#my sister specifically went to a cabin out in the woods for the weekend because she is so tired and wants peace and quiet-

[transgaysex]

i hate my older sisters parents in law so muuuuucch

[nelllraiser]

catakitrophe | bex & nell

LOCATION: the vural residence PARTIES: @inbextween & @nelllraiser. SUMMARY: bex arrives to meet nell for ice cream. nell has other plans.  CONTAINS: domestic abuse (mention)

Nell, though pushy, was an easy person to get along with. Bex had never imagined she’d make friends with someone who witnessed her destroying-- well, not her, but close enough-- school property, but Nell hadn’t seemed to mind. And she hadn’t told anyone, so that was really good enough for Bex at the moment. She couldn’t deny she was lonely. Her parents tried to control every aspect of her life, including which friends she socialized with, but this somehow felt like something they couldn’t, something they didn’t know about, and Bex liked that idea. She could remember all the times she’s snuck out of the house a teenager, unlocking her locked window, and scaling down two stories. Her knees had always been scraped and bruised, but her parents dismissed it because she “had always been a clumsy child”. And she’d been happy enough to let them believe that. 

There were plenty of things Bex was happy to let her parents believe that weren’t true, but having something completely secret was still new. Ever since she’d been outed, she’d felt as if everything she wanted to keep for herself was suddenly bared in front of her. But Nell was, well-- different. No one but them knew about what happened. And so, despite Nell’s pushiness and her insistence that what had happened was magic-- and maybe, just maybe a teeny, tiny eency part of her believed that-- Bex found herself at the other girl’s house, staring up at the arched roof of the cabin like home. It was such a large house, hidden back here partially in the woods, glowing with something almost other-worldly. It took her a minute to raise her fist and knock, stepping back from the door and smoothing the frills of her dress down as she waited. Fixing her hair just as the door opened. “Hi! Hello! I-- I made it! It’s me, Bex. Your house is so big, I sort of didn’t expect it. Am I late?”

Apprehensive was the best way to describe how the week had gone for Nell while she was waiting to take Bex out to ice cream. The initial excitement of meeting a new witch had somewhat quelled in the face of realizing just how badly she could fuck this up. Bex needed guidance, a steady hand to show her the path of magic, and the last time Nell had tried to teach a form of magic hadn’t exactly gone...smoothly. Regan had balked when the witch had tried to teach the banshee how to glamour, panicking when Nell had made her fake wings disappear. Then the door to instruction had been shut, and Nell was determined not to make the same mistake with Bex. Beyond that was the worry that she might be ostracizing Bex by teaching her. Surely the right thing to do would be to hand Bex over to her old coven, and into the hands of witches who’d taught literal generations— Nell being one of them. But it was plain to see that Bex already struggled with control in her life, and Nell couldn’t help but think about how her mother was still on the board the coven, no doubt eager to get her hands on any fresh and young witch that came to learn. That was a fate Nell wouldn’t wish on anyone, so it seemed it was up to her. 

Brushing her doubts away, Nell clung to the excitement of seeing Bex again, greeting the girl with an eager wave and smile. “Hey! No! You’re perfect- I just finished feeding Taki, actually. I think he’s excited to meet you.” She’d already instructed the overgrown cat to be on his best behavior, and to do his best not to let loose any fireballs or soot sneezes in the presence of their visiting witch. Nevertheless, she wanted to let Bex get acclimated first before introducing a cat with eyes of fire. “Yeah- technically it’s my sister’s house but we all live here. Both my sisters and me.” Corpsey, Bea’s reanimated corpse, had been carefully hidden away as well amongst other alarmingly magical things, but there was still a healthy air of mysticism around the home as Nell waved Bex inside. “I can show you him before we get going for ice cream if you still wanna see him.”

“You have two sisters?” Bex said, astonished and excited. She’d always wanted a sister-- or even brother. Growing up alone in that big house of her parents’ had been lonely, and all the weight of their expectations had been firmly placed on Bex’s shoulders because of it as well. She glanced around as she stepped inside and looked down at Nell with a smile. “What’s that like? Living with them? Is it nice? Are you parents not in town?” She shuffled around awkwardly for a moment, unsure of what to do with herself, when Nell offered to let her meet Taki. “Oh! Yes! I’d love to! I’d love to meet Taki. I haven’t met many cats before, actually. People mostly have dogs, and my dad never let me have any pets growing up. Or...now.” She cleared her throat, rubbing the back of her head. Why was she nervous? Well, she supposed she was sort of always anxious. She stood behind Nell and waited for her to show them off to her cat, unable to help the nerves bubbling in her stomach. 

“Yeah! There’s Bea and Luce. They’re both older than me. I think they’re out somewhere right now, though.” To be honest, Nell had specifically chosen a time that she’d known her sisters wouldn’t be present for, wanting to have Bex all to herself for the moment being. “It’s fine living with each other. I mean obviously we fight sometimes, but it’s also nice not having to tiptoe around them like you might have to do with a normal roommate. And I can get into their closets whenever I want,” Nell finished with a grin. She was built smaller than her two sisters, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find ways to make their garments work if she really wanted to wear something of theirs. Magic was also good for temporarily resizing things if need be anyway.

