Stephen King was such a huge fan of The Evil Dead (1981) that he convinced producer Dino De Laurentiis over dinner (who was producing King's Maximum Overdrive (1986) at the time) to have his production company DEG (De Laurentiis Entertainment Group) finance Evil Dead II.
Although the cabin is supposed to be the same as the one from The Evil Dead (1981), that movie was shot in Morristown, Tennessee; the sequel was filmed nearly 270 miles to the east, in Wadesboro, North Carolina. Most of the film was shot on a set built inside the gymnasium of Wadesboro's J.R. Faison Junior High School. Financer Dino De Laurentiis had originally offered his studio in Wilmington, but director Sam Raimi chose Wadesboro, a 3-hour drive away, fearing that being so close to De Laurentiis' office would lead to studio interference.
During the scene where the severed head of Linda bites Ash's hand, Bruce Campbell says the single line "work shed." This line was later re-dubbed in post-production due to the quality of the audio, giving it a strange, slightly "disproportionate" sound to the audio. Nine years later, while filming his cameo in Escape from L.A. (1996), the first thing Kurt Russell said to Bruce Campbell on the set was, jokingly, "Say 'work shed.'"
Sam Raimi credits Stephen King with making this film possible. Raimi couldn't acquire enough money to fund the production, so King, a huge fan of the original, convinced financiers to give Raimi the money he needed for a second movie. Raimi later made appearances in the miniseries The Stand (1994) and The Shining (1997), both written by King.
Bruce Campbell's favorite film of the trilogy.