The House where Evil Dwells

Rating: 8/10 (8 August 2006)

**SPOILERS** Shocking and terrifying horror movie that uses it meager $350,000.00 budget to the fullest extent to scare the living hell out of it's audience. Far better then the many multi-million dollar slasher/splatter films that it's, or their, constantly compared to.
Five college students take a ride out in the heavily wooded wilds of Tennessee to spend the weekend at a cabin that they rented and things start to go bad even before they reach their destination. Crossing a creaky bridge the car almost falls through the rotted woodwork and barley makes it to the other side. At the cabin the students brother and sister Ashley or "Ash" and Linda Williams, Bruce Campball & Besty Baker, together with friends Scotty Cheryl & Shelly, Richard DeManincor Ellen Sandweiss Theresa Tilly,find the place a mess. Cleaning up the place they unearth a book and tape recordings, together with a reel to reel tape recorder, that belonged to the cabin's previous owner.
All this time we get to see and feel that there's something evil in and around the cabin that's just waiting to get unleashed. It's the strange book and weird sounding tape recordings that the new occupants found there that serves as the trigger or linchpin that set. the evil spirit, it into motion. Reading from the book that seems to be a hand-written copy of the notorious Satanic Book of the Dead, Necocomicon, the students then play back the tapes, that they found along with it. The tapes has the owner of the cabin explain what happened to him when he deciphered the books mysteries that must have drove him either out of his mind or in his grave or both. The former cabin owner gives out, on the tape, this eerie and blood-curdling Cathulhu chant that activates the evil that surrounds the cabin. That brings the forces of hell out of their long sleep and into the open taking over the bodies and minds of the unsuspecting students. One at a time it turns them on each other until the cabin, and the area immediately outside of it, turns into a mind-numbing and horrific slaughter-house.
Not for those that are weak of heart "The Evil Dead" has an unrelenting drive to it that's never-ending. Not giving you a chance to catch your breath even once the unearthly and evil action once it's starts going and never ever stops. Even the ending, when the horrible night in the cabin is finally over, it sets you and the lone survivor of this massacre up for a nasty surprise with a jump-out-of-your-seat final.
Even though some of the scenes with the Evil Force taking over the students bodies may be a bit overdone, especially in the make-up department, they still jolt you right out of your skin. You start to get the feeling, like those in the movie, that there's nothing on earth that can stop the Forces of Evil unknowingly released by the students. That's until those who released them are overcome possessed and finally consumed by them.