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The Evil Dead [DVD]

Screenplay : Sam Raimi

MPAA Rating : NR

Year of Release : 1982

Stars : Bruce Campbell (Ashley J. "Ash" Williams), Ellen Sandweiss (Cheryl Williams), Hal Delrich (Scotty), Betsy Baker (Linda), Sarah York (Shelly)

In the spring of 1982, a low-budget horror film made by a bunch of college buddies from Michigan State University, shot in the fall of 1979 on 16mm for about $50,000, debuted to unexpectedly rave reviews at the Cannes Film Festival. After being hailed as a masterpiece by author Stephen King, the freshman work of a 23-year-old writer/director named Sam Raimi went on to theaters and has since become a huge international cult hit that has spawned two sequels and a passionate following, particularly after its release on home video.

The movie, The Evil Dead, is striking in the creative energy it invests in a generally uninspired story full of half-baked ideas. In fact, the blandness of the plot, characters, and narrative development is almost as shocking as the in-your-face blood and guts Raimi throws around like a hyperactive kid without his Ritalin. However, Raimi invests enough manic energy into the telling of this story that you can't help but be enthralled by his sheer exuberance. It's catching to say the least, although when the movie's over, you might ask yourself what it was you just watched.

The story involves five college students—two guys and three girls—driving to a remote cabin in the Tennessee woods for a quiet weekend together. Raimi immediately sets up an atmosphere of danger with ominous sound effects and a subjective camera of some unseen force crashing through the woods as the car approaches. Something big is lurking out there, just waiting for these kids to arrive.

Once at the cabin, the kids stumble into the eerie basement and find the "Sumerian Book of the Dead," a strange volume bound in human flesh. It turns out that a professor had been using the cabin for his research into the Book of the Dead, and he conveniently left a tape recorder with his notes about how he released some slumbering demons that must have made off with him and his wife. Of course, he was also kind enough to leave the mysterious wake-up chants on the tape, so when the kids play it, demons come bursting from the earth to make off with them, too.

What ensues is a constantly escalating bloodbath in which the demonic forces take over each character one-by-one, turning him or her into a rotting, possessed zombie. Raimi never gets very deep into explanations; for instance, it's never clear exactly what makes someone turn into a demonic zombie. Is it caused by some form of supernatural possession, or is from being bitten by another zombie, ala George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead (1968)? But, even those two options don't explain how one of the kids turns into a zombie simply by being stabbed in the Achilles' tendon by a pencil that happens to be wielded by one of the zombies.

In fact, it becomes quickly evident that everything in the movie is just a quick set-up for the gory pay-off. Unlike Romero's films, there's no underlying subtext—The Evil Dead is all surface. However, considering the budget size and nonprofessional actors Raimi was working with, the surface ain't bad. The movie's make-up effects by Tom Sullivan are quite impressive, which is a good thing since they are constantly tasked into use (remember, dismembering the demons is the only sure way to kill them).

Special effects aside, Raimi is no hack—he knows how to make something out of nothing. With creative camera angles, sharp editing, manic pacing, and terrific sound effects, he turns a low-budget trash heap into an entertaining bit of comic book fun in the spirit of old EC comics like Tales From the Crypt updated for the MTV generation. He inserts just enough self-effacing humor that he avoids the pitfalls of taking himself too seriously. This is supposed to be ride, after all.

While much of The Evil Dead is adopted from other movies, Raimi has the good sense to turn some of the genre's conventions on their heads. For instance, instead of giving us a woman terrorized by men, he gives us a man, Ash (Bruce Campbell), being attacking by possessed she-devils, one of whom used to be his girlfriend. Unlike The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1973), Halloween (1978), or Friday the 13th (1980), all of which left bloody, shrieking heroines standing in the end, Raimi gives us a bloody, shrieking hero standing at the end of his film (which is also underscored by Ash's gender-questionable name, which sounds tough but is actually short for Ashley). It's a jab at the underlying sexism in horror films that all men are predators and all women are prey.

However, Raimi isn't above the old jump-out-of-the-dark, false alarm, or the-dead-are-never-quite-dead scare tactics, all of which he uses over and over again. In fact, by the time the movie arrives at its bloody, surrealistic conclusion, he's exhausted just about every horror and gore cliche in the book—all in less than an hour and a half. Brevity may be the soul of wit, but that's the last thing on Raimi's mind. Repetition is the name of the game, and he who is grossest wins.

Copyright © 1997, 2002 James Kendrick