The question about her parents made Nell internally wince, and she did her best to hide the tenseness that claimed her shoulders for a split second. “No, they live in White Crest. I was born here and grew up here, too.” There went Bex anxiously babbling again, but it was precious in a way that endeared Nell to her. “Don’t worry, I have a feeling Taki’s gonna like you. I’ll get him now for you.” Then she was calling the cat in a singsong voice mostly for Bex’s benefit. Normally she would have simply tugged on their mental bond to let him know he was needed, but with Bex present she was currently employing a strategy of ‘the less magic, the better’. Almost instantly, a black cat that had absolutely no right being as large as he was came down the stairs of the home, tail high in the air in a cat greeting. In truth he was an Ovinikk, a Shiba Inu sized beast, and Nell’s familiar...but Bex certainly didn’t need to know that. “Bex, this is Taki,” Nell said as she bent down to give Taki a pet. “And Taki- this is Bex.” The Ovinikk looked up at the new witch with a slow blink before settling himself on his back haunches, tail swishing curiously while he waited for Bex to make the first move.

“I always wanted a sibling,” Bex admitted, sighing fondly as Nell explained her living situation with them.It sort of sounded like an impossible dream-- living with people you didn’t have to tiptoe around. Not that Bex wasn’t grateful for all her parents had done for her, but she was finding it increasingly more difficult to hide her true self away from them. She felt...suffocated. Her throat dried up at the thought and she had to swallow hard to make it go away, concentrating back on Nell and the situation at hand. “You were? I was born here, too! And I guess technically I grew up here, but I went to a boarding school and even when I was here during the summers and holidays, my parents didn’t really let me off the grounds, so I only went into town on weekends with them or my nanny.” She realized she was rambling again and cleared her throat, giving an apologetic shrug.

“Sorry. Right. Yes! I’m ready to meet him!” She kept her eyes on Nell, trying not to be too nosy by looking around the house, but finding herself unable to quell her curiosity. The place had so many plants and art and objects hung on the walls, it was like something out of the ‘New Age Home Decor’ magazines her mom scoffed at. It was definitely a home someone who claimed to be a ‘witch’ would live in. It made Bex wonder if Nell’s sisters were also ‘witches’. But before she could think on it more, Nell was introducing her cat and Bex turned to look-- and almost jumped out of her skin, taking a large step backwards when she saw the massive black cat and its burning eyes. Wait, were they actually on fire?? A pot next to the door shattered as Bex inhaled sharply. “His-- I’m-- I’m sorry. He’s so-- big. How is he so big?” She looked at the shattered pot, then to Nell. “Are you-- is he okay? What’s wrong with his eyes?”

“Well- let me know when you’re really craving one, and you can borrow one of mine in a heartbeat. Especially if it’s when they’re annoying me,” Nell quipped with a crooked grin, her words easy. Plus it wouldn’t hurt for Bex to have more contact with witches in her future. “Really? How long were you at boarding school? That’s probably why I don’t remember you from public school or anything,” Nell mused aloud, vaguely wondering if Bex’s parents knew more about the girl’s magical prowess than she’d originally thought. Maybe that was why they’d sent the girl far away? “Sorry- I know he’s big.” The pot shattered and Nell barely flinched, though she did let a momentary grimace slip through her expression. This was only further proof that Bex was wound far too tight, a literal ticking time bomb just waiting to explode. She needed to learn how to harness her emotions before something more troublesome than a pot or computer exploded.

“It’s alright! It’s just a pot.” Her hands were open palmed and stretched in Bex’s direction, as if she were trying to make sure a skittish and wild animal would stay calm. “It’s his breed- they’re all big like that.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. “He’s perfectly happy! He’s just a very special cat.” The end of Nell’s words had a hint of a coo to them, always enjoying complimenting her familiar. Taki enjoyed it too, his whiskers twitching intelligently as he preened under his witch’s pride. “His eyes are another trait of his breed- that’s all.” Nell gave Taki a meaningful look, as if willing him to appear as non-threatening as possible. Their bond rang true as the Ovinikk flopped heavily onto his side, exposing a fluffy stomach to the pair of them. “You can pet him if you want.” The pot was still broken in the corner, and Nell wondered if this might be her chance to dip Bex into the world of magic that wasn't just breaking and destruction. “You know...you can fix the pot- if you want. It’s not hard, and it won’t hurt or anything.”

