Costume Designer Sarah Voon Talks Fashioning the Evil Dead; New Behind-the-Scenes Stills
Fancy Dress Costumes
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Our friends across the pond at Fancy Dress Costumes recently sat down with Evil Dead costume designer Sarah Voon to discuss the various costumes and look of the characters in the flick. Even cooler? They were kind enough to send over their Q&A for you cats. Dig it!
Check out the goods below, and big thanks to Martin Delaney at Fancy Dress Costumes!
Question: Were you a fan of the original Evil Dead films?
Sarah Voon: I used to love horror in my youth, so I had seen all the greats from the ’80s including the original Evil Dead, which I found truly terrifying at the time.
Question: How much of your job revolved around making the cast look as unglamorous/beaten up as possible?
Sarah Voon: I’d say 80%. All the costumes were aged and taken back a notch or two, so nothing was ‘box fresh’ to start with. When the action starts, all the costumes go through increasingly distressed stages and we did a lot of research, testing various items for a totally realistic representation of what would happen to each fabric with each new situation.
Question: Did director Fede Alvarez (above) have specific ideas for the costumes?
Sarah Voon: Fede knows what he likes when he sees it, and I had strong ideas about the characters’ clothing as soon as I read the script. When I presented my ideas, he tweaked a few things but we pretty much went with the original designs. One thing he was keen on was for the film to feel as timeless as possible without being bland, and also to never compensate for the various rigs and prosthetics required by obviously disguising them with costume. That was an awesome challenge.
Question: Did you use any other horror movies for inspiration?
Sarah Voon: I only really looked at the original Evil Dead trilogy. The rest of my inspiration manifested in the way I always develop characters’ costuming, by researching where they live, what they do for a job, what music, TV or films they watch and listen to, how they grew up and whether interesting pieces of clothing from their past might make it into their closets today. And, of course, what they would realistically wear for a few days away at a cabin the woods…
Question: Jane Levy goes through hell in the film. Did she find the costumes challenging?
Sarah Voon: Jane was an absolute trooper! She did find the situations she was in challenging, and I’m sure the costumes didn’t help, although I feel she used the discomfort to produce an incredible performance. We filmed through the winter and at night, and some of the costumes were on the skimpy side, but she hardly ever complained and was entirely up for it!
Question: How closely did you work with the special effects/make-up effects departments?
Sarah Voon: Incredibly closely, in fact all of my initial creative meetings were with those departments as we conceptualised the practical requirements of each rig within each character’s costume. There were tiny concessions made, but these were generally in the special construction of some garments, and not in the look of the costumes.
Question: Was it difficult to get the blood-soaked costumes off at the end of the day?
Sarah Voon: Sometimes! Fake blood is very sticky and some garments can dry with a consistency like cardboard. Luckily I had a very dedicated and experienced on-set team who managed the changes and actor comfort expertly.
Question: Should we expect to see any nods back to the Bruce Campbell costumes of the original Evil Dead films?
Sarah Voon: I guess there are a couple, but you’ll have to watch and see if you can pick them!
Read our Evil Dead review here!
Related News: Everything About the Evil Dead Remake
Ghost House Pictures is producing the much anticipated remake of The Evil Dead, the film that effectively launched the careers of Sam Raimi (Spider-Man franchise, Darkman, Drag Me to Hell), Rob Tapert (30 Days of Night), and Bruce Campbell, who played the Ash character and was co-producer of the original. They are now back to produce an Evil Dead for today’s audience that’s high on the horror, gore, plot twists, and more from a screenplay written by Fede Alvarez and Rodo Sayagues with Diablo Cody. Executive producers are J.R. Young, Nathan Kahane, Joseph Drake, and Peter Schlessel.
Evil Dead has been rated R for “strong bloody violence and gore, some sexual content and language. Look for it in theatres on April 5th, 2013.
A core cast of young, fresh talent includes Jane Levy (“Suburgatory”) as Mia; Shiloh Fernandez (Deadgirl, Red Riding Hood) as David; Lou Taylor Pucci (Carriers) as Eric; Jessica Lucas (Cloverfield) as Olivia; and Elizabeth Blackmore (Legend of the Seeker) as Natalie.
Synopsis
In the much anticipated remake of the 1981 cult-hit horror film, five twenty-something friends become holed up in a remote cabin. When they discover a Book of the Dead, they unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the nearby woods, which possess the youngsters in succession until only one is left intact to fight for survival.
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