The Evil Dead

Sam Raimi, USA 1983, 85 minutes

Five students go to a creepy cabin in the woods for a weekend break and are cut off from the outside world as a bridge collapses beneath them. In the basement of the cabin the students find the Book of the Dead (bound in human skin) and a tape recorder. The narrator of the tape warns of the evil dead, malevolent demons he has unwisely summoned. Sure enough, the evil dead appear and all hell breaks loose... One of the female students goes outside and is raped by possessed vines (the scene which, unsurprisingly, most incurred the wrath of the moralists and led to The Evil Dead being prosecuted as a "video nasty"). Back inside the cabin she suddenly goes berserk and has to be locked in the cellar. Another girl turns into a demon and attacks the two men. They soon discover that the only way to stop the evil dead is through bodily dismemberment.

The real stars of The Evil Dead are the direction and the effects. Raimi's visual style obviously owes something to George A. Romero, whose Dawn of the Dead (1978) had drawn similar inspiration from EC horror comics and was perhaps the first "splat stick" (i.e. splatter and slapstick) movie. However Raimi's trademark demons eye view shots, hurtling through the undergrowth at breakneck pace, were all his own. The Evil Dead's special effects, while sometimes showing up the limitations of the film's ultra low budget - too often you can see their origins as plasticine, toothpaste, porridge and other mundane materials; or that the print is a grainy 16mm blow up - are nevertheless effectively gross, particularly in the spectacularly over the top demon disintegration sequence at the climax of the film. Of the cast only Bruce Campbell, who plays Ash, has gone on to become a moderately well known name, chiefly through his continuing collaborations with Raimi and the Coen brothers. (The Coen's, by the way, are long time collaborators of Raimi, and the cross-influences are obvious at times). The Coen's have often also gone in for the human cartoon style - just compare their Raising Arizona (1986) to Raimi's Crimewave (1985), a sadly under-rated film which deserves to be better known.)

The Evil Dead: "The ultimate experience in gruelling terror." `Nuff said

Review by Keith H Brown
Taken from EUFS Programme 1997-98