Bex stayed in her corner for a hot minute, observing the cat, and taking in Nell’s words. There were a lot of really strange animals in the world, it made sense that there were giant cats. Her eyes stayed trained on the large creature as it flopped over and slowly, she unfurled herself from the corner and took a step closer, glancing between Nell and the large cat. He looked so soft and fluffy, like velvet fur. She could remember digging her hands into a big, fluffy dog’s fur she’d met as a child once, and not wanting to let go. Only losing her grip when her mother pried her from the poor dog. “What um--” she felt her voice wavering and had to swallow again, staring wide-eyed at Taki. “What b-breed is he?” She was trying her best to stay calm, she didn’t want another pot to explode-- not that it was her doing or anything, of course it wasn’t! It was just the tension in the room, a total coincidence-- and possibly freak out the cat, or Nell. Slowly, she made her way over and bent down, still a fair distance from him, reaching out her hand to pet his back. “He’s so soft…” It almost felt strange, but if she didn’t look at his strange, glowing eyes, or the rest of his large, maned body, she could pretend he was a regular cat. Her eyes drifted back up to Nell. “I went to boarding school my whole life, until University,” she finally answered, not wanting to look back at the cat in case she had another freak out. Hands shaking, she stood back up and smoothed them down the front of her pants. “Fix the-- but I didn’t-- that’s not-- do you mean like with glue or something?”

Nell paused a moment before answering Bex’s question, realizing she was going to have to make a decision on exactly how truthful she was going to be when it came to the more magical things in her life. But the girl seemed to accept the explanation of a different breed, so perhaps Nell could test the limits a little. “He’s an Ovinikk,” Nell replied carefully, wondering if the other girl had ever heard a name such as that in her life. A part of her felt as if Bex might go home to Google it, and be apprehensive about the myths and legends she’d find. If she did, the best Nell could hope for was that Bex wouldn’t think she was insane, and still be willing to come back and learn. “He really likes his ears scratched,” she offered with a small smile, happy to see her familiar and Bex getting along. Taki stretched as Bex pet him, basking in the attention he was receiving. Initially, he hadn’t been too happy to learn of another human coming along and stealing away his witch’s attention, but if she kept petting him...perhaps she could stay. “Not with glue,” Nell began delicately, desperate not to scare off Bex. “But...fixing it like the computers were fixed. And the same way they got broken.” Maybe if she kept names out of this, it would all be a little less scary and detached— and easier to accept and explore.

“Ovinikk?” Bex repeated, raising a brow. She’d never heard of that breed before, but she hadn’t heard of a lot of breeds before. So she took the explanation at face value, and decided to look into it later. Because there was probably something weird about this breed that could be explained online, like why its eyes looked like they were on fire. She glanced back over at Nell as she bent down once again to scratch Taki’s ears as instructed. He seemed to be liking the attention, and she felt herself relaxing a little the longer she pet him. Her eyes fell on the shattered pieces of the pot as Nell started to explain. Without taking her eyes off, she tensed up a bit. “That-- that’s not possible,” she said quietly, still not looking up at Nell or down at Taki. Kept her eyes trained on the shattered remains. Could she really mend instead of break? Was that even possible? All she’d ever done her entire life was ruin and destroy. Was she really able to fix anything? “...Is it?” 

“Mhm,” Nell hummed her confirmation, trying not to linger too long on the foreign name. Hopefully Bex wouldn’t think it too strange. “That’s him.” While Bex scratched at his ears, Taki began to purr, apparently already reconsidering his bitterness of no longer being an only child if the new witch was going to give him this much attention. As Bex’s hope began to blossom before Nell’s very eyes, a stab of sympathy ran through the summoner. It was like watching a dying man chancing upon an oasis in the middle of a desert he’d been crawling for longer than he could remember, already having given up hope that he might ever find refuge. “It is possible,” Nell continued gently, still well aware that Bex was an unpredictable creature, and easily startled. “I could show you if you want. Putting them back together isn’t as easy as breaking things, but it’s definitely doable.” That just seemed to be the way of life, and magic followed a similar course. And a small pot would be the perfect place to start— small and simple. 

Bex paused her petting to look up at Nell, well aware of the pot still broken across the room. She didn’t want to admit that it had broken because of her, but it was becoming harder and harder to deny that all the strange things that happened around her were because of her. Hadn’t that been why her parents were so desperate to send her away? Strange things happened in White Crest, especially around her. Whatever it was, it wasn’t normal, and all they ever wanted was a normal child, a normal daughter. She couldn’t give them either of those things, though, could she? Slowly, she stood back up. “And you...can show me how?” she asked quietly, almost shamefully. She was tired of breaking everything-- of breaking herself, her life, her parents’ trust. She wanted to mend something. She wanted control of something in her life. Even if it wasn’t something she wanted or understood or even believed.

“I can show you how, and teach you how to do it yourself. It’s not like riding a bike or something, though. It takes focus and determination. But it’s also just as simple as wanting something, and letting yourself have it.” Nell forced herself to stop talking, worried she might lose Bex at any moment with all her hippy witchy talk. Thankfully she’d at least had a blink of experience with speaking to someone who waslearning magic later in life as opposed to being reared on it in the form of Winston. Unfortunately on the opposite hand Nell didn't have the luxury of Bex believing in magic as her childhood friend did. Nell edged closer to where the pot had broken before sitting herself in front of it, patting the floor alongside her as an invitation to Bex. “Come sit with me, and we can get you fixing things in no time.” Looking up at the girl, Nell began her first line of questioning. “So when things...break- how do you feel leading up to it?”

