Does the Cabin From ‘The Evil Dead’ Still Exist?
The cabin in 1981’s The Evil Dead was hardly a place you’d want to rent for the weekend. Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his friends went anyway, found the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, and played a recording that awakened the demons. The film had its first public screening at Detroit’s Redford Theatre on October 15, 1981, and turns 45 this month. It was shown at Cannes in 1982 before New Line Cinema released it in U.S. theaters in 1983.
Director Sam Raimi and star Campbell knew each other from Groves High School in Beverly Hills, Michigan. Raimi recalled in a 2023 interview with Dread Central that they filmed much of The Evil Dead in the woods of Morristown, Tennessee.
Unfortunately, the original cabin is now gone. It burned down after filming, leaving behind part of the fireplace that Campbell later described in an interview with ARTpublika Magazine.
Where was the original Evil Dead cabin?
The first film also sets its cabin in Tennessee. Early in their drive, it is mentioned they are crossing the Tennessee border.
Raimi recalled spending 16 to 18 hours a day working in the cabin during the winter. “The cabin was not heated at all,” he told Dread Central. It didn’t have running water, either. Raimi said he sometimes poured hot coffee over his hands to warm them enough to operate the camera.
Someone also stole lights and power tools from the property. Raimi said he had to sleep at the cabin to guard their equipment after the theft. In a 2010 interview, Home Theater Forum asked Campbell for his favorite memory of making the film. “My favorite memory was probably going home after we were done shooting,” he said.
What happened to the cabin after filming?
The cabin burned down after filming. In a 2013 interview with the Book of the Dead fan archive, a relative of the owner during filming said the fire happened in spring 1982. Reportedly, the owner of the cabin and his son got tired of fans and their constant visits by burning down the shack.
“The only thing that’s left is the remainder of the fireplace,” Campbell told ARTpublika in 2018, but fans had been taking pieces of it and dismantling it for decades.
The landowner interviewed in 2021 said he had no interest in making the property a public attraction. He asked visitors to get permission before going there and complained about people taking chimney stones.
Bruce Campbell’s health update and the newest Evil Dead film
Matt Klitscher/Starz!/Everett Collection
Campbell announced in March 2026 that he had cancer he described as “treatable” but not “curable.” In a September episode of The Adam Carolla Show, he said his prognosis was about five years, “give or take.”
He did not name the type of cancer in that interview. “I’ve decided though, pretty specifically, to live with it, not die from it,” he told Carolla.
The newest film, Evil Dead Burn, began streaming on HBO Max on October 2, 2026. Directed by Sébastien Vaniček, it follows a widow whose visit to her late husband’s family ends in more demonic possession.
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