Horror Movies and Games: An Uneasy Alliance

Word of "The Evil Dead' began to spread among horror fans in the early 1980s, and it didn't take long for a video game adaptation to be made. After the movie saw its widespread release in 1983 (the movie was first shown in 1981 but wasn't distributed until two years later), British game developer Palace Software released The Evil Dead video game a year later for the Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum. After the "Evil Dead" series became more popular with 1987's "Evil Dead 2" and more so with 1993's "Army of Darkness," THQ picked up the franchise rights and released Evil Dead: Hail to the King in 2000 for the PlayStation, Dreamcast and PC. In 2003, THQ released another title called Evil Dead: Fistful of Boomstick, which had Bruce Campbell reprising his role as Ash.

Evil Dead: Hail to the King for the PlayStation was the first of three THQ titles based on the horror movie series.

Neither game was well-received by fans or critics, but THQ gave the series a third shot with Evil Dead: Regeneration, which also featured Campbell as well as Sam Raimi's brother Ted as the voice of Ash's sidekick. The game is considered to be the best of Evil Dead games, but it still wasn't a critical or commercial success. Tapert received a supervisor credit for Regeneration but confesses he had little to do with the game.

DAVID KONOW: Did you have any involvement in the Evil Dead games?

ROBERT TAPERT: No, not really. I think they've done four of them.

DAVID KONOW: What's your take on them?

ROBERT TAPERT: You know, a couple of them weren't very well realized. The last one with Bruce and a little half Deadite sidekick [Evil Dead: Regeneration] made me laugh, so I thought that was humorous and in the tone of "Army of Darkness." I'm not a huge videogame player/fan, so I'm the wrong guy to ask that question.

Evil Dead: Regeneration, featuring Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi, is often regarded as the best Evil Dead game yet.

DAVID KONOW: Were you asked to be involved in the games?

ROBERT TAPERT: I think that's not what we do. I have to say, the first one and the last one, [the publishers] came and asked questions. I think Bruce was probably more actively involved in some of them. Sam's been so busy now for seven years with the "Spider-man" franchise. If you really wanted to be involved in the creation of a videogame, you have to set aside six, nine months or a year of your time to be an integral part of that. There are so many decisions and so much leading the team in the same way as it is making a movie. Leading the team as to what this wants to be, getting everyone thinking along the same lines and having the flexibility to get what each of those people has to offer in a positive way. You have to be part of that process. I just tried to sell "30 Days of Night" and couldn't. I tried to sell a "Grudge" videogame and couldn't. We found the video market very, very hard. As the cost of making videogames has gone up, they're only interested in evergreen titles as I would call them - titles that have already proven to have staying power.