Wanting something and letting herself have it. Now there was something Bex knew absolutely nothing about. Because the one time she’d given in to letting herself have what she wanted, her business had been blasted around the school publicly and her parents had found out and it had been probably one of the worst days of her life. Still, she stuttered forward towards where Nell patted the ground, glancing back at Taki once, and finding herself wanting to stay with the strange cat much more than she wanted to sit on the floor next to Nell and “fix” a pot with “magic”, or whatever she was going to call it. Still...she couldn’t deny her own curiosity. Whatever had been going on around her, if Nell had a way to fix it, then Bex wanted to know. Because she wanted it to stop, she wanted to be able to fix her messes. Maybe then her parents would be proud of her. Maybe then they’d tell her she was good enough. She sat down slowly and looked over at Nell. “Umm-- usually scared o-or anxious. Or upset. Or paranoid. Or confused. Or--” she paused, frowned, “--pretty much anything but happy or excited. No, actually-- it happened when I was excited once, too. All the windows shattered in the house because I was really excited about going somewhere with my parents and then they said it was my fault so we couldn’t go anymore and they lock-- put me in my room for the rest of the day while they got the windows fixed.” A pause, as she realized she hadn’t taken a breath in a second. “Um...So, yeah. Mostly when I’m anxious, I guess?”

Nell nodded as Bex spoke, not surprised by what she was saying in the least. Magic could be triggered by most any strong emotion, but if one felt as if they were in danger, whether the threat be physical or something intangible— magic was more than ready to take to the defense of its vessel. “The problem is- you’re letting your emotions control you. People always talk about controlling emotions as if you’re supposed to dampen them down, or get rid of them entirely. But that’s not what it is when it comes to things like this. You can let yourself feel the emotions all you want, but you just can’t let them overwhelm you. You can give them a path to take, guidance through sheer will that results in you taking hold of them rather than the other way around. If you try and smother the emotions then they just get stronger, bottling up until-” Nell motioned towards the broken pot, figuring that was a good enough representation of the metaphorical bottle literally bursting open. “But you can make them work for you.” She leaned forwards to gather the bigger pieces of the pot closer together, putting them in a little pile in front of Bex. “Think of how you felt when the pot broke, and let yourself feel it again but gather it within you. And then you just...let it out. You let them out to make way for the new feelings that will come after the pot’s been fixed. You take hold of the little spark you feel when things break around you, pair it with a strong intention to fix the pot, and let the emotions power that intention. There’s no room to wonder whether the pot’s gonna be fixed or not. It just will be, and you’re gonna make it that way. The anxiety, the fear- all that stuff has to go so there’s room for what comes after, and you use those feelings to fix the pot and let the new stuff come in.”

Bex sat and listened while Nell talked. She was trying her best to absorb what Nell was saying, but a lot of it made it into her head rattled around like cymbals. She had no idea how to make sense of them, no one had ever taught her how to manage her feelings before. Pushing them down was how she managed them. But she had to try, right? If she wanted any chance at normalcy, she had to try. If she could fix her messes-- or better yet, figure out how to stop them from happening in the first place-- then she could stop worrying so much. She actually just...be normal. Or as normal as someone like her could get. Whatever was causing this-- and it surely wasn’t magic-- would be over. It had to be. 

“Okay, I-- I think I get it,” she said slowly, adjusting herself to a more comfortable position and looking down at the broken pot pieces. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember what Nell told her. She tried to recall the feeling of fear and anxiety when she first saw Taki. On how strange he had looked, on how not normal it was to have a cat that large with eyes that looked like actual fire. She felt it hiccup in her chest and than spread through her entire body, the more she thought about it. It made her fingers tingle and her tongue feel numb. She felt a rattling inside of her and tried her hardest to focus on fixing the pot. Fixing her mess. Fixing the problem she created. She felt a rush of something inside of her, like energy, like warm cocoa when you drink it on a cold night and can feel it sinking into your stomach and spreading through your body. And when she opened her eyes next-- the pot was fixed. “Oh hashem!” she exclaimed, excitement pouring out of her as she pointed at the fixed pot. “How’d that-- Did I do-- It worked!”

Had her explanation been too muddled? Or maybe it had strayed too close to the hippy dippy witch-talk that was the true root of most magic. It wasn’t Nell’s fault that the very essence of their abilities was tied so strongly to intentions, life, and its emotions. Either way, Nell was only tentatively optimistic as Bex confirmed her understanding, believing it too good to be true that her first lesson might actually stick. But as the pieces of the pot fused together in perfect conjunction, not a seam or crack to be seen on its surface— Nell’s heart soared, and wasted no time in joining Bex’s celebration. “You did it!” she exclaimed with a jubilant laugh, arms thrown over her head with exuberation. “It worked! Oh Bex- this is amazing. That was amazing! You did so well! I knew you could!” Gone was the tentative nature of her previous teachings, wild abandon taking its place as joy and pride swept aside any sense of speaking carefully so as not to scare Bex out of this whole ‘magic’ thing. There was no time for such things when the witch had done her first intentional magic! This was a momentous occasion in any witch’s life, perhaps even more important than uttering one’s first words, and Nell had been privy to the gift of guiding Bex through it and bearing witness.

