Night of the Evil Dead

Rating: 10/10 (15 September 2011)

Its always interesting watching future greats in their feature debuts. When talents at the start of their careers are forced to work with minimal resources some of them turn out superb work as a result. Like Steven Spielberg with Duel. John Carpenter's Dark Star. James Cameron and The Terminator. And Sam Raimi with The Evil Dead.
The Evil Dead was a film Raimi set out to make on a virtual shoestring. The cast are unknowns. Its confined to a single setting. And its scraped together by a next to nothing budget. But films like these, free of the ministrations of heartless Hollywood often turn out better than they're bigger budgeted cousins.
The Evil Dead has nothing that one could really call a plot. But it works because of what Sam Raimi brings to the film. What it lacks in plotting it makes up for in entertainment. Its not a terribly original film, and Night of the Living Dead was almost certainly an influence on it, but The Evil Dead holds its own as a ferocious, bloodthirsty horror movie.
Five teens holed up in a cabin are besieged by spirits from beyond the grave. After reading from a Book of the Dead that was in the cabin, the five of them wind up possessed, one by one becoming demonic zombies. The only one not affected is Ash (Bruce Campbell's feature debut), and as his friends and loved ones turn before his very eyes, it becomes a non-stop fight to survive the night.
The Evil Dead is a textbook example of how monolithic budgets are not the beginning and the end of Hollywood cinema. All this film needed was a passionate director, a dedicated cast and a loyal production crew. Add to that plenty of blood, guts and pus galore. From what I've read, The Evil Dead was a difficult shoot on everyone. The hours were long and the weather was terrible, but Sam Raimi roused the crew into shape.
Its the sheer confidence he brings that transforms the story. Raimi directs with a fierce energy that enervates the entire movie. The camera seldom stays in one position. It prowls around the cabin, darting into closeup. The restless setups Raimi keeps springing on us make for an intense, almost unbearable experience.
Raimi is content to let the camera do much of the work in the first half. Its in the second half that The Evil Dead opens up and takes on the intensity of a nightmare roller-coaster ride. Some of the scares Raimi dreamt up are totally out there. The one memory people take away from the film more than any other, and what had the film classified as a Video Nasty here in the UK, is the scene where Ellen Sandweiss wanders into the woods and is raped by a tree. Its a wrenching, squeamish thing to watch that not even the climax manages to top. Even Raimi regretted putting it in the film.
But Raimi doesn't stop there. In the latter half, he goes all out to shock at every opportunity. Considering the film was made on a $350,000 budget, the results are astonishing. The cast vanish into makeup jobs, eerie voices, and blood spurts, spits and showers us in a non-stop orgy of mayhem.
The Evil Dead deservedly brought Sam Raimi to attention. But the only member of the cast who went on to any kind of success, and became a mainstay of Sam Raimi's is Bruce Campbell. A childhood friend of his, Campbell mapped out a career as a B-Movie actor. He came to specialise in playing parodies of the lantern-jawed, All-American hero. And later starred in one of this author's favourite TV shows, The Adventures of Brisco County Jr.
But here, Campbell is a little flat. Campbell hadn't mastered the ability to remain deadpan in the face of absurdity. He would come to hone that on the Evil Dead sequels, and by the time of Brisco County Jr, he had it down to a fine art. Nevertheless, Campbell was a real trooper.
One thing you can count on when a director is a good friend of the lead actor is that they inspire them to do things no inflated paycheck could ever do. Campbell went far, above and beyond the call of duty for The Evil Dead. Constant splatterings. Drenched in blood. A merciless work schedule. But it all paid off in the finished product.
The one other person on the crew who was propelled to success (arguably more than Raimi) was Joel Coen. Before becoming a directing team with his brother Ethan, and carving out an original, consistently brilliant career, Joel Coen served as editor on The Evil Dead.
Although principally a Raimi film, there are times when you can see some of the trademarks of a Coen film. There's none of the idiosyncratic pleasures of Barton Fink and Fargo, but the way the camera observes at a neutral distance the mayhem unfolding before it is classic Coen.
Raimi plays The Evil Dead to a shrieking excess and that's really as it should be. The wild overacting from the amateur cast will no doubt provoke fits of the giggles from some and the gore will invoke revulsion from others. But Raimi maintains a perfect lunatic energy that never flags for an instant. The stuff cult classics are made of.