The Ultimate Experience in Grueling Horror? YOU BET!!

Rating: 8/10 (19 June 2008)

In the year 1979, a group of friends set out to make the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Horror. With a shoestring budget of less than $375,000, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell deliver one of the scariest movies I've ever seen.
The Evil Dead tells the story of 5 college kids (Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Rich DeManicor, Betsy Baker, and Teresa Tilly) who travel up to an isolated cabin in the woods for the weekend. However, while they're there, they find a strange book entitled Naturon Demonto, (renamed Necronomicon Ex-Mortis in the sequels) which roughly translates to Book of the Dead. They accidentally play a tape recording that recites demonic incantations from the book that eventually makes the demons reawaken and possess them one by one until the lone survivor, Ash (Campbell), has to step up and fight back.
This is a great film. Sure the acting isn't great, but this movie features some great practical effects from Tom Sullivan. Yes, it's fake. Yes, it looks fake. However, it's impossible not to appreciate them.
It's a VERY gory movie. For pretty much the last half-hour or so, blood is soaking everything. There's even a scene where a character get's it's hand hacked half-way off, so it tears the hand the rest of the way off with it's mouth.
This film introduces Ashley J. Williams, better known as Ash. The character of Ash is well-known for being a badass, but don't expect that from him in this one. In this one, Ash is actually kind of wimpy for the most of the movie. It's not really until Evil Dead II that Ash becomes a full-blown badass.
So, anyway, this movie is amazing. It's scary, it's entertaining, and it's a hell of a lot of fun to watch with a large group of people. So, in the end, does Raimi succeed in bringing us the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Horror? My answer is definitely yes.