For hardcore horror fans like myself, Ryan Meade’s Invaluable is, well… invaluable! The film features plenty of interviews and show-and-tell with its subject, Tom Sullivan, but it also doubles as a very detailed history and behind-the-scenes documentary on the origins and making of Sam Raimi’s original Evil Dead series.
Sullivan was the key special effects and make-up artist on the trilogy, after having designed posters for Raimi’s earliest super-8 films. His artwork is the perfect blend of devilish, fantastical, and undeniably campy and whimsical. Evil Dead wouldn’t be Evil Dead without Tom Sullivan. Almost all the make-up and practical effects on the first film were designed, built, and painted by him or at his direction. His techniques and style have not only been influential throughout the franchise, but throughout the history of horror since the 1980s. His art style changed the tenor of the horror genre as we know it.
It’s easy to forget how scrappy that first film really was. There’s always been a debate over whether Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2 is the superior film, but both came about because Raimi and his compatriots absolutely needed those films to be successful. Evil Dead had garnered a cult following for a little while, but it was Evil Dead 2 that shot Raimi out of relative obscurity and into stardom. In regards to the first film, Raimi maintains that there was somehow always enough budget because Sullivan’s ingenuity was more than enough.
This scrappiness lends a second layer of respectability to Sullivan’s work. Invaluable has a tremendous amount of wonderful footage of Sullivan’s make-up and puppets — both during and after production. The best parts of the documentary are where Sullivan shows and explains various props and puppets, how he made them, and how some of them were animated. There’s much more behind-the-scenes effects footage from Evil Dead 2 here, partially because the film had a higher budget than its predecessor, and partially because there was more extensive animation work done.
We also see and hear quite a lot of background on Sullivan’s personal life, including his path to being interested in art and meeting Sam Raimi and the rest of his crew. The film does have a melancholic side, beginning with the story of Sullivan’s wife, Penny. Their relationship ended tragically for a number of reasons, none of which are Tom’s fault, although he admits to feeling like he couldn’t reconcile his commitments to these films with his commitment to his marriage. After this period, there was a beautiful time of healing, in which another setback saw him overcome a difficult physical and emotional challenge.
In light of these periods of Sullivan’s life, Invaluable demonstrates the healing and redemptive power of cinema and film culture. Outside of his name in the credits of various movies, Sullivan’s considerable contribution to horror history had been largely overlooked due to his absence from the broader film industry. As demonstrated both by the existence of Invaluable and the fact that the documentary exists largely because of networking at pop culture conventions, there is a beautiful positivity to these fandoms that’s easy to miss if your only experience with them is online. Sullivan says it perfectly: “In film you don’t get to take a bow, and the conventions are the best way to do that.” | George Napper
Invaluable: The True Story of an Epic Artist is available on Blu-ray from Synapse Films and Diabolik DVD from August 1. This release includes a limited edition slipcover by Joel Robinson and a number of extras included a documentary about Josh Becker, a 1989 interview with Sullivan, extended interview segments with Tim Philo, two short films by Ryan Meade, and a stills gallery.
