Essentially the demo version of The Evil Dead that not only made things possible for Sam, Bruce and “Rip” to raise money for the greatest horror film ever (IMO), but Within The Woods successfully laid out the blueprint for the entire legendary franchise (and the keen deadites among you will notice several shots, sequences and sound effects from The Evil Dead that were lifted directly from Within The Woods). Near impossible to find in good quality, mainly because Raimi is apparently quite ashamed of this film (why, Sam? Be proud of your roots!) and has consistently blocked it from being officially released as a special feature on any of the 253 home video versions of The Evil Dead (despite there having been a new music score recorded for WTW in 2002 for “The Book of the Dead” DVD release of The Evil Dead to solve the whole music copyrights issue i.e. the unauthorized use of the JAWS soundtrack for the score, amongst other borrowed music cues). But ANY way that you can view this historically important short horror film is just fine. Along with The Evil Dead, I watch this every year on Halloween night, by way of a “digital” copy of the film that I have stored on my laptop, iPod touch, PS3 as well as burned on CD-R (you know, just to make sure I don’t ever lose this gem, regardless of the low visual quality).
So peep it now for yourself, while it’s still up: