Be careful what you listen to... it might kill you!

Evil Dead is considered a cult classic, with a small budget and stable direction by Sam Rami, The Evil Dead quickly found an audience. The film had a simple premise and an even smaller budget but that didn’t stop it by having plenty of fun and cheesy effects and tons of gore. It even had two sequels and with a remake of this coming up, The Evil Dead series are quite popular.

Five friends, Ash, Scotty, Cheryl, Linda, and Shelly go out to an old cabin in the woods. They find a basement with lots of weird stuff including a tape recorder. They play the recorder and accidentally unleash evil sprits in the woods. Cheryl gets possessed and starts killing them. With Cheryl locked in the basement Linda and Scott get possessed and pretty soon it’s just Ash left to defend for himself.

The Evil Dead may have had a small budget but it is still loaded with blood and gore. When the non stop action begins the gore starts filling up most of the scenes. The blood and gore is not realist, it looks cheesy and fake and adds to the comedy of the film. This film crosses the boundaries and almost falls into being a Zombie spoof. It is so over the top it is hard to take the film seriously which adds to the whole comedy aspect of the film.

The acting is nicely done and each actor makes for a fun campy performance. Bruce Campbell does a nice job as the lead actor. His performance is over the top and undeniably fun. The other actors spend most of the time being possessed and speak in demotic sounding voices. The direction by Sam Rami is surprisingly well done. There are many fine camera shots, including first person views by the evil spirits. The direction is well done and looks great for such a small budget.

The atmosphere is well handled throughout the movie. The woods bring a sense of isolated fear, and the cabin fits the woods perfectly. Evil Dead is classified as a horror film and the atmosphere does fit the genre but the movie is cheesy and campy as it uses plenty of unrealistic blood and equally cheesy special effects. The movie does contain a few jump scenes and surprisingly it works quite effective as it makes you jump and get scared for a second or two. The movie pokes fun at the Zombie movies by having this appear as a very overdone cheesy film.

Overall I really enjoyed the Evil Dead. It was cheesy and fun with many fun performances that were over the top and campy. The blood and gore was gratuitous but not to be taken seriously. The violence level was high and the film had a short running time of only eighty five minutes it seemed a little short but that didn’t matter since it was an entertaining movie. Evil Dead may be too cheesy for some folks but don’t let that bother you, I would highly recommend this to anyone. Now I just need to see the sequel since I hear it is even better.

5 stars

Cast


Bruce Campbell .... Ashley 'Ash' J. Williams

Ellen Sandweiss .... Cheryl

Richard DeManincor .... Scotty

Betsy Baker .... Linda Williams

Theresa Tilly .... Shelly