Evil Dead (1981)
The Cast
Bruce Campbell .... Ashley 'Ash' J. Williams
Ellen Sandweiss .... Cheryl
Richard DeManincor .... Scott
Betsy Baker .... Linda
Theresa Tilly .... Shelly
Ted Raimi .... Fake Shemp
In keeping with the festive Hallowe'en season (my favourite season), I decided that the community was woefully under-representing Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead Trilogy of movies. Sure, mikey_iaco has contributed a mini-review and a couple Top Five lists devoted to the subject, but I feel that this is not nearly enough. Essentially Sam Raimi's first breakthrough movie and one of the most beloved cult horror films of all time, the first Evil Dead movie is a good example of the good and bad of independent, low-budget horror flicks.
If you're not familiar with the movie, let me give you a breakdown that will make you wonder why this movie is a cult classic. Basically five college students go out to the woods and stay in this semi-abandoned cabin and inadvertantly end up giving evil spirits the permission to possess living souls. Whatever, the story isn't exactly what you're looking for when it comes to horror movies. You want the gore, the blood, the tits, the body count, all integral parts to any high quality slasher horror flick. Evil Dead has the added bonus of an almost terrifyingly great score, a fairly impressive-looking set along, and a tight-knit, excited crew that somehow makes everything in the movie a bit better than it should be.
One thing that isn't even close to top notch is the DVD transfer for this movie, more specifically any scenes that involve the matte mesh technique with the full moon. You'd think that the filmmakers would make it a priority to do their very best to clean that up for the new-fangled digital technology that wasn't around 20 years ago. It's not something I'm going to hold against the movie, just something that should've been corrected and wait... yeah, I am holding it against the movie because it reflects an aspect of the film that doesn't age well. So there.
Anyways, there's a few reasons why this movie has become a cult classic. Firstly, without the first Evil Dead, there'd be no Evil Dead II and I don't want to live in a world where ED2 never existed. Secondly, the boyhood friendship between Raimi and Campbell allows for Raimi to abuse the fuck out of poor Bruce throughout the movie in a way that would never be possible if Bruce didn't completely trust Sam. Thirdly, c'mon, it's Bruce fuckin' Campbell. The guy's movies should blow away box office records around the world. Stupid humans.
Despite being a quarter century old, Evil Dead shows more creativity than most of the recent horror / slasher flicks that we've been subjected to in the past few years. A warning however: if continuity fuck-ups have the ability to drive you insane, stay the hell away from this movie. You'll be tearing your hair out after the first half an hour. It's a reasonably well-made horror movie that delivers for an entertaining enough hour and a half, especially if you're one of those popcorn-bucket-tossing horror fans.
3.5 / 5