The Evil Dead director secretly produced this zombie film

The Dead Next Door was started in 1985 by J.R. Bookwalter, then a teenager in Ohio, and it is a zombie film shot on Super 8 whose executive producer is credited as "The Master Cylinder." That was Sam Raimi, kept anonymous under the pseudonym. Super 8 is a film format built for home movies, and the film took nearly four years and hundreds of extras in zombie makeup to finish.

The dead rise, a government squad hunts them, and a cult sides with them. In Akron the first outbreak starts in a video store. One zombie, Vox, speaks through an electronic voice box and sings the national anthem.

Why was Sam Raimi hiding?

Rue Morgue reports that Raimi got involved early, after seeing Bookwalter's earlier work. He reportedly helped pay for the film with his earnings from Evil Dead II, and Bookwalter named his lead soldier Raimi, apparently as a thank you.

The secrecy lasted. In the making-of featurette on the Anchor Bay DVD, cast and crew are bleeped whenever they say his name, and he becomes "Mr. X." Bruce Campbell also did uncredited work, voicing two of the lead characters.

How much did it cost?

Nobody seems sure. Reviewers have reported $75,000, $100,000 and $125,000, and Rue Morgue wrote that nobody really knows. Critics have called it perhaps the most expensive movie ever shot on Super 8.

Rue Morgue reports that Bookwalter wrote the film as a series of shots rather than a proper screenplay, and that scenes were reshot so often that the cast and crew grew frustrated. Hundreds of people played zombies, and an aerial shot looks like a football field full of the dead.

Did they really film zombies at the White House?

The film has shots of zombies outside the White House and on the National Mall. According to a reviewer citing Bookwalter's 1992 book, B-Movies in the 90's and Beyond, the crew filmed with no permits, and the Secret Service stopped them and let them go.

Who made it?

Bookwalter wrote, directed, produced and edited the film, composed its synthesizer score and acted in it. Michael Tolochko Jr. shot it. Bookwalter went on to direct many more features and became known as the force behind Tempe, a distributor of no-budget horror that also released this film.

The Dead Next Door is for viewers curious about no-budget horror, and about what a teenager, a crowd of volunteers and a secret backer could make on Super 8.

Horror