Nell’s excitement made something flutter inside of Bex that she hadn’t felt in a long time-- someone was proud of her. She’d done something to make someone happy and excited and before she knew it, she was bubbling with tears. Amazing, she had said. Something she had done was amazing. And she tried not to think too hard about what it was that she had done, because now another thought was rising in her throat and oh hashem-- what had she done!? Bex’s happy tears turned into a gurgle and she dropped the pot and it shattered again and she shrieked, “I’m sorry!” And then next to them, the lamp flickered on and off, and on the shelf next to it, books fell from their spots. “I-I’m sorry! I don’t know what-- I didn’t mean to-- This isn’t real, right? This isn’t real.” She pressed her hands over her ears, too much noise. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--” She knew it couldn’t be true, she knew it couldn’t be that easy. She always destroyed more than she fixed. That was just who she was.

The tears that fell from Bex were the very definition of bittersweet. One on hand- Nell was overjoyed that she was finally finding release, the gentle crying seeming to have something of a cathartic effect on the girl in front of her. On the other hand...it was heartbreaking to see how something so simple as fixing a pot could give Bex cause for such desperate relief. Bex deserved better than to carry around such a weight on her shoulders, a heaviness that seemingly broke her whether it was being added to in the event of a magical accident, or lifted when she managed to fix her mistakes. But just as quickly as Bex’s joy had come it seemed to shatter before Nell’s very eyes along with the pot. “No, no- it’s okay! Really, it’s alright!” Nell paid little attention the mess Bex was making, not concerned in the least when she’d be able to fix it with a simple spell. Still...Nell didn’t exactly want to encourage the destruction of the house, so she reached out to place a careful hand on Bex’s shoulder, trying to calm the girl. “What if we just go outside? My garden’s out there by my greenhouse- and we could do some meditation.” Hopefully that would calm the younger witch, and it doubled as another lesson in magical application. Not that Nell would mention that particular tidbit. “We could do dynamic meditation- that’s what I always did. I’m really shitty at sitting still so it’s like meditation where you move. Not like the boring stuff where you just sit there.” Hopefully the movement would also help to relieve Bex’s anxieties. 

Whatever had happened, Bex wanted out. Away. And Nell was offering that. She had put her hand on her shoulder and she didn’t even seem to be noticing all the stuff that was breaking again. Bex felt like her entire body was shuddering as she tried to concentrate on what Nell was saying. A garden, meditation, moving. She just nodded through her stupor, trying not to think about what had just happened here. Not about Taki and his weird eyes, or the broken pot, or the fact that she’d done something that had fixed it. And oh, if her parents knew what she’d done, what a mess she’d just made, they’d be so disappointed. She was nodding again through her shuddering and as they stood, she clung to Nell as if her life depended on it. She hated this, every moment of it. Why couldn’t she just be normal? Be good? Be right? Why couldn’t she just be what they wanted her to be? The disappointment flooded her chest and she tried her best to hold onto it and not let the energy explode out of her like her fear and her anxiety often did. “Garden is good,” she finally managed to squeak out, “I like gardens.” And it was one of the things she was allowed to like, and so a sense of calm followed the admission, and her grip on Nell’s hand loosened. She stole a small glance back towards the house and thought that, maybe, just maybe, having control wouldn’t be so bad.

[thedeaditeslayer]

Living with the Cult Legacy of Evil Dead.

Here’ s a recent interview with Ellen Sandweiss by Den of Geek that discusess The Evil Dead, current cinema, and feminism.

We chat with Ellen Sandweiss, who played Ash Williams' damned sister in The Evil Dead, about a horror legacy nearly 40 years on.

Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead franchise seems to have had at least nine bloody lives. First was the original 1981 movie that propelled lead actor Bruce Campbell and director Sam Raimi to cult cinema stardom, and then there were the sequels (The Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness), the 2013 remake, and even a cable TV show via Ash vs Evil Dead. These low budget efforts, originally labeled as “video nasties” in the UK, became a refuge for film aficionados to revel in macabre humor, bad puns, and practical disembowelment effects that rivaled Tom Savini’s best work.

Less lauded though is the coven of women in the original feature that Campbell’s Ash battles to the death and beyond. In The Evil Dead, Ash drives to the remote cabin in the woods with his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker), a few friends, and his sister Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) for their spring break. Cheryl’s character is the first to notice something awry upon their arrival, the first to suffer at the hands of the demonic entity in the now (in)famous tree rape scene, and the first to be seized by the demonic entity’s possession.

It is really Cheryl’s character on which so much of the narrative’s propulsive force hinges. As a result, she exercises her acting chomps adroitly. Whether frantically attempting to convince her brother and friends that “it was the woods themselves! They’re alive!” or cautiously traversing the dark forest with the whites of her bulging eyes, Sandweiss showcases both Cheryl’s humanity and her intense fear. When she embraces her possession, pus-filled and pawing at hapless Ash, she recalls the witch from Anne Sexton’s poem “Her Kind,” which details a lonely, twelve-fingered evil. “A woman like that is not a woman, quite.”

