Not the movie I expected to see...

Rating: 6/10 (20 January 1999)

The Evil Dead was a movie that I had wanted to see for a long time before I actually saw it. I read many plot outlines and reviews of the movie and I still couldn't really piece together what I thought the film would be or how good it would be. There are cult followings to the film so I thought it must be pretty good. When I finally did see the film I was surprised to find that it did not grasp me the way I thought it would. There is nothing really scary or funny in this film. The deadites are kind of weird looking but it's nothing I would scream or laugh at. Now I know that the first in the Evil Dead Trilogy is not supposed to be a comedy but a horror film but the monsters are very fake looking and there is no creepy music or anything. I actually found myself easily distracted from this movie because of the lack of interest I had in the characters and lack of suspense. I found the film inconsistent with how one could become possessed by a deadite. I started wondering if you had to be bitten, touched or just in the same room as one of the deadites. And if so why did Ash (Bruce Campbell) not suffer the same fate as his friends. There is a lot of blood and gore in this movie so kids would most definitely be frightened by it. For people who love blood and gore you might like this movie but it just doesn't have enough good qualities for it to be a top notch horror movie. So if you were like me and listened to all the buzz about this movie I say don't watch this with really high expectations. It's not bad but I don't think it's deserving of all of the praise it has received. =