Sam Raimi, Equinox, the Evil Dead and prior art
Equinox by Mark Thomas McGee and Jack Woods stars TV's Frank Bonner (AKA Herb Tarlek from WKRP in Cincinnati) in a film that sounds astonishingly familiar:
- Four teenagers
- Visiting a professor who is now dead
- At his cabin in the woods
- Find an anti-Bible
- Which can summon evil spirits upon mere reading
- Who are represented by special effects
- By which one of the students is turned into the undead;
- Cut off from civilization
- They must destroy or banish the book
- And repel the evil invaders.
Despite a budget that makes Plan 9 from Outer Space seem lavishly funded, Equinox is surprisingly effective and even did well enough that it has been re-released as part of the prestigious Criterion Collection.