A greatly entertaining slasher feast done with a great sense of horror and humor!
Even though it’s been 42 years since its release, Sam Raimi’s cult classic “The Evil Dead” still has what it takes to entertain and shock. This low budget cult classic still manages to conjure up more scares than most modern horror movies!
The story centers around a group of teenagers who sets out to spend a cozy weekend in an old cabin out in the woods. After settling in, downed a few brewskis and rolled up some joints, they soon find a strange book in the basement of the cabin entitled Necronomicon Ex-Mortis - the book of the dead - an ancient tome to invoke evil spirits and demons - and of course they end up raising hell like never before.
There is this cozy yet eerie and threatening atmosphere looming over the film before it quickly gears up into a ferocious and greatly entertaining slasher feast done with a sense of both horror and humor - just it's the way it’s intended. Even though the effects of "The Evil Dead" haven’t aged that well over the years, there still are a few scenes that makes you struggle to keep your eyes open - like a scene with one of the characters gets raped by a tree - yeah you read that right.
There is also a quite intriguing backstory to the Necronomicon and how it ended up in the old cabin’s basement. Had it been explored deeper here I feel it could have added more depth to the film, however that was saved for the sequels "Evil Dead II" (1987) and
"Army of Darkness" (1992) - perhaps because then there was a bigger budget to play with.
Working with a limited budget made Raimi and his crew come up with some inventive and effective camerawork which sort of became one of the trademarks of the cinematography of "The Evil Dead". One example of this is that they could not afford a proper camera rig, so instead they simply mounted the camera on a two-by-four and had two people hold on to each side while running around with it. This homemade rig was used to film the famous scenes where the sinister invisible force flies through the forest and swamplands.
The acting here is what you would expect it to be, not much to decorate your Christmas tree with so to speak. So, if you are here looking for high class acting, you have clearly lost your way. The only actor who actually made a career after "The Evil Dead" was Bruce Campbell and his character Ash has become somewhat of a horror movie icon over the years.
Apart from the sequels mentioned above "The Evil Dead" also spawned a remake in 2013 directed by Andy Muschietti, which is basically a darker and more “serious” version of the film and a TV-series entitled "Ash vs. The Evil Dead" which was released in 2015 and ran for three seasons until 2018.
“The Evil Dead” has built up quite a fan base over the years and it’s on of those horror classics that you just have to see. Sam Raimi’s blood soaked piece of evil cinema is a greatly entertaining, atmospheric, still quite scary - and still manages to get the adrenalin pumping!
The latest sinister spawn in the Evil Dead series is “Evil Dead Rise” which hit the theatres in march 15, 2023 – and I can strongly recommend you to go see it while it’s still running on the big screens. Also, make sure to check out my review of it right here!
Title: The Evil Dead
Release date: October 15, 1981
Runtime: 1h 25 min
Genre: Horror
Country: United States
Director: Sam Raimi
Writers: Sam Raimi
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