A relentless, gory masterpiece.

Rating: 10/10 (25 November 2006)

Sam Raimi may be working with mega-budgets and A-list stars these days but, in my opinion, nothing he has done has surpassed the brilliance of The Evil Dead. In terms of originality and verve, this movie certainly surely tops any of his Hollywood blockbusters.
The premise is simple: five people vacationing in a remote Tennessee cabin are attacked and possessed by ancient spirits. Despite this simple plot, the movie manages to be thoroughly engaging from start to finish and delivers plenty of scares along with tons of inventive special effects.
Raimi spices up the visuals with a bagful of directorial tricks including improvised steadicam shots and unusual POV angles. Such techniques can become tiresome if overused, but Raimi keeps a tight rein on proceedings and uses these shots where they are most effective, rather than just for the sake of them. Great editing and imaginative sound design add to the overall brilliance of the film.
The gore effects are, for the most part, very good. The more outlandish and extravagant gags towards the end are the least impressive (the Plasticine stop motion is kind of shonky) but, considering the budget, this can easily be forgiven.
The cast are uniformly excellent, with a special mention going to the young Bruce Campbell as Ash, whose brilliantly physical performance carries the latter part of the film pretty much on its own. He convincingly portrays a character that is pushed beyond snapping point, but who claws his way back to fight the evil forces that surround him.
In the early 80s, The Evil Dead was caught up in the whole 'Video Nasty' debate, and subsequently banned in the UK. As a teenager, I treasured my beat up old pirate copy of the film, but have since bought the full uncut version on DVD and the original Palace VHS release (which features great cover art!). This brilliant film never deserved to be vilified in the manner it was, and is thankfully now recognised by cinephiles as the highly influential and truly marvellous movie that it is.