The Evil Dead
A Quick Search on IMDB: The Evil Dead was written and directed by Sam Raimi and released in 1981.
Before the Viewing: My first introduction to The Evil Dead series was, naturally, through a children’s cartoon growing up.
As a kid who was into creepy shit, I loved Maxwell Atoms’ The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy on Cartoon Network. The show, for those unfamiliar, is about the Grim Reaper, who is bound to serve two elementary school students. Several episodes include characters who pay homage to all things spooky and horrific, including a “spectral exterminator” named Hoss Delgado.
Physically, Delgado resembles Snake Plissken from Escape from New York and Escape from LA, but he also has a detachable hand which he can swap out for tools. I distinctly remember watching an episode with him and my older brother telling me that he was a reference to Ash from The Evil Dead, effectively spoiling (I think) a movie series I had never even heard of at the time.
Anyway, as I was growing up, I was quite fond of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man franchise — and yes, I’m very excited that Alfred Molina is coming back for No Way Home, but that’s beside the point. I recall learning more about The Evil Dead through a commentary and/or behind the scenes feature on one of the Spider-Man DVDs; something about a car that’s been used in a lot of Raimi’s films? I think?
As for my Evil Dead viewing in the very near future, I’d like to say that I’m vaguely aware of a lot of the series’ plot (though I will only be covering the first film for now). Something about a book in a cabin in the woods, a tree that does unspeakable things, the word “groovy”, demons(?), and Bruce Campbell, whom I adore as a person (and originally knew only from his cameos in said Spider-Man movies).
I’m really excited to finally watch this cult classic, especially now that Halloween is upon us.
After the Viewing: What. An. Experience.
Now, normally I’m all about the characters when I watch something. For instance, I recently binged all of Psych and though I love detectives-solving-murders stuff, what I really appreciated about the show was the cast of characters, their dialogue, and the running jokes above all. I felt the same way when I watched Arrested Development too.
But in The Evil Dead, it’s all about the gore and the atmosphere, and it really worked for me.
It’s incredibly rare that I watch anything and consciously think about the atmosphere. This film did such an incredible job of laying it out from the get-go. In a lot of the horror movies I’ve seen in my life, it always seems like the beginning is all, “Oh, everything’s happy and we’re a fun group of people you should root for and be sad when we die.”
Not in this movie.
Right off the bat, there’s creepy music and ambitious camerawork showing off the spooky setting. The opening sequence cuts between this and our five college students in The Car (Sam Raimi’s trademark Oldsmobile). There’s barely any dialogue, no set-up, just five kids driving to a cabin in the woods, about to set some demons loose upon them.
I’m still not really sure I know most of the characters’ names without looking them up. They were really unimportant to the story, just vessels for the effects. And I loved how unapologetic the film is about it.
We don’t know anything about them. We don’t know their dreams or goals, we don’t know what kind of food they like, we don’t know how they all met. They’re just kinda there for the demons to terrorize. And it does not take a single thing away from the movie.
My pretentious, “gotta say this to impress my college professors in this essay,” brain is telling me that maybe it’s like that because we’re seeing this film through the eyes of the demons. That they don’t care who anyone is, they’ll just take whatever human victims they can.
My cynical brain is theorizing that Sam Raimi just wanted to shoot a movie that’s all blood and guts and didn’t care about fleshing out any of these characters. But I don’t know that for sure either.
I will say, though, that at least the main character, Ash Williams, got a bit of development. I enjoyed seeing him go from shell-shocked against the wall after he cut off one of the girls’ arms, to having the strength and fortitude to become the Sole Survivor at the very end. “We stan,” as the kids used to say.
The last thing I’m going to talk about is the gross-out factor of this movie. Yes, by today’s standards, the practical effects and stop-motion look a little goofy. But my God, were there a lot of moments where I pulled actual faces. Like…the horror of the infamous tree scene alone. I knew it was going to happen, I knew what was going to happen, and I still had a physical reaction to it.
In Conclusion: The Evil Dead was the perfect gore film, as far as I’m concerned. There was no unnecessary bullshit (okay, maybe the tree part was unnecessary), just lots of blood and guts.
Yes, it was disturbing, but that’s the whole point. It’s not meant to be thought-provoking. It’s not meant to be a character study. It’s meant to be scary and disgusting, and it does just that.
The Evil Dead does not pretend to be anything other than what it is, and I really admire it for that.
