to work at his dad's home furnishing store. These were the practical reasons that convinced the three to put forth a feature length film. The three were highly supportive fans of the comedy genre, though they decided not to do such a film as they felt "a feature-length yuck fest just didn't compute." To do the film as a horror was put forth after they were inspired by a well noted scene from It's Murder. This moved Raimi to write the short film Clockwork. The three felt the end result was very effective and represented a new direction that their films could take, that of a semi-successful horror film.