Movie Review: The Evil Dead

The Evil Dead

Starring: Bruce Campbell, Hal Delrich, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, Sarah York.
Produced by: Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert
Directed by: Sam Raimi



It's a rare thing when you can come across a movie shot in 1979, released in 1983, and the only gripe you have with it is the hair. But that's exactly the case with The Evil Dead, a movie made on a shoestring budget in Tennessee and Michigan by a bunch of people who wanted to make a movie.

Three of those people are still working today, and two of them are household names; Sam Raimi--the genius behind the Spider-Man movie franchise--and his production partner, Rob Tapert (That's Mr. Xena--he married actress Lucy Lawless during their time together working on Xena: Warrior Princess, another Raimi-Tapert collaboration) are the geniuses behind The Evil Dead, and their childhood friend Bruce Campbell (c'mon, it's me, you knew I couldn't let two paragraphs go by without mentioning His Dudeness) was the "star" of the movie.

The story of the movie is more than simple; five friends (Ash, Linda, Scott, Shelley and Cheryl) take a road trip to a cabin in the middle of nowhere for a weekend retreat, and unknowingly unleash a powerful evil presence. Plot was not exactly a consideration when the movie was made.

The strength of Evil Dead is found not in the acting (even lead actor Bruce Campbell is ashamed of it, and admits he can only watch about half of it without cringing) but in the story. The gore, the blood, the tears, the panic, even the stories of the actors behind the scenes all add to the movie's strength. Here is where I recommend the DVD commentaries; Campbell's is flat-out hysterical, and the Raimi-Tapert commentary is both educational as far as how scenes were shot, and sarcastic.)

Sam Raimi, the director-producer-cameraman, is half of what makes this movie unique. There are certain shots, and certain camera tricks, that make this not only a horror film but a Sam Raimi film. Veteran of many previous "home" movies, Raimi and company use the skills they've learned and make Evil Dead amazing.

The overall feeling of the movie is creepy from the beginning, from being crammed into a Delta 88 Oldsmobile to the claustrophobic cabin and tiny basement to the eerily quiet and foggy forest surrounding the cabin.

The pace is slow, but it works for the movie in a big way, because it slowly builds up the tension and the expectation. The scares start small and build, from the porch swing suddenly stopping to the darkness of the cabin, and the first crescendo is a "premonition" that one of the girls had and a psychic drawing of the Book of the Dead (Necronomicon).

From that drawing on, the scares still build slowly, but each one gets a little more intense. The cabin is deserted, but inside they find a tape player that belonged to a scientist, along with a creepy looking book and a dagger that looks like someone's spine has been ripped out and turned into a knife hilt with a skull on top. There's a sudden and inexplicable slamming of the chained closed cellar door, a few cheap scares along the way including a blender and Scott (Hal Delrich) popping out of nowhere, before they decide to play the tape from the basement.

It's playing that tape, about half an hour into the movie (the entire run time is only 85 minutes), that unleashes the evil. They are called "demon resurrection passages" and they awaken the evil in the woods, and give it license to possess the living.

It gets pretty explicit after that; the movie certainly earns the NC-17 rating it's been gifted with. One of the more controversial scenes involves Ash's sister Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) being assaulted by a possessed tree, and that scene alone would guarantee the NC-17 rating. It's because of that incident that Cheryl is the first one possessed by the evil force later in the movie. Ash (who's full name is Ashley, by the way) and Cheryl try to leave the cabin, but are forced back.

There is a little bit of a lull while everyone catches their breath to wait for the morning, but the lull doesn't last long--just long enough to let you get calm enough to get the crap scared out of you when the movie starts to happen again.

Cheryl is the first to be possessed, then Scott's girlfriend Shelley, then Ash's girlfriend Linda, and lastly, Scott is possessed by the evil demonic force, leaving Bruce Campbell's Ash as the only survivor. Their deaths are as gruesome as you could expect; Shelley is hacked to death with an axe and Linda is stabbed first, nearly dismembered with a chainsaw, and finally beheaded with a shovel. Cheryl and Scott are by far the most gruesome deaths, including fire, blood, explosions, hands bursting out of bellies, leaking brains and lastly, oozing and decaying flesh. Even Ash's survival is in question, because at the end of the movie, he is attacked by the force exactly as the movie ends and the credits roll over a black screen.

The best treats, however, have everything to do with Sam Raimi's camera angles. The creepy turns, the weird tilting shots, the in-your-face, ram-the-camera-through-a-glass-window-at-a-dead-run filming that puts you more in the movie than anything else ever could.

For flat-out horror and gore fans, this is the movie for you. For Bruce Campbell fans, this is *definitely* the movie for you. If you're in the least bit squeamish about anything? Wait for the sequels. (There's two of them; stay tuned for reviews.)