Sandweiss also was the first non-Campbell actor to reprise a role in the series when she appeared in Ash vs Evil Dead Season 2. Den of Geek spoke with Sandweiss about her acting career, her work with Campbell and Raimi, TimesUp, and if the tree scene would be shot the same way in 2019 as it was almost 40 years ago in the backwoods of Tennessee.

What got you interested in acting? What led to your getting the part of Cheryl in The Evil Dead?

I acted in school plays and local theatre starting in middle school. I come from a very artsy family and was involved in music and dance as well. Then I went to high school in suburban Detroit with Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell and was in plays with them. They had been making super 8 movies since they were in their early teens, so I was often in those movies as a teenager. I then went to college at the University of Michigan where I majored in theatre, and during one summer, we made “Within the Woods,” a short film that Bruce and Sam made to garner interest and money from investors in order to make their first feature film, Book of the Dead, which then became The Evil Dead. Once they had raised the funds, I took a semester off college in ’79 to 80 and we shot the film in Tennessee.

What was your experience like on the set of The Evil Dead? Do you have a favorite memory of shooting the original?

My experience making The Evil Dead was mixed. Of course it was exhilarating at age 20 to be off making a feature film, and the “boys” [Raimi, Campbell, and producer Rob Tapert] were a lot of fun. But the budget was tiny, and it wasn’t a union film, so the conditions were harsh and everyone on the set was very inexperienced. We were all in our early 20s and for many it was our first experience making a feature film. At the Tennessee cabin where we shot most of the film, we had no electricity, no plumbing and no running water—need I say more?

Could you have anticipated, at that time, the kind of cult following that film would have especially with both the remake and TV show?

I could never have anticipated the eventual cult status of the film. When we made The Evil Dead, there was no video rental, no streaming, etc. So films, if they were distributed at all, would end up either at a first-run theater or at a B-movie theater or drive-in, which was where our film landed. Honestly, when we were shooting the film, I thought (and hoped) it would never actually be seen. Then, after a few years, it was released and then it disappeared. I forgot about it and went on with school, then graduate school in arts administration, followed by management jobs in non-profits.

It was when video rentals were born, a few years later, that people started becoming interested in Evil Dead, followed by multiple releases on VHS, then DVD, laser disc, Blu-ray, etc. I didn’t actually realize it had a cult following until around 2001 when my teenaged daughter’s geeky friends started talking about it and ED t-shirts were appearing at local film and comic memorabilia shops. Then we had a 20-year reunion screening, and it was after that that the other two actresses and I started making convention appearances as “Ladies of the Evil Dead.”

What was it like revisiting Cheryl as a character when you did two episodes of Ash vs. Evil Dead?

Revisiting Cheryl in Ash vs the Evil Dead was a hoot! At that point they had a big budget, union rules and lots of experience under their belts, so it was a lot more comfortable. It was fun acting again with Bruce, whom I’ve remained friends with all these years, and of course it was wonderful getting to see New Zealand, where we shot the episodes.

Do you think the tree scene from Evil Dead would be filmed in the same way today as it was done then?

Yes, I’m sure that the tree scene would be done differently if it was filmed today. First, I’m not sure that it would be characterized as a “tree rape,” as Sam has since said he regrets that it ended up that way. I think it would have gone back to what was originally intentioned in the script: trees coming to life and attacking Cheryl, which would also satisfy today’s more feminist audiences (and actresses!). And I’m sure that CGI would be used instead of the reverse-filming, or whatever it’s called, to show vines wrapping around me.

What is it like coming back 35 years later on the show and actually exploring a sibling dynamic?

It was great fun to do Ash vs Evil Dead all these years later and visit the earlier lives of Cheryl and Ash in their family home. In the original film, I believe there was only one line referring to their relationship (“it’s your sister Cheryl!”), and if you missed that you were probably wondering what this weird morose girl was doing on a party weekend with these two college couples! In Ash vs. ED, fighting with Bruce took sibling rivalry to a new level—I loved taunting him and I always enjoy filming a good fight scene. Of course he was the star, so he had to win in the end, but I did enjoy my final words, emanating from my decapitated head on the ground: “Not again....” We actually played around with some other final words—I thought, “Mom always liked you best” would be funny, but nobody seemed to agree with me!

Many people are saying that the horror genre is having a renaissance with hits like Us and Hereditary. What do you think it is about horror that has audiences continually returning to it?

I admittedly am not a horror expert by any stretch of the imagination. I normally don’t watch horror films, but I did watch Us because I love everything Jordan Peele does. I liked it because for the most part it didn’t focus only on blood and guts—there were actually well-formed characters and a message. I think that certain people will always want to explore their dark side, and horror films allow them to do that in a safe space. I also think some people simply like the adrenalin rush they get from being scared.

In the past few years, there's been a lot of discussion around the representation of women on screen. A lot of this conversation seems to be fueled by #MeToo and #TimesUp movement. What’s been your impression of the shifts being made in Hollywood?

