Author's Saving Throw: Sam Raimi, stung by the moral panics and flagrant censorship that the graphic violence of the first movie was subjected to, attempted to tone the sequel down by making the blood far less realistic and more over-the-top and cartoonish, as well as avoiding altogether certain kinds of intense bodily violence (no more pencils to the heel or fingers in the eyes) and using Gory Discretion Shots for the very nastiest moments. Unfortunately for him, this didn't work at all - the distributor, who was contractually obligated by the MPAA to not release unrated movies, felt it was still gory enough to potentially earn an X.
Cameo Prop: Freddy Krueger's famous glove can be seen hanging from the wall at one point.
George Lucas Altered Version: Mostly averted. Starting with the 25th Anniversary Edition, the shot where Henrietta’s eye flies into Bobby Joe’s mouth had the wire during the closeup shot removed. Other than that, everything else is untouched.
Keep Circulating the Tapes: A censored-for-TV version of the film, cheekily retitled Evil Dead II: Severely Edited for Television, was produced at the same time as the theatrical version, and included some additional scenes and alternate takes, but ultimately went unaired anyway... in the US, but not in Mexico, where an enterprising fan taped it and began passing it around. The VHS copies of the Spanish-language dub remain the only way to view the TV version to this day.
Looping Lines: After Ash's hand has been possessed he says very distinctly "Work shed." Those two words were looped in ADR, and it sounds like it. In fact, Bruce Campbell relates on the commentary that years later, when he met Kurt Russell for the first time, Russell walked up to him, shook hands, and without preamble demanded Campbell "say 'Work shed'."
One-Book Author: This is the only film ever to be released by the Rosebud Releasing Corporation. That's because it's actually not a real company, merely a brand name created by DeLaurentiis Entertainment Group to allow them to release the movie unrated without jeopardizing their legal relationship with the MPAA. Sam Raimi himself designed the Rosebud logo and it was filmed as part of Evil Dead II's shooting schedule.
Denise Bixler portrays Linda in this film, replacing Betsy Baker, who had to decline due to a pregnancy.
John Peakes replaces Bob Dorian as Professor Knowby.
In the European French dub, Philippe Bellay replaced Frédéric Girard as Ash.
Prop Recycling: Several props from this movie - namely the clock on the wall, the tape recorder, and of course, Sam Raimi's Oldsmobile - were also used in the original.
Screwed by the Lawyers: Sam Raimi's original intention for the opening recap of the first movie was to reuse actual footage from it, but unfortunately, distributor Irvin Shapiro had sold the rights to it wholesale to dozens of companies around the world - some of whom had even gone out of business by the time the sequel began production - which made acquiring the rights to the footage all but impossible.
Sequel Gap: The film was released 6 years after the first film.
Studio Hop: Rosebud Releasing Corporation, a shell company run by Dino De Laurentiis' then-son-in-law Alex De Benedetti, took over for New Line Cinema as the film's distributor.
Throw It In!: While writing the script, Scott Spiegel starting fooling around by bobbing a flex lamp and accompanying it with a silly "Popeye" laugh. Both the lamp and his goofy laugh were included in the Laughing Mad scene.
Actress Sarah Berry revealed in a podcast that the film almost had an entirely different actress as Annie Knowby. Sarah Berry's agent, who was friends with Sam Raimi, knew he was looking for actors for the film and recommended Sarah Berry as a potential actress for the character of Bobby Joe, as Berry was raised in a southern state. After auditioning for Raimi, Berry said she was all but assured that the role of Bobby Joe was hers. However, she pressed for a chance to audition for Annie. When Raimi said she was perfect for Bobby Joe, and that her reading for Annie wasn't necessary, Berry admitted that while she said nothing to Raimi, that she secretly really wanted the Annie part and told Raimi that he had nothing to lose by letting her read for Annie as well. Relenting, Raimi let her read for the role, and Berry said that after she was done, Raimi admitted he had a problem, as Berry also gave a great audition for Annie, and he wasn't sure at that point which role to cast her as. Berry said she had two more auditions. The second was in an apartment, where they also had her scream, which was recorded on film. The final audition was basically an early morning breakfast with Raimi, as well as Bruce Campbell in attendance, where they had Berry sit next to Campbell just to see how they looked together, and how it would look with them on film. Following that final breakfast audition, Berry said the role was hers and the rest is history.
