“We’d shoot it, raise money, shoot a little more, raise money, shoot a little more.”īy the time the movie was unveiled for a crowd of 1,100 at a historic theatre in Redford, Michigan, neither cast nor crew quite knew what they had come up with. “It took two years to make the damn thing,” Campbell said. Meanwhile, after wrapping the initial 12-week shoot in 1979, only two-thirds of the movie was in the can periods of additional photography followed. We were miserable all day long we were good to go.”Ī crew of nine dropped to six. “Some actors have to run around in circles, do push-ups, slap yourself in the face to get ready. “There wasn’t much acting required: You were cold, you were miserable, you were covered in blood,” he said. More: 'Top Gun: Maverick' release delayed, again, until May 2022Īcting in such an environment might sound next to impossible, but Campbell said it wasn’t much of an issue. It was kind of like camping out for 12 weeks, but meanwhile you’re trying to do a movie.” “You were in a cabin that had not been occupied in decades, and had no power (or) running water no sewage no nothing.
“From the beginning to the end - they were all low points,” he said. When asked for the low points, he was blunt. In a recent interview with The Dispatch, Campbell, a native of Royal Oak, Michigan, recounted a tumultuous filming process in rural Tennessee. The road to cinematic immortality was not an easy one, though. “The irony is we’re in more theaters 40 years later than we were when it originally got released,” Campbell said.