Gore At It's Best

Rating: 9/10 (23 September 2004)

I remember first watching this film as a ten year old kid, who had snuck a peek at his father's horror collection, and I ended up being absolutely terrified after seeing it, with it's utter scariness and blatant use of gore and decapitated limbs staying in my mind from years to come.
Recently I bought the Necrominocon Edition of the Evil Dead Trilogy, and this film is still as scary and brilliant as the day I first saw it (the same can not be said about it's commercialised sequels Dead by Dawn & Army of Darkness though).
One of the great things about ED is it's simple timeless tale of a group of friends going away for the weekend at a secluded and seemingly run-down cabin. The horror begins even before they get there, with a near fatal car crash, and a porch chair that seems to have a life of it's own. That's probably one of the great things about the ED, we are led to believe that all the trouble starts with Professor Knoby's reciting of text from the Necromonicon, but it's quite clear there is something evil in the woods, with Professor Knoby's recording only giving it the kickstart it needs to start Mayhem.
One stand-out performance in this film is Betsy Baker, who plays "Linda" - the ill-fated girlfriend of Ash, who when possessed by the ED is turned into a giggling demon who chants hilariously "We're gonna get you, not another peep..". It is an absolutely brilliant and comedic portrayal, especially when you see Baker as Linda before she becomes possessed, in which she is a quiet and reserved.
The horror and gore in this film isn't as gruesome as some of the stuff we see these days, but to put it in retrospect at it's time ED was rather controversial and was put in the same category as snuff-films by a lot of right-wing anti-movie violence and horror protesters. Though some might find the scenes with demons biting off their own arms, genitals being mutilated(the scene with Ash & the Scott-Demon) and a tree raping one of the females a bit too much to stomach.
All in all, this is a classic horror film. Although it doesn't have state-of-the-art SFX, or high production quality of mainstream horror films made these days, it's all about the atmosphere of the film, the comedic scenes of a possessed Linda and Ash and his buckleys hope of making it out alive.