The Evil Dead

Plot synopsis:
Five Michigan State University students — Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell), his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker), Ash's sister Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), their friend Scotty, and his girlfriend Shelly—venture into rural Tennessee to vacation in an isolated cabin for their spring break. They soon run into trouble, with Scotty nearly colliding with a truck, then barely getting the group to safety when the bridge leading to the cabin starts to collapse. That night, while Cheryl is sketching an old clock, when she notices it stopping. She hears a faint, demonic voice outside her window say "join us". After she shrugs it off, her hand becomes possessed, causing her to draw a picture that looks like a book with a deformed, evil face. Unsure of what happened and what to do, she decides not to mention the incident to the others.
When the trapdoor to the cellar mysteriously flies open during dinner, Ash and Scotty go down to investigate and find the Naturom Demonto, a Sumerian version of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, along with a tape recorder belonging to the archeologist who owned it. When Scotty plays it, the archeologist's voice recites a series of incantations, resurrecting a mysterious, demonic entity. Cheryl becomes increasingly hysterical and locks herself in her room. Later, she hears strange voices and goes outside to investigate. Meanwhile, Ash gives Linda a silver necklace, which she absolutely loves. Cheryl is then attacked and raped by demonically possessed trees, but manages to escape. Unable to convince the others of what happened, she asks Ash to take her into town for the night. However, Ash soon discovers that the bridge has been destroyed. Back at the cabin, Ash listens to more of the tape, learning that the only way to kill the entity is to dismember it when it possesses a host. Cheryl succumbs to the entity and attacks the others, stabbing Linda in the ankle with a pencil before Scotty is able to force her into the cellar.
Shelly becomes possessed as well, forcing Scotty to chop up her body with an axe and bury the remains. Shaken by the experience, he leaves to find a way back to town. When Ash goes to check on Linda, he is horrified to find that she has already begun to turn. A badly-injured Scotty staggers into the cabin and dies of his wounds, having been attacked by the trees. While Ash tries to figure out what to do, both Linda and Cheryl pretend to be cured, only to quickly revert to their demonic forms. Ash locks Linda outside, but she returns and tries to stab him before he impales her with a dagger. He tries to cut up her remains with a chainsaw, but can't bring himself to do so, and ends up burying her instead. When he reaches for her necklace on the ground, she escapes again trying to kill him. Ash decapitates her with a shovel, and her headless body bleeds all over Ash's face as it tries to rape him before he escapes. Back in the cabin, he quickly realizes that Cheryl has forced open the trapdoor. After wounding her with a shotgun, he heads to the basement for more ammunition. There, the entity tortures him by dousing him with blood from a pipe, while more blood seeps from the walls and ceilings.
Scotty is revived as a demon and attacks Ash when he goes back upstairs, while Cheryl savagely beats him with a fireplace poker. Ash gets his hands on the book with Linda's necklace, and throws it into the fireplace. As the book burns, Scotty and Cheryl begin to gruesomely decompose and their blood sprays all over Ash as he stares in horror and disgust. After Scotty and Cheryl are dead, Ash hears the voice of the demons telling him "Join Us". As the voice dies away as well, Ash grabs Linda's necklace in gratitude.
Covered in blood, Ash stumbles outside as the sun begins to rise. Before he can get in his car to leave, the entity attacks him from behind where he lets out a final scream before the film cuts abruptly to the ending credits.

Tags: dark, comedy, grindhouse film, murder, cult, horror, violence, haunting, action, tragedy, entertaining, sadist

Review: