Evil Dead, 1981
Evil Dead, 1981
Written & Directed by Sam Raimi
Bruce Campbell ... Ashley 'Ash' J. Williams
Ellen Sandweiss ... Cheryl
Richard DeManincor ... Scott (as Hal Delrich)
Betsy Baker ... Linda
Theresa Tilly ... Shelly (as Sarah York)
How many of you love Mystery Science Theater 3000? How many of you wish you could be Tom Servo or Crow? How many of you fill awkward spaces in movies from the early 80s with MST3K-like commentary and discussion? How many of you have been told to shut the hell up when you've done this in the past? Okay, well, I can raise my hand for all of those questions. The Evil Dead, though, allowed me to explore my inner Tom Servo without fear of repercussion because I was almost as funny as the movie. Thanks, Evil Dead, for allowing me to fulfill my secret wishes.
I was recommended this movie by a couple of people who, as usual, gaped at me when I said I hadn't seen many of Bruce Campbell's films. I saw him in Spider-Man 3 and I recognize him on sight -- I just hadn't seen the movie that started it all. So I watched it last night.
There's no real plot to Evil Dead. The premise is that some college students go to a cabin, and everything there is haunted. While they're in the cabin, Ash (Campbell) finds the Book of the Dead and listens to a recording of a professor whose wife became possessed or zombified or whatever while they were staying there. Then everyone turns into a zombie and Ash is the only one left truly alive. Yay Ash.
It takes a stalling, sputtering 20 minutes and a girl getting raped by a tree (whoever said "torture porn" was a new occurrence probably didn't remember Evil Dead) to get to the point of glorious cheesy food-blood and campy zombie make-up, which is why I wanted to watch this movie in the first place. I almost turned it off after the tree-rape scene because it just seemed like it wasn't going to go anywhere that I wanted to watch. Even as I moved to turn the movie off, the girl who was raped (they all look the same, with or without zombie make-up) turned into the magnificent heckling zombie I'd been waiting to see. In a zombie-oid rage, she stabs another girl in the ankle for, like, 20 minutes, and we audience members get the pleasure of watching fake chocolate-syrup blood pour from a fake plastic ankle while the rest of the characters apparently stand and stare, incapable of, um, moving the stabbed woman away from the zombie woman.
Thereafter, it's all thrills, spills and, well, not chills so much as bone-shaking laughter. The thrills and spills and whatnot are generously sprinkled with those awkward silences, perfect for your MST3K fantasies. There's the caked-on make-up, the so-totally-80s sound effects and visual effects, the utter lack of any explanation for the zombifiedness of the characters. Really, The Evil Dead is the horror movie all other horror movies strive to be. It is the horror movie in the Platonian cave, if you will.
If I'd been reviewing this in 1981, I'd give this one a big ol' F. But since I have the benefit of living in 2007 and of knowing that Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell went on to mock themselves in Evil Dead 2 and The Army of Darkness, I can grant this movie some accolades for not taking itself too seriously.
Overall: B