The film was initially conceived of by producer Irvin Shapiro, under the title Evil Dead II: Evil Dead and the Army of Darkness, and Sam Raimi's original idea was to have Ash travel back in time and battle Deadites in the middle ages. When time came to actually make the film, new executive producer Dino De Laurentiis wanted something more like the original and gave the producers a fairly small budget to work with, so the medieval concept was shelved until the third movie.
Bobby Jo was written as a role for Holly Hunter. Dino De Laurentiis vetoed the choice as he didn't think she was beautiful enough.
While Sam Raimi and Scott Spiegel were still kicking around concepts for the sequel, one idea they had was for the cabin to become a hideout for a gang of bandits.
Earlier drafts of the script are available to read online, giving us insight into how the film could have turned out:
The opening narration originally ran much longer, further detailing the story of the Knowbys discovering the book and meeting their end in the cabin, and continuing onward to recap the events of the first movie, which (as noted above) would've been depicted using stock footage. The final shot of The Evil Dead would have transitioned seamlessly into the shot of Ash flying through the forest.
After Ash was freed from possession by the light of the sun, his first move would have been to attempt an escape via the hiking trail (which Scotty had told him in the first movie was the only remaining way out after the bridge's destruction), only to find that the Evil Force's power had transformed it into a giant web-shaped maze that would always deposit him right back at the cabin's front yard. Following this, he would have attempted to rebuild the bridge using pieces of the cabin, only for the Force to destroy it while he tried to drive across. These scenes went unfilmed due to simply being too expensive.
In the earliest draft, the new artifact which Annie had discovered was not the Necronomicon's missing pages, but an entire second volume, its Good Counterpart. She was also not Professor Knowby's daughter in this draft, only his colleague, and she and Ed were not lovers- indeed, just the opposite, as he was attracted to her but she rebuffed his advances.
Ash's Sanity Slippage extended far beyond a laughing fit and a bad attitude- he had become prone to hallucinations, such as a vision of himself murdering his friends in cold blood, or convincing himself that Annie and the others were possessed when they were not.
A scene was written of Ash frantically boarding up all of the cabin windows in a fit of paranoia, which explains why, in the finished film, they are suddenly all boarded up with no explanation.
Bobby Joe's death scene was originally written for Ed, and it would have occurred much earlier, taking him out before he ever even reached the cabin.
The very first draft does not include the finale with Ash landing in 1300 AD, instead closing on a Downer Ending even darker than the original's: Ash floating in an endless void, apparently trapped in the vortex forever.
The comic:
Exiled from Continuity: Don't expect the "real" Ash to ever meet the simulacrum copy Ash, and don't expect the simulacrum Ash to learn that the real Ash came back from the past alive since that would involve information from Army of Darkness, which Space Goat Publishing doesn't have the comic rights to, although this hasn't stopped them from name-dropping S-Mart in the Revenge of Hitler issue and using a slightly similar looking mechanical hand for the simulacrum Ash in the Revenge of Evil Ed miniseries.
The use of the S-Mart name might have gotten Space Goat into trouble from MGM (who owns the Army of Darkness film), as it was discovered that the digital version of the Revenge of Evil Ed miniseries contains several references to S-Mart as Ash's place of employment. When the physical copies of the miniseries were released, all the references to S-Mart had been removed, replaced with Value Stop, Ash's work in Ash vs. Evil Dead.
Release Date Change: Due to Space Goat being a relatively small publishing company, they tend to put the Evil Dead 2 books on hold to focus on larger projects, such as their Evil Dead 2 and The Terminator inspired-board games. Several months will go by before Space Goat will make any official statement on the release dates of the comics.
, giving us insight into how the film could have turned out: