Brandon Peters has returned! Leading up to the April 5th release date of the new Evil Dead remake, Mr. Peters will be doing his voodoo with the Evil Dead series. He continues with a look at The Evil Dead. As only a casual Evil Dead fan, this was an extra-special treat as this isn't a film series that I've memorized by heart. This was as informative for me as I hope it will be for you. So without further ado...
The Evil Dead
1981
Director: Sam Raimi
Assistant Editor: Joel Coen
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Hal Delrich,
Betsy Baker, Sarah York
Rated R
Now the sun will be up
in an hour or so, and we can all get out of here together. You, me, Linda, Shelly.
Hmm... Well... not Shelly.
~Ash
Sam Raimi’s The Evil
Dead is one of the kings of cult classics and one of the best horror films
to grace the screen. A super low-budget
feature with the drive and ambition of one many times its budget, The Evil Dead holds its own and is able
to keep hold, not fall apart and stand the test of time. The film flies by with genuine scares, gore
effects and camera techniques truly feeling like a master learning his craft.
Little did they know, all their work would turn into a
franchise that has spawned sequels, a remake, an INSANE amount of home video
releases, multiple video games, figures and comic books. I don’t think the film hit its massive
following or big time cult popularity until the 90's. For some reason, it feels that as soon as the
internet became more public, people started discovering that there were more
people than just them that liked The Evil
Dead. Personally, I was the kid that
was showing it to my classmates and such in school growing up, but only knew
like 2 other people who’d heard of and liked it. I just feel that with the internet came the
mass influx of Evil Dead love and tie-ins. Like it was a big shock that one was not
alone in their love of this franchise.
While the film has its share of continuity errors (who
doesn’t notice Hal Delrich’s haircut changing back and forth) and some blurred
shots, there’s some really impressive and effective work being done that makes
you not care at all about it. The Evil Dead is one of those movies that
make you yell ouch and feel pain that isn’t happening to you. The scene in which Linda gets stabbed with a
pencil STILL makes my ankle hurt to this day.
This movie is still pretty gory by today’s standards too. There’s a LOT of blood in it. A lot of blood.
But unlike some other gore-fests, it all works for laughs and terror. It feels a part of the story at hand and not
an exploitation (which I’m sure was the intent anyway).
Compared to the following to films of the series, Ash is a
bit of a different character in the original.
He’s a complete ‘fraidy cat pacifist who is stunned by all the deadites
and such. He cowers at the thought of
being heroic. It isn’t until he’s pushed
to the very limit and completely endangered that he steps up to the plate. And even then he’s not the hard-assed B-movie
hero we quote so often. As a matter of
fact, there’s nothing here to quote from him.
I still enjoy this Ash. But it’s
the following 2 films that give us the iconic Ash that graces t-shirts, video
games and dialogue in our pop culture.
The females in this film get all the fun parts. Well, I’m not sure if it was fun to go
through them. There was a rigorous and
brutal makeup process involving massive contact lenses going into their eyes to
give the effect. They could only be worn
for 10 minutes at a time and the eyes couldn’t breathe while they were in. However, in the finished products, all of
them get to shine and nasty demon baddies.
They’re all portraying evil insanity in many different was. Each is a memorable deadite and brings the
creeps, some dark humor/laughs and plenty of menace. They are honestly more of a highlight than
Ash is in the film. They quite frankly
steal the show. While we root for Ash to
survive the night, one can’t help but enjoy being terrorized by these demon
women.
Of the films in the series, this is the only one truly
dedicated to being a straight faced horror film. This one truly holds a special place for me
as it truly scared the bejesus out of me when I first saw this as a kid (and
many viewings after). I had to tape it
off of late night television (we’ll touch on that in a sec) and I watched it on
a weekend night, after my parents had gone to sleep, in a darkened living room
sitting super close to the TV. This
movie terrified me. It was dark, had
great jumps, scary ass demons and had those sheer moments of insanity (that at
a young age were scary, uncomfortable, unnerving and not enjoyable in a
humors/devious sort of way that it is now).
Growing up in Indiana, maybe it was the fact that it genuinely looked
Midwest, that I knew places nearby that looked and felt exactly like this
setting added to its terror. Also, the
fact that the film ends with the evil announcing that its still ever present
leaves you with that “oh shit, its still out there!” hook akin to a John
Carpenter film. My next thought would
be, oh crap, now I have to travel across this dark room to turn the lights back
on and then go to bed and sleep in the dark.
This is just the thrill I loved putting myself through, growing up a
horror film junkie. If the film did this
to me, it was a success. And The Evil Dead was a pretty big success
at that.
I mentioned taping it off TV. Aside from Army of Darkness, the first two films in this series were challenges
to find growing up in the Midwest (Fort Wayne, IN). Video stores didn’t have them, Suncoast
(where most of us movie collectors got our fix back in the 90's) wouldn’t be
able to order them because it was out of print, or the video rental store would
charge you an astronomical price to order it.
There was no eBay or anything like it to find a used copy. Because of that, I didn’t get to see the 2nd
film until the Anchor Bay VHS release in 1998.
Now, I may have had the opportunity before that, but after exhaustive
searches and letdowns, young Brandon may have given up. Nowadays these films are EVERYWHERE and have
a multitude of releases. Feel grateful,
young ones. I’m not going to be that
modern geek hater that acts like I’m better than you because I had to go on
elaborate searches or try hard to find VHS tapes…no…I’m the guy that says we
(and you younger ones especially) are lucky today. It’s awesome that these titles are available
on Amazon or a click away for us. Why is
that a bad thing? Films were meant to be
seen by all and by whoever wants to see them, not selfishly kept away. Call me “fake” or not true to my geek
heritage for saying that, but I’m happy with who I am and am happy to share
this movie and my love for it with whomever also enjoys it, regardless of
looks, weight, hygiene, dress code or background knowledge.
The Evil Dead is
one of my favorite horror films and films in general of all time. Watching it can always give me that nostalgic
feeling of the film that terrified me many moons ago. It’s still a very enjoyable, fun and scary
watch today. I can only hope that
somewhere out there a young boy/girl up late at night is popping this in for
the first time, unaware of what’s to come and has the same experience I did
when I watched it for the first time.
“Join us” next time: EVIL DEAD II: DEAD BY DAWN
Follow me on Twitter – www.twitter.com/@btpeters
E-mail – naptownnerd@gmail.com
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