(1981)
Director: Sam Raimi
Writer: Sam Raimi
When I was twelve years old, I flirted around horror movies. I was not yet a "horror fan", but I did have a fascination with monsters as any red-blooded American kid should. I loved Godzilla movies and two of my favorite shows were Tales From The Darkside and Monsters. I was no stranger to horror, but the very thought of Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees still terrified me. I was however VERY into comic books, Marvel Comics to be exact. And so it was that I began to see advertisements on the back of my comics for a movie that was so intriguing that I couldn't resist finding out what it was all about. Staring back at me from the back cover of the latest issue of Amazing Spider-Man was a chiseled hero with a chainsaw for a hand and a large-breasted maiden by his side. Standing atop the wreckage of a car and oddly enough in front of a castle, he was beset upon by a group of skeletons. And the tagline for this film read "Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas." Thus I was introduced to Sam Raimi's third Evil Dead film Army Of Darkness, and I began a love affair with horror films that I continue on to this day. While Army Of Darkness is certainly more of a slapstick comedy than a horror film, it introduced me to the crazy world of Ashley Williams and once I discovered that there were two films that came before, I just HAD to see them. In one night, later that year, I sat down by the glow of the television to view for the first time both Night Of The Living Dead and The Evil Dead and I instantly loved them both. The Evil Dead threw me for a loop though. Compared to Army Of Darkness, Evil Dead is pretty darn scary. It was the perfect thing to convert me into a full-on gorehound.
The plot of Evil Dead is nothing groundbreaking. It's your basic 'teenagers go to a cabin in the woods, teenagers accidentally awaken ancient evil, teenagers get dead' story. The thing that sets Evil Dead apart from other horror films is it's director's inventiveness. Sam Raimi is not afraid to take risks with camera angles and elaborate shots and it turns Evil Dead from just your average horror flick into an unnerving thrill ride. Add to this the spectacular sound design, and you've got pure, unadulterated terror. Also, it doesn't hurt that all of the actors in the film come off as very likable people. Even Scotty, who's a giant dick.
The Evil Dead was a major hit when it was released in the U.K. and became the number one video release that year. The next year however, the Video Recordings Act would pass and Evil Dead's notoriety would propel it straight to the top of the video nasties list. There's no question as to why it was put there, Evil Dead is balls-to-the-wall gruesome and revels in it's goriness.
If you read up on the production of The Evil Dead you'll find that, much like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, it was a miserable shoot. The cabin in the film was just as remote as it seems which became an issue whenever someone was injured on the set. Sam Raimi, who is infamous for his love of torturing actors, supposedly had Bruce Campbell chop wood for hours on end to use in the "wood chopping scene". If you don't remember that scene, that's because it doesn't exist. In fact, I only remember one piece of wood being chopped in the entire film and wouldn't exactly call it a scene. By the end of the film, the cast & crew were burning furniture inside the cabin to keep warm. The bright side though is that the experience shines through and makes the movie just that much more effective. Everyone involved with the film poured every ounce of what they had into the film and it shows. The success of The Evil Dead would lead to the even crazier Evil Dead 2, and then of course to the absolutely insane Army Of Darkness. But The Evil Dead still holds it's own as a solid horror film and it's legacy is one that I believe will live on for generations of gorehounds to come. Evil Dead gets 6 out of 6 beers.