I love the shifts being made and hope that they continue to shift even more. Everything about the women’s movement, MeToo, TimesUp, etc. can only make our choices in entertainment better. My daughter is an actress, and I like the improvement of the roles that are available to her. Of course we need more female producers, writers, and directors, and I wish that was happening a little more quickly.

What films have been most exciting to you as an audience member in the past few years?

I’m such a film enthusiast that I really can’t name specific films. But in general, I’m drawn mostly to indie films that make me think, laugh, and cry, and films that cast women in interesting roles.

Do you have any new roles or projects coming up that you can speak about?

No, I’m pretty much retired at this point, although sometimes I will come out of the closet and do a play. Mostly I’m having fun watching the acting careers of my daughter Jessy Hodges and her husband Beck Bennett blossom!

[unclefestive]

A true story about where I spend my summers

So I was going to post this on the @sixpenceee​ story contest thing but I never got my confirmation email so here goes, I’m gonna post it here. 

Trigger warning: Blood and Gore

This story is true. There might be some details I got wrong, but this is stuff that I have grown up seeing.

I don’t have a title for it, so here goes.

I wouldn’t say I scare easily. I grew up in the city. First 10 years in lower Manhattan, ever since then in Brooklyn. I see myself as tougher than the average kid. I spent my summers in a small lake community up in westchester, and I used to go to camp and interact with the locals, so I think I can say with good authority that city kids are tougher.

I know a lot of people say “Oh this story is true,” and then talk about some crazy encounter with a ghost or a demon or something, and you’re sitting there thinking “Wow, I’m spooked, but there’s no way that was real.” I’m telling you in all honesty this is a real story. It actually only happened a couple days ago, so if there’s any updates I’ll be sure to let you know.

So this aforementioned summer community is surrounded by some woods, especially the houses up the hill. We’ve had a lot of animals turn up dead because of a coyote or something. Once we even had a moose running around during the winter when the park was closed. I heard it got run over out on the highway before the season started.

My friends like to joke that this community is like a cult. It’s a really tight knit group of people. Don’t really like outsiders. I remember once I was the main topic of discussion because I brought outside friends up a couple weekends, and that made everyone angry. People I never even talked to confronted my parents about it. A lot of these people don’t have much to do other than sit around and gossip, so nothing really stays a secret. Over the years, there have been some weird occurances.

Like for one, Women’s underwear started going missing. It wasn’t like sexy underwear either. It was tennis underwear, spanx, stuff like that. And it was all stolen from these old ladies. That was probably around 10 years ago. I remember there was a boy, Jack, around my sister’s age (3 or 4 years older than me) who was renting a bungalow that summer. He couldn’t have been older than 11, but because he was an outsider everyone blamed him and basically ran his family out of the community. Needless to say, we never heard from them again. I don’t know if the thefts stopped after he was gone, all I know is that my Dad never believed it was him. I was like 7, I don’t even remember the kid’s face. I couldn’t really grasp what my neighbors did to him, or how it must have made him feel.

Another one was more recently, 3 or 4 years ago. A family came up for the first weekend of the season (I believe there were renovations going on in the park all winter, but not in their house) to find all of the wife’s shampoos and soaps missing, and on their bed a big black dildo. The dildo was sent to the police to try to get a DNA signature off it, but because nothing valuable was stolen, the local police didn’t see it as a priority. There weren’t any signs of forced entry, and the only point of access was a small window that a person couldn’t fit through. People theorized that someone could have opened the window and thrown the dildo onto the bed, but that wouldn’t explain the missing soaps. It’s still a puzzler, and there wasn’t a renter for people to blame.

On top of these weird things, the other kids and I were always convinced the place was haunted. Living in the city, you don’t get to experience any ghosts. In movies and TV it’s always the cabin deep in the forest, or the house on top of the hill that has the demon. Suburbia is haunted to shit. The city is different. You hearing strange footsteps? It’s your upstairs neighbor. Banging on the walls? That’s the couple next door. Everything has a logical explanation when everyone lives in apartments. In the community, our imaginations could run wild. Something going bump in the night had to be the ghost of a disgraced Native American chief, or a homeless man who wandered into the social hall and died. We started a Ghost hunting club and signed our names on the wall. It later turned into the biking club and I was forced out of it. Politics.

Everything that happened we blamed on ghosts. One day there was a huge hole in the door of the boat house that hadn’t been there the day before, that was a ghost. We found an old ornately carved knife propping open a window, that for sure had to be ghosts. The most haunted part, at least to us, was the stairwell to the bathroom.

The downstairs bathroom was absolutely terrifying. I never went in there for fear that my soul would be dragged down to the underworld, or something. It was dark and dirt and smelly, and the worst part was the door leading to the outside with a giant hole at the bottom, big enough for a human to crawl through. A couple years back they renovated it, now it isn’t so scary. It’s actually pretty nice. There’s art on the walls and shit.

During one ghost hunting expedition, we came upon the stairwell door and stopped. We had all collectively decided it was haunted already, so it seemed like the logical place to look. One boy, Jason (I’m changing all the named to maintain privacy), turned to me.

