Duration: 85 minutes
Film Quality: 3.5/5
Gore Content: 4/5
Entertainment Value: 4.5/5
Originality: 4/5
Introduction
When two teenage lads decided to venture into the woods, full of hope and dreams, they surely didn’t expect that kind of reaction. No, not Dale and Tucker, I’m talking about Raimi and Campbell. Having begged, borrowed and probably attained by other means, enough money to make a feature length version of their short ‘Within the Woods’, a small crew of some 13 (they really didn’t help themselves did they!!!) began pre-production on a low budget film about demonic possession that within a couple of years had secured distribution with New Line cinema and a ringing endorsement from Stephen King. Campbell and Raimi had arrived…in style!
In a nutshell
Five teens venture into the woods where they unearth a tape recorder in an old log cabin. Foolishly they play the tape and unleash a demonic force that possesses them one by one. Can they unravel the mystery of the Book of the Dead and defeat the evil?
So what’s good about it?
This a true success story and a sheer triumph of creativity that goes to show that money and marketing are not the driving forces of creativity and entertainment. Raimi and Campbell were friends from school and it was through stubbornness and an absolute desire to get this film done that the horror community was given a genuinely original and fun film. They had just $100,000 and, though you could argue that they were lucky to have a friend with connections at Cannes to give them a wider audience, it was no fluke that Stephen King publicly endorsed the film. It really is a ferociously original film!
Let’s start with Raimi’s wonderful camerawork. The shape and form of the demonic force is never shown but its presence is everywhere, largely through Raimi’s expert handling of the lens. Just watch the scene where Cheryl comes out of the cabin and she looks to her left and right. The camera never lets you see past her field of view, she is on display and we are the ones watching her along with the evil presence. It’s unnerving and there are many other scenes like that in the woods, in the cabin, long tracking shots and the now infamous camera through the woods shot at the end. There is a sequence about an hour in where almost everything is shot at an angle of 45 degrees that is astonishing and shows a talent and capacity for editing way beyond what you normally expect from a low budget gore fest.
What about the bad?
One of the reasons Sam Raimi made ‘Evil Dead 2’ so jovial was because of the reaction he got from some quarters to what was a fairly brutal original. Despite a thick undercurrent of black humour running throughout the film, the ‘tree rape’ scene never sat well with some critics and it does appear a little out of place with some of the other demonic attacks. I’m sure it wasn’t Raimi’s intention to trivialise rape or make it appear a little hokey but, despite it not being particularly graphic, it is pretty tasteless. With the rest of the film being such good, occasionally over the top fun I don’t think the film would have been any the worse without it.
Raimi would go on to write and direct bigger and better films and there are some elements of ‘The Evil Dead’ that don’t stand up too well to modern audiences. It has been surpassed by its own superior sequel and, despite some nifty camerawork and useful effects, it is rough around the edges and shows all the hallmarks of a low budget, amateur, independent film, albeit done VERY well and hugely enjoyable!
Any themes?
I always found it interesting that it was the women in the film who become possessed first. Could this be a heavily disguised feminist film? Okay, perhaps that’s a stretch too far but it does raise the question about whether our female characters are in fact the victims here. Traditionally it’s been the female characters who are terrorised, become the focus for our fear and the ones we identify with but not here. By making the ladies succumb to the demonic possession first, it is the males who are terrorised and the women who become the tormentors, albeit with a forced hand. This is certainly more pronounced in the second half of the film with Ash in particular bearing the brunt of the beatings.
By switching the roles and focus of the terror, it’s worth pointing out that this film was made during the height of the slasher boom. The way the film is structured is almost like an anti-slasher. You have the correct setting, a cabin in the woods becomes the terrible place, you have the female character who can ‘see’, many of the gruesome scenes involve sharp, penetrative weapons, guns are useless and there is an unseen, omnipresent force stalking the group of teens. However it is all subverted. The final girl is a boy, it is the men who are stalked and slashed, it’s the women who keep getting up after seemingly being killed and there is no unmasking, no resolution, no real escape.
Release History
Despite ‘The Evil Dead’ becoming intrinsically linked to the video nasties moral panic, it’s worth pointing out that Raimi’s film was never on the official list, or at least not the prosecuted 39 that made the DPP’s list. The original cinema version in the UK was cut by around 45 seconds and it was this version that was released by Palace on VHS and later banned in 1983, being dropped from the list in 1985. Palace picked it up again for distribution in 1990 but the BBFC failed to see the funny side, slicing a further minute from the running time. Anchor Bay brought out the full uncut VHS and DVD in 2001 and all subsequent releases have been completely uncensored.
There is a ‘Book of the Dead’ edition released in the UK which is cropped to fit a widescreen ratio rather than its natural fullscreen display. Some fans dislike this particular version as it is also slightly altered, albeit at Raimi’s request, including the removal of a lightening flash and a zoom into Cheryl’s face as she turns around having been possessed.
It’s worth pointing out that some of the newspapers that campaigned for this film to be banned (yes, I’m talking to you ‘The Sun’) were quite happy to give it away free on DVD in its uncut form as a promotion in the early 2000s to sell copies…hypocritical doesn’t quite cover it!
Cultural Impact
Massive and matches ‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ and ‘Night of the Living Dead’ as one of the most culturally significant horror debuts in cinema history. It’s spawned two sequels that progressively upped the humour and slapstick whilst reducing the horror and gore, a very good remake and a TV series that continued a number of years after his own third movie ended.
It gave the world a unique directorial talent in Sam Raimi who became one of the hottest properties in Hollywood when he took a stab at the ‘Spider-man’ movies, doing a superb job on the first two, It’s refreshing to see a director who cut his teeth on the horror circuit not abandoning his own directorial traits and you could argue that his witty style and eye for the unusual camera shot was perfectly suited to bringing comic book characters to life.
Final thoughts
Original, entertaining, gleefully gory and revelling in its own bad taste, it’s very difficult not to enjoy ‘The Evil Dead’. It’s title suggests a zombie movie but it plays out more like a haunted house movie with a touch of the slasher and large dollop of demonic possession. Highly original, it was quite a hit on its release, raking in well over $2.5m and was the year’s biggest selling video in the UK before the BBFC put paid to that! It’s a film to go back to and enjoy over and over again, just enjoy it!
Memorable quotes
Linda: “We’re gonna get you, we’re gonna get you, not another peep, time to go to sleep.”
Evil Dead: “Join us…”
Shelly: “I don’t know what I would have done had I remained on those hot coals, burning my pretty flesh.”
Cheryl: “You will die…like the others before you, one by one we will take you.”
Ash: “You bastards, why are you torturing me like this…why?”
You’ll like this if you enjoyed…
‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’, ‘The Video Dead’, ‘Bad Taste’, ‘Cabin in the Woods’.
Related Posts
‘Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn’ – Click here
‘Bad Taste’ – Click here
‘The Texas Chain Saw Massacre’ – Click here
‘The Video Dead’ – Click here
‘An American Werewolf in London’ – Click here
'Braindead' - Click here
