The Evil Dead

Year: 1981 Director: Sam Raimi

The plot surrounds a group of teenagers who go off on vacation to a secluded cabin in a forest. When they get there they discover The Book Of The Dead and a tape recorder which contains a translation of the book. When the play the tape the words summon up and unleash evil spirits into the forest . The evil spirits pick off the group one by one turning them into zombies, with only teenager left "Ash" (played by Bruce Campbell), he is left alone to fight off the evil and try to survive the night.

A familiar plot line? Plenty have tried to imitate The Evil Dead with variations on the formula - none have succeeded even getting near to emulating its strength as a movie (and don't get me started on The Blair Witch Project - pah!). So what makes The Evil Dead so special? Well it certainly helps that it was a true original. The acting whilst not being outstanding even in horror movie terms, contains a certain spirit and cohesiveness which helps make the events appear believable (sort of). The tiny budget allowed the makers to concentrate their efforts on atmosphere without resource to be over elaborate (which is where bigger budget productions trying to emulate the formula always miss a trick). Also when the gore happens rather than be embarrassed by the lo-fi ness of the gore and fx, they are made to be quite wonderfully over the top. All that and a underlying sense of humour helped create a fantastic landmark piece of horror cinema. Due to budgetary constraints the film was necessarily a stop start affair, taking over two years to complete its production (with most of the original cast being unable to return to do the pick ups after the main shoot had been completed). That this film was a labour of love for the director Sam Raimi and lead actor / producer Bruce Campbell is apparent from the results which do stand up in the genre. The film is also significant for giving Joel Coen his first break into cinema as assistant editor (Raimi would later make some contributions to some Coen Brothers films).

The Evil Dead features in our Interactive Haunted House of Horror guide to horror films and scary movies.

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