It's Not That Good

Rating: 4/10 (7 March 2005)

It might seem rather morbid now but a prolific topic of conversation in 1983 were video nasties . I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and NIGHT OF THE DEMON in particular came up in conversation with colleagues and friends on a regular basis but perhaps the most talked about video nasty* was THE EVIL DEAD , especially the scenes featuring " The woman and the trees " and " That bit with the pencil " . After finally seeing it that year I was very disappointed . I found it dumb , badly made and badly paced and basically a waste of time .
I saw it again last night when it was broadcast as part of Channel 4's " Banned " season and my opinion of it has improved , but only very slightly . This might be because I have become impressed by director Sam Raimi's work over the years most especially A SIMPLE PLAN and THE GIFT , two very intriguing thrillers and feel he'd probably be better sticking to that genre instead of making yet another sequel to SPIDERMAN . Despite the director's later success THE EVIL DEAD is still very flawed . It might have literate roots that other so called video nasties lack ( HP Lovecroft is an obvious influence on this movie ) but it's still basically a bunch of teenagers go into the woods and get killed in a graphic manner type plot . The characters aren't characters at all they're just cyphers to drive the plot along and the acting is poor . They're is some humour but I'm uncertain if this was deliberate on the part of Raimi . Compare this movie to its sequel and tell me what one is actually trying to be funny
THE EVIL DEAD is a movie that would probably have become totally forgotten if it wasn't for the director's later success . It remains rather watchable though which is something you can't say about most other cheap and cheerless horror movies from the period , but it's no masterpiece either
* Yeah I know THE EVIL DEAD isn't a " video nasty " in the true sense so don't message me to point this out