Too long and gory

Rating: Null/10 (12 March 1999)

At 85 minutes of running time, "The Evil Dead" seems pretty long. It seems to go nowhere. Five friends travel to a remote cabin and stumble on to a book titled, "The Necronomicon" (a.k.a. "The Book of the Dead") and a recording causing the dead to rise. One by one, everyone is possessed and starts killing each other in gory fashion. There's more blood and gore than suspense in this first installment. A little bit of humor would have helped; it worked for the next two sequels. The only good thing I can say about "The Evil Dead" is that it doesn't suck. My evaluation: ** out of ****.