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The trees, Ash. They're not gonna let us leave.
~ Scotty (to Ash about leaving the cabin)

Scotty was a friend of Ash Williams, and the boyfriend of Shelly. A Michigan State University student, Scotty was the one who organized the fateful trip to the cabin, a trip which ultimately led to his death at the hands of the Kandarian Demon.

Scotty's first and only appearance was in the 1981 film The Evil Dead, where he was portrayed by Richard "Hal Delrich" DeManincor.

Biography[]

Early Life[]

Very little is known about Scotty prior to his trip to the Knowby cabin (including his full name), though at some point in his youth he befriended Ash Williams. By his late-teens/early 20s, he was attending Michigan State University and dating a girl named Shelly.

The Cabin (October, 1982)[]

Through means unknown, Scotty had come to hear of what he was told was a cabin for rent deep in the woods of Michigan. Though he believed this story, the cabin was in fact owned by the Knowby family, who used the cabin so infrequently that it was believed to be abandoned. In October of 1982, Scotty, along with the company of four others (his girlfriend Shelly, Ash, Ash's girlfriend Linda, and Ash's sister Cheryl) journeyed to this cabin for a weekend getaway. Driving Ash's Oldsmobile to the location given to him, Scotty and the others were nearly involved with a head-on collision with a passing truck heading in their direction. While Scotty was quick to blame the car, the almost accident was the result of a looming demon roaming the woods nearby. Upon their arrival to the property, Scotty was the first person to step inside the cabin and explore the nearby workshed.

Later in the evening as dinner was being prepared, Scotty teased Cheryl by whispering "dead bodies in the cellar" in her ear, referring to an incident occurring just a few hours prior where Cheryl (alone in the cabin at the time) allegedly witnessed the cellar door mysteriously flying open by itself. Scotty's joking came to an abrupt end when the cellar door opened on it's own once more, to which everyone in the group rushed to investigate. Feeling that everyone else were "cowards", Scotty ventured down to explore the cellar for whatever might be causing the door to open. With Ash not too far behind him, the two discovered several objects left behind by the cabin's previous "renters", including: a shotgun and a box of shells, a strange skeleton-like dagger, a reel-to-reel tape recorder, and an old book with a horrific face as a cover.

Taking their treasures back up with them, the group proceeds to listing to the recording on the tape player, where Professor Raymond Knowby details his latest archeological discoveries before switching to a series of translations of the incantations found within the strange book Ash and Scotty have found. The translations begin to frighten Cheryl, and she begs for Scotty to turn the recorder off. Eventually getting too scared, Cheryl screams and runs off as a tree branch crashes in through a nearby window. Ash gets upset with Scotty for not turning the tape off, though Scotty is quick to respond that Ash could have turned it off too.

As a thunderstorm rolls in across the woods, Scotty and Shelly retreat to their bedroom. However, before they can go to sleep, a frantic Cheryl came running in from outside, her clothes shredded and scratch marks across her skin, claiming that the woods came alive and attacked her. Demanding she leave this place at once, Scotty chimes in, stating he's not going anywhere tonight. After Ash and Cheryl discover the bridge across the river had been destroyed, Scotty returns from chopping wood outside to witness Cheryl transform into a Deadite. When Cheryl stabs Linda in the ankle with a pencil, Scotty is the only person to step up and save a trapped Ash from getting stabbed himself, using an axe handle and a well-placed kick to knock Cheryl into the open cellar entrance. Scotty quickly locks the cellar door, trapping Cheryl below.

Somewhat reluctantly, Scotty tells Ash that they need to get out the cabin, but wants to wait until sunrise before doing so. As he tries to console an upset Shelly, he tells her to go to bed, and they'll take care of everything the next morning. After hearing Shelly scream, he quickly goes to their room only to discover a broken window and no one inside. When Scotty has his back turned to investigate a nearby bathroom, he is attacked by the now possessed Shelly. Struggling to get her off of him, Scotty stumbles into the den of the cabin and unknowingly tosses his girlfriend into the lit fireplace. Watching the scene unfold with disbelief, Scotty is caught off guard as Shelly gets up after being lit on fire and tries to force him into the flames. Eventually managing to get his hands on the Kandarian Dagger, he manages to stick the knife directly in to Shelly's back, listing with horror as she lets out high-pitched inhuman screams. Shelly, still "alive", gets up and once again attacks Scotty, who then proceeds to wrestle away the axe from Ash's hands and uses it to dismember Shelly.