“Ava, you go investigate it.”

Jason was never very nice to me. A lot of the people in the park are related, and I’m not related to anyone but my sister. I think that made me an outsider, and you know how they feel about them. I couldn’t have been older than 7 years old, and I had this really active imagination, so naturally I was the Shaggy of the group. I might have well said “Zoinks!” and refused to do it unless I got a scooby snack. I guess because he was always mean to me, I felt this urge to please him, so I just agreed and walked into the dark.

Well, that was a mistake. As soon as I was in there, Jason shut the door behind me and had his cousins help him hold the door. These were three boys, each 2-3 years older than me, all with 6 packs. I was 80 pounds soaking wet, I had no muscle and I looked like a bobblehead, there was no way I could overpower them. The darkness quickly got to me. At first I was banging on the door, but after about 15 seconds I realized that was fruitless. I curled up in a ball and started screaming and crying, the terror seized every bone in my body. I couldn’t move, I could barely breathe. I realized later that it was my first ever panic attack.

I have some mental health issues. I have anxiety and depression and ADD, so I get panic and anxiety attacks a lot now. I know how to deal with them. When I was a kid I remember not being able to breathe sometimes and hearing people call out my name, and now I know that I was just having panic attacks. When I start hearing voices that aren’t there I know what’s going on, but back then I believed that it was ghost calling out to me. I used to sleep fully under the covers out of fear.

That day in the stairwell, I didn’t hear a voice. I heard footsteps. Creaking footsteps coming up the stairs towards me. I’ve never hallucinated sounds like that, or at least I haven’t yet. So I can’t say whether or not that place is really haunted, all I know is that my mental instability caused me to believe it was until I was 16, when I found out what the voices actually were.

So yeah, weird shit has happened in the past, but nothing compares to what happened this weekend.

Well, I found out about it this weekend. Best guess, it’s been happening for weeks.

There’s a woman (the Grandmother of Jason) who lives kinda on the edge of the woods. She’s found dead animals out by her house before, like I mentioned, we’ve got coyotes. The last 3 were different.

I’m not sure what order she found them in, but there were 3 little animals (could be bunnies could be something else, I don’t know the specifics) that didn’t look like they were eaten by an animal, they looked like they were murdered.

I’m no animal expert, but I’m pretty sure that Coyotes don’t commit murder, they kill to eat. These bunnies weren’t missing any meat.

One had its throat slit, a clean cut, like with a knife.

One had its head severed from its body. I’m not sure if it was chopped off or ripped off, but it was no longer connected.

The last one seems the most gruesome to me. The poor animal’s heart had been torn out. The thing had no other injuries, just a bloody hole where its heart should have been.

You always hear stories of serial killers as kids, they would murder little animals and keep trophies. So at first, I thought it was a little budding serial killer. I guess I was just happy it wasn’t me.

A little background: I’m a bit obsessed with serial killers. I’ve stated that If I was raised in a less stable environment, I would already have a body count. When I watched Dexter I got a little jealous.

So yeah, I guess it could be a baby Gacy. There is another option.

There’s this legend that exists in the park. We all think it was just something that Jason’s Grandfather made up. Or, at least, thought. I’m not so sure anymore.

Jason, his two sisters, and his two cousins used to camp out every memorial day weekend (Sunday to Monday) in search of the Memorial Day Monster.

His parents, his uncle, and his grandfather used to talk about the monster a lot. The story goes that the park used to be owned by one couple and their son. They had a house near the top of the hill, and none of the trees had been cleared out yet so they were surrounded by woods. There wasn’t another house for miles, this was early 20th century, maybe even 19th. I never got a good timeline.

One memorial day, the boy went out exploring. He did this a lot, so there wasn’t much for his parents to worry about. Only this time when he went out, he tripped on a branch, tumbled down a steep hill, and blacked out. When he came to, he found himself in a completely dark and unknown part of the forest to him, with his leg bent at an awful angle. He called out, screamed for help. No one came for him.

Reports vary as to whether or not his parents gathered a search party. Some tellings say they were too busy to care that he was gone. Some say they searched night and day until their eventual deaths.

Reports also vary as to what exactly turned that boy into a monster. He began to live off the land, like an animal. His hair grew long and matted, his teeth became large and sharp, his leg healed in that same position, causing his posture to change and have him run on all fours. It is also said that he can run at incredible speeds. His eyes are said to be completely covered in cataracts, but he is still able to see better than any human, he can also smell your fear from a mile away.

One year Jason received a letter allegedly from the monster. I don’t even remember what it said, I’m sure it was stupid, but it was written in blood. I’m pretty sure that was his Grandpa messing around. I was always sure it was his Grandpa messing around.

I started thinking it couldn’t be a coincidence that these animals were left in front of that house. His Grandpa lives there, his Grandpa is the one that began telling all the stories.

I don’t think I’ll ever find out the truth. Is it a little kid practicing his knife skills? Is it the Memorial Day Monster?

If so, I think the message is clear.

Stop Looking.