Sam Raimi’s horror masterpiece Evil Dead 2 owes thanks to a surprising actress who was crucial in the creation of a certain character.
Sam Raimi has grown into one of the biggest names in cinema, and his career has reflected many different genres and sensibilities over time, but the director’s roots go back to horror with The Evil Dead at the start of it all. Raimi’s low-budget horror movie that he made with his friends has gone on to spawn a mega-popular franchise that covers both television and film and helped inspire the whole “cabin in the woods” sub-genre of horror as it's known today.
The Evil Dead wasn’t just a steppingstone for Raimi, but also for its talented cast, like Bruce Campbell in his iconic performance as Ash Williams. The movie’s sequel, Evil Dead 2, heightens everything, and ostensibly remakes the first movie. However, the sequel does it better and applies more of a sense of humor towards the absurd terror that Ash and his friends come up against in their small, isolated cabin. Evil Dead 2 also introduces some new characters into Ash’s orbit, who provide even more opportunities for death and carnage. There’s lots of chemistry among the film’s cast members, but interestingly enough, an actress who wasn’t even in the sequel largely inspired one of Evil Dead 2’s new characters. Holly Hunter served as the inspiration for Bobby Joe.
Bobby Joe (Kassie DePaiva) enters the Evil Dead series as the girlfriend of Jake (Dan Hicks, a Sam Raimi regular), but finds herself frustrated and terrified for most of the film. Bobby Joe gets victimized by Ash’s severed hand, and ultimately consumed by the deadly trees in woods. While this doesn't seem like much of a character to draw from, Bobby Joe—strangely enough—was inspired by Academy Award-winning actress Holly Hunter, who was living with Sam Raimi and Scott Spiegel (along with other actors and directors) while they were writing Evil Dead 2. The group worked on their respective projects together; Hunter’s proximity to Raimi and Spiegel during production led to her personality and mannerisms being funneled into the aloof Bobby Joe. The character fits Hunter’s range and the types of characters that she was playing at that point in her career as well.
Hunter was such a natural fit for Bobby Joe’s type of character that that the role was initially written for Hunter herself. The film’s producer, Rob Tapert, later suggested that they look for an actress with a different energy, and shifted towards a more sexualized take on the character, which ultimately led to the casting of Kassie DePaiva (then Kassie Wesley) in the role instead. Hunter would have made an excellent Bobby Joe, and it would be fun to see her bounce off of Bruce Campbell’s Ash. It might have even set her career on a slightly different trajectory where she ended up doing more horror projects as a result. DePaiva gives a great performance in the role and, considering the number of projects that Hunter was interested in at the moment and the lengthy process it took for Evil Dead 2 to come together, it's unclear if their schedules would have even aligned.