The Best low budget horror film ever made.

Rating: Null/10 (26 August 2002)

(***** out of *****)
Low budget horror does not get much better than "The Evil Dead". In fact no other low budget horror film even looks like "The Evil Dead" thanks to Sam Raimi (The director of "Spider-Man" for the ladies and gentlemen of you out there who do not know this.) So if you want to see how a big director starts from the real bottom end of film making and works his way up then you need to watch this film at all costs. Besides he was just a young kid when he made it (using a school's 16mm film camera)..... and so were his friends who acted in it.... and they ended up making a film which coined the term "video nasty'! The movie was filmed in 1979 and released in 1982 where it hit the video market just at the right time. It was one of the very first cult classics promoted by the advent of video tape.
`The Evil Dead' IS one of the nastiest films ever made. It contains extreme violence, blood, rape, torture, beheadings, dismemberments, mutilations, gore, violence towards women, chain saws - all in FULL VIEW of the camera. No holds where bared in the making of this film but some countries may show this movie in a censored form which entails the removal of about six minutes from the film. But the story is original, fast paced, scary and extremely enjoyable. Many fans watch it over and over and over again. Many of today's new film making talent watch this film over and over again and it is obvious to see why.
The camera work is used unusually, skilfully and surprisingly (so rare these days). The editing is dramatic and the low budget special effects must be given credit for the end results which beat the pants out of some of things that hit the shelves these days. In short the film making aspect is really what "The Evil Dead" is all about. Here the director is really giving you a bang for what bucks he had.
The premise is a simply one to explain. Five young kids go to a cabin in the woods for a short vacation. In the house they find a tape recording which manages to invoke an incantation which wakes up the evil in the woods. It comes after them - turning some of them into the undead, demons, zombies and flesh eating ghouls. Cue lots of household items being used as weapons, an initially sissy anti-hero (Bruce Campbell) who becomes the GOD of million adoring horror fans (you'll see why when you watch it) and low budget special effects galore. Copied by a hundred other horror films, exploited by a million uncensored bootleg copies Â– `The Evil Dead' is still the low budget horror king. And that is a hard act to beat!