The horror genre's greatest roller-coaster ride!!

Rating: 10/10 (2 January 2006)

Inventive, startling, and always-packing energy, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead is a true testament to the power of talent over budget! It has became a beloved cult classic and stands as one of the most influential horror films of all time!
Five young adults go off to a mountain cabin, where they unknowingly unleash evil, possessive spirits that reek havoc upon everything!
The Evil Dead is perhaps the last of the great drive-in horror classics. Director Sam Raimi, who has since gone on to films with much bigger budgets, made his debut with this wildly terrifying genre masterpiece. Raimi's crafty direction builds a thick atmosphere of dread and isolation through out the film, using the woodsy setting as a great back drop. He uses some nicely inventive camera shots. The movie does indeed play out like shocking roller-coaster ride, as the scenes of in-your-face horror and gore hit hard and fast, only to be followed by eerie lulls of tension. It's the most effectively gripping style that any horror film could use! Raimi also makes the most out of using dark humor in the film, making even the most scary sequences strangely funny. The makeup FX are truly gruesome, even with a low-budget there are plenty of freakishly-good FX to drive the thrills.
Raimi also creates some nicely bizarre and memorable sequences, like the vine-rape scene with Cheryl, the demented singing of a possessed Linda, the 'bleeding' cellar pipes, and that grand finale with Ash having to make a stand to survive! Not to mention the knock-out final shot of the film, which is probably the greatest closing image to any horror picture ever! Also worthy of mention is the great music score by Joe LoDuca. LoDuca's music is a perfect match to the film, building plenty of tension and playing off the shocks very well.
The cast is as good as one would expect from a B picture, but they do hold their own. Of course the real star of the show is square-jawed B movie hero Bruce Campbell. Bruce does an outstanding role, playing terror to a T, and enduring the physical hardships of a grueling low-budget film. He deserves his B movie king status!
The Evil Dead has gone on to become one of the biggest cult films of all time and it's not hard to see why either! It's an outstandingly awesome horror ride that should be taken by all horror film fans! If they're anything like this horror fan, Evil Dead will quickly become a big favorite!
Followed by Raimi's comical Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1993)
**** out of **** (horror perfection)