A Cheapie Creepy Classic!!!

Rating: 10/10 (7 April 2013)

Miraculously enough, Sam Raimi and his long-time friend Bruce Campbell struck pay dirt with their first feature-length film. A low-budget but ghoulish horror movie, "The Evil Dead" takes place in the Tennessee hills where five college students are heading off for Spring Break. This quintet hole up in a dilapidated cabin and discover a tape recording along with an ancient but enigmatic Sumerian tome. Before long they find themselves surrounded by demon-possessed fauna and experience evil first hand. The reel-to-reel tape recording that they uncover contains comments from an archaeologist about his research and his experience with demons. The "Naturon Demonto" stands for the Sumerian Book of the Dead. The unwitting students unleash the demons when they utter some incantations. Those dreadful creatures come after them with a vengeance. Cheryl thinks she hears something outside and ventures out into the dark. The woods rise up against her and vines pin her spread-eagled to the ground while a tree thrusts its bole itself into her. This has got to qualify as the most outlandish rape in cinematic history. Things wax progressively worst, and Cheryl's brother Ash (Bruce Campbell) has to lock her up in the basement. Indeed, he has to festoon the trapdoor with chains. Nevertheless, Cheryl can raise it far enough to look at the occupants in the room. Eventually, all the females become demon possessed, and the guys really have their hands full as they defend themselves. This 85 minute horror epic swirls horror with humor. Happily, Raimi doesn't take himself seriously, and "The Evil Dead" is a black comedy of sorts. The success of this chiller spawned two sequels, "Evil Dead II" (1987) and "Army of Darkness" (1992). One of the eeriest of shots occurs when we share the perspective of evil and are flying through the woods. Reportedly, Raimi achieved this steady-cam effect by mounting his camera on a 2x4 and running through the woods with Bruce Campbell on the other end. What makes this movie so memorable is the spirit that Raimi infuses the film with, its skewered cinematography, the breakneck pace, and its humor. The 2013 remake changed the names of the characters and alters several events.