Both Ash and Scotty are horrified at what has unfolded in the past few minuets, and a frightened Ash asks what are they going to do now. Scotty responds that they're going to bury her, and wrap the dismembered corpse in a bed sheet and take it outside. The two proceed with their plan and dig a grave, marking it's location with a wooden cross of their own making.

Later in the night, Scotty tells Ash that he wants to leave, though Ash is hesitant due to Linda's leg injury. Scotty snaps back that Linda is Ash's girlfriend, and that Ash should be the one to take care of her. Still angered at the loss of Shelly, Scotty storms out of the cabin and into the forest. Shortly after this, a severely injured Scotty returns to the cabin and collapses in Ash's arms. Ash manages to drag his friend to the couch, where he tells him everything is going to be alright. Struggling to breath, Scotty tells Ash that Cheryl was right, whatever is out there isn't going to let them leave there alive. Ash then asks if there's another way out besides the bridge, and Scotty responds that there is a trail, but "the trees know. They're alive!"

After Ash deals with the Deadite Linda, Scotty is eventually "resurrected" as a Deadite himself. With daybreak just minuets away, the Deadite Scotty and Cheryl slowly lumber towards the helpless Ash, who in a move of desperation, tossing the Book of The Dead into the raging fireplace. Due to the Deadite's connection to the book, the undead creatures begin to deteriorate as well, including Scotty. In mere seconds, Scotty's corpse was reduced to nothing but bone and melted flesh, killing him once and for all.

Personality[]

Scotty was a joker with a short-temper, getting easily annoyed with people over the littlest of things. Unlike Ash at the time, Scotty was a man of action, who was more than willing to fight against the Deadites. After the death of Shelly by his own hand, Scotty began to lose his nerve and became focused on his own self-preservation, even willing to leave the wounded Linda in the cabin alone. Following his own assault by the woods, Scotty was reduced to a bloody, quivering mess on the edge of death, similar to Cheryl after she was attacked by the trees.

In Other Media[]

Video Games[]

Scotty-EDTheGame

Scotty, as he appeared in Evil Dead: The Game (2011)

  • Scotty is presumably intended to be one of the many Deadites seen in the 1984 game The Evil Dead.
  • The first proper appearance of Scotty was in Trigger Apps' Evil Dead: The Game from 2011. He was a non-playable "friendly" and "enemy" character.
  • Scotty appears as a playable character in Evil Dead: The Game, portrayed by Richard DeManincor. He is survivor who belongs to the Warrior class, possessing an proficiency with lumberjack axes.

Trivia[]

  • Scotty is a character that originated in the 1978 short film Within The Woods. As most of the characters in the short were named after the actors who portrayed them, he was named after Scott Spiegel, a friend of Sam Raimi who would later go on to co-write Evil Dead II.
  • Scotty was going to appear in the opening recap sequence of Evil Dead II (portrayed by Sam Raimi himself), but this iteration of the scene was scrapped after a few days of filming.
    • Raimi had previously been a "Fake Shemp" for Scotty for some sequences during the production of The Evil Dead, as Richard DeManincor was unavailable at the time of certain re-shoots.
  • The character of Eric in the 2013 Evil Dead film fills the role Scotty had in the original film, though Eric was more courageous and well-aware that he was responsible for the unleashing of evil.
  • Scotty appears in the first episode of the Ash vs Evil Dead television series (El Jefe), using recycled footage from The Evil Dead
    • Scotty is later briefly mentioned by Ash in the episode Home Again when trying to recall where he found the Necronomicon during his first trip to the cabin.
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