Cult Film Week: The Evil Dead

Hey folks and welcome back for Cult Classics Day 2.  This time around I thought we would look into a budding young horror director who later went on to produce such shows as: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, 30 Days of Night and Spartacus: War of the Damned.  So get your boomstick and chainsaw and for God’s sake do not read from the book!    This is The Evil Dead.

A dim bulb with a lantern.

Spoilers will swallow your soul!!!

With a budget index of $375,000, some hopes and dreams and a 4 year endeavor The Evil Dead was made.  Director/Writer/Producer Sam Raimi (Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, Darkman, The Quick and the Dead, Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2 and Drag Me to Hell) teamed up with his buddies, producer Rob Tapert (M.A.N.T.I.S., Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, American Gothic, Spy Game, Jack of All Trades and Cleopatra 2525) and this actor shlub Bruce Campbell (Army of Darkness, Spiderman, Mindwarp, Jack of All Trades, Bubba Ho-tep and Burn Notice) to form Renaissance Pictures and helmed their very first horror movie by pitching to investors with a Super 8 movie entitled: Within the Woods.  

Possession or PMS?  You decide.

Among this alumni of loonies is Ellen Sandweiss (Speedbag, Satan’s Playground, My Name is Bruce, The Dread and Dangerous Women) who Raimi and crew conned in being in Super 8 movies and earned every cut and scrape filming this movie.  On to the film as you have been patiently waiting for.

Five young friends head up into the backwoods of Tennessee (Mostly Knoxville and Morristown) to a cabin for some partying, rest and relaxation.  The premise being they will all have to go back to college after the break so this is the last fling to back to school.    Upon investigation of this cabin and its workshed I am hoping they did not drop too much on a deposit.   Odd things start to occur.  Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) acts if a force of unknown origin has taken over her drawing hand and scrawls a replica of a disturbing tome.   She says nothing about it other than having a feeling of dread.   As our gaggle of youngsters proceeds to eat, drink and be merry, the ceiling door pops up and of course the boys have to go and inspect like true blue Scoobies.  Ash (Bruce Campbell) and Scott (Richard DeManicor of Crimewave) come across a demented blade with skulls and bone carvings as well as a book that appears to be bound in some sort of hide, possibly human flesh.   Well that hardly seems out of the ordinary.  

Looking about they come across a reel to reel recorder of a man claiming to be a one Professor Knowby (Bob Dorian of Matinee Movie Classics) who reads phonetic translations of this bizarre tome stirring entities of another realm outside of our own.  Dark malevolent spirits that proceed to warp the woods and the very campers themselves, the reel to reel further announces how people possessed by these spirits can only be stopped by the act of bodily dismemberment.   A dark night falls on our intrepid five and you are left wondering who will be next.  

Relationship on the rocks...

And now just a few side notes here on the film.   The two drunken fishermen by the side of the road are Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert because well…I guess they needed some screen credit and it was a bit part.  Sam Raimi, ham that he is the voice of the evil force roaming the woods.   Creature effects were rough and thrown together, the script was only 90 pages long so there feels like a lot of lag between scenes and Bruce’s acting is a trifle over the top.   The fact remains is this is the first horror film to have a sole male survivor, improvised camera angle known as the shaky cam giving wider range of movement and loads of stop animation in homage to stop motion and puppeteering.    That all being said, modern day splatter gore fans are probably gonna chuckle through it and wonder why it fell on the ban list of horror.