For Evil Dead Fans: Super8Shorts 2 is on its way!

Editor's note: You'll, hopefully remember that recently we had the absolute pleasure to interview Scott Spiegel (Evil Dead 2, Intruder, The Rookie) and we talked about his release of Super8Shorts 1 - a series of Super 8 films made by Scotty and his pals in the 70s (most of whom who went on to be involved with the Evil Dead franchise).

These films have been something of a holy grail for us Deadites (Evil Dead fans) - bootlegs have done the rounds at conventions for a long time, Josh Becker, a fellow filmmaker in the group, released some, some showed up on foreign DVD releases of Scott's film Intruder and a few have appeared on YouTube. This is the first time, though, that they have been made available in a semi-official capacity from the keeper of the 8s himself, Scotty Spiegel.

The first set is available for purchase here
You can hear our interview with Scott here

and here is the press release for the second set of Super 8s from Rob at the UK Evil Dead fansite BookOfTheDead.ws - thanks for sending our way Rob! 

The Metropolitan Film Group Years - Scotty Spiegel's Shorts Part 2

This is our second Super8Shorts.com DVD presentation. For those who missed the first; while many have seen the iconic horror movie The Evil Dead, and its sequels Evil Dead II & Army Of Darkness, fewer know is that its creators & friends had a legacy of Super-8 Short film making stretching all the way back to their childhood in the late '60s. It's Murder, Within The Woods and The Blind Waiter are among the most prominent examples, but there were nearly seventy shorts made from 1969 onwards. 

This is an image of the first DVD set, still available at Super8Shorts.com

This second DVD set contains eleven new shorts directed or co-directed by Scotty, along with some of Bruce Campbell's early TV commercials, intercut with vintage 60's, 70's & 80's intros, credits, idents, trailers, adverts & promos from Scotty's own extensive film collection. It's only available as a 'Standard' option, no signed 'Deluxe' version this time. Here is a complete list of everything you will get in the set; 

• Two dual layer DVDs containing the eleven shorts, each with an optional commentary track from Scotty, motion menus, and full color printed disc artwork.
• A black standard DVD case with color glossy DVD sleeve.
• An four page handmade vintage style booklet, with notes on each short from Scott.
• A random selection of four, from a total of twelve 6" x 4" replica photos.

The list of 'featured' items included runs at 142m 29s, but around four hours including all the vintage adverts, trailers and such. They play in chronological order. The titles, dates & running times are as follows;  

1. Half-Wits-Holiday (1974) (10m 58s)
2. All The Worlds A Stooge (1974) (6m 01s)
3. No Dough Boys (1974) (11m 17s)
4. The Singing Nutzs (1974) (7m 45s)
5. I’ll Never Heil Again (1975) (19m 41s)
6. The James Hoffa Story (1975) (12m 52s)
7. James Bombed In 'Here Today... Gun Tomorrow' (1976) (17m 57s)
8. The Ghoul - Ch.62 Show Segments (1978-1979) (11m 29s)
9. Attack Of The Helping Hand! (1979) (4m 58s)
10. Compilation Of Shorts Clips (1974-1979) (6m 57s)
11. The Blind Waiter (1980) (15m 29s)
12. Torro, Torro, Torro! - Scotty's Edit (1981) (3m 28s)
13. Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter - The Producer's Cut (1982) (9m 09s)
14. WHYT Radio Bruce Campbell Snake Commercial (1984) (0m 29s)
15. WHYT Radio Bruce Campbell Puppies Commercial (1984) (0m 30s)
16. Breakdancing Stooges (1984) (2m 50s)
17. WNIC Naturally Funny Bruce Campbell Commercial (1985) (0m 31s)

Most of the items above have not been publicly seen, although a couple have been officially released, and others as bootlegs. As fans will want to know specifics, the Attack Of The Helping Hand! transfer here is better quality than the German DVD bootleg, as is Torro, Torro, Torro!; which is also edited differently. Cleveland Smith Bounty Hunter is a different edit to Josh Becker's official release, but The Blind Waiter is largely the same.
 
The shorts themselves are made up of both footage the group shot themselves, and stock footage they had access to, along with occasional Three Stooges dialog, stock music & sound effects. Scotty transferred many of the huge number of shorts from Super-8 film to S-VHS tape back in the 1990s, and later on to DVD, when he added/upgraded certain stock shots simply unavailable at the time. That aside, the content of the shorts themselves (including any music) remains untouched. This DVD is pretty much the experience you would have had on viewing these shorts when they were first shown back in the early '70s.
 
This DVD set is not available yet, and anything & everything above could be subject to change, but the set is not far off being completed and should be up for sale on Super8Shorts.com well in time for Christmas!