A year or so ago, I noticed that the Usenet FAQ for the Evil Dead movies did little to deal with the Necronomicon. I asked permission to write a piece on the Necronomicon. The Keeper liked it enough to include it, and I've heard few complaints.
Is the Necronomicon real or is it something Sam Raimi made up for the Evil Dead films?
The Necronomicon was the creation of the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, who has been a major influence on writers and filmmakers in the genre since. In Lovecraft's work, the Necronomicon served as a collection of supernatural wonders, a collection of myths of pre-human species on Earth, or a book of spells, depending on where he used it. It is the latter interpretation that has caught the popular imagination the most.
During the 1970s, a major resurgence of interest in Lovecraft occurred, with the result that several different books with the title Necronomicon appeared. None of these, it should be noted, could be confirmed as existing before Lovecraft wrote of the Necronomicon, and most of their authors have admitted that they are fakes. The most popular one, written by "Simon" and published first by Schlangekraft and later in paperback by Avon, links Lovecraft's mythology to Sumerian religion. Though the connections shown within are not borne out through examination of either Lovecraft or Sumerian religion, the book has gained popularity among many would-be spellcasters.
The "Necronomicon Ex Mortis" that appears in Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness bears many differences from the book Lovecraft presented. Diehard fans of the movies will know that the Necronomicon was written three thousand years ago and vanished around 1300 AD. Lovecraft, however, never uses the suffix "Ex Mortis" and has an entirely different timeline for the book. Ash refers to the Necronomicon as a Sumerian book, which shows the influence of the Simon Necronomicon. Why the book in the movies differs so much from the one Lovecraft wrote about is uncertain.
To find out more about the Necronomicon, check out Dan Clore's Necronomicon Page.
The Evil Dead FAQ is 1996, 1997 © Tania Taylor. This portion is reproduced by her permission.