Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
It’s easy to forget now, but there was a time when Sam Raimi was not the widely-loved, cultishly-adored purveyor of both mass market blockbuster entertainment and populist thrillers and chillers. And there was a time when Bruce Campbell was not the star of multiple beloved TV series, a time when he didn’t have a dozen different catchphrases associated with him and an IMBD profile stuffed to the breaking point with B-movie bliss.
No, back in 1979, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell were just a couple of dudes in their late-teens, early twenties, coming of age in Michigan with no college prospects and a desperate need to escape the lives and careers it seemed that their families had laid out for them. Movies being a longtime passion for both men, they hit upon a brilliant idea: Let’s make our own.
Although both Raimi and Campbell had an affinity for comedy (with recreating Three Stooges bits being the driving force for their earliest shorts) they did not believe they would have the resources available to make a feature film-quality comedy.
But horror?
Well, screams come cheap.
What Raimi, Campbell, and producer Robert Tapert cooked up was The Evil Dead, sold at the time as “the ultimate experience in grueling terror”. The set-up is simplicity itself: A group of dumb kids (including Campbell’s Ashley “Ash” Williams) head out to an old cabin in the woods, accidentally release a primordial spirit of ancient evil, as you do, and then are set upon by malevolent spirits. But writing out the plot does not do justice to the sheer tonnage of mayhem Raimi and his collaborators packed into their first feature, with cameras racing through trees and across the surface of ponds, ghouls jumping out from every corner, and blood quite literally pouring on the screen.
The Evil Dead was a notoriously grueling production, but the young filmmakers found their fortunes suddenly changing when Stephen King saw the film at the Cannes Film Festival and wrote a rave review. Although fame and fortune were still a long way off (indeed, 1987’s Evil Dead II can be viewed as the creative team taking a mulligan not only on the story, but on their careers), a legend of DIY horror was out in the wild, and the genre would never be the same.
Hugely controversial in its time (and still hotly debated and sometimes censored thanks to elements like the infamous tree-rape scene), The Evil Dead was succeeded by a pair of sequels, a spin-off TV show, a well-received remake, and a virtual never-ending wave of tie-in comics, games, merchandise, and special editions. But because of the overtly comic nature the series took starting with II (before going full slapstick with the third film, Army of Darkness), people forget just how mean the original Evil Dead is.
So join us, joooooooin ussssssssss, as we spend a long night in a dark forest with The Evil Dead.
Next Week’s Pick:
We’re doing The Night Comes For Us.
You are not ready.
Available on Netflix Instant.
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Our Guests
I absolutely love this movie, and am generally wary of people who do not. The Evil Dead series overall has a reputation for horror comedy, if not outright camp, but that’s really a development that came with the various sequels. And as much as I enjoy the fun of those later installments (heck, I’ve performed in Evil Dead the Musical twice!), this original film is a different animal. The Evil Dead is a straight-up early 80s low budget horror film, and I’ve always appreciated that about it. It’s got Sam Raimi at the earliest, hungriest stage of his directorial career and you can just feel him creatively pushing against the boundaries of their technical and budgetary limitations. It’s got Bruce Campbell before he was a full-formed genre mainstay — and yet already showing a glimmer of the charisma that would connect with fans for decades to come. It’s got some fantastically creepy performances from Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, and Sarah York. In addition, Tom Sullivan’s gory visual effects and Joseph LoDuca’s score provide a sense of spectacle greater than the film’s budget might suggest. The Evil Dead is a film that is kind of a haunted house movie, but also kind of an exorcism/possession movie, but also kind of a zombie movie. It breaks all kinds of rules because the filmmakers hadn’t really learned them yet, and the result is a kind of chaotic energy that seems held together by their raw talent and determination. The Evil Dead is one of the best horror films of the 1980s, and I never get tired of revisiting it.
Verdict: Treat (@T_Lawson)
Brendan Agnew (The Norman Nerd):
There aren’t many horror films that can still feel *dangerous* after years of familiarity. High definition transfers and special feature documentaries and sequels and spinoffs and ripoffs tend to shine a lot of light into the cracks of what used to be the spooky corners of a thing, but movies like The Evil Dead? There’s something there that just never seems to wash away.
People remember how “fun” the Evil Dead name is, but that’s largely beholden to San Raimi’s near-perfect sequel to the this DIY nightmare. The OG ED is far more dark, nasty, and often gives the viewer the desire to call out “No no, that’s a bad idea!” to those maniacs behind the camera as much as the characters in front of it. Because Bruce Campbell wasn’t quite a live action Looney Toon yet, the movie has to spread to punishment around in a way that really does feel like there might not be anyone walking out of that cabin come sunrise. That’s an undercurrent that never quite goes away, even if you’ve seen the sequels and the show or read the comics and played the games. The film never makes you feel complicit, but it very deliberately makes you feel trapped.
It’s still entertaining as all get-out, it just makes the audience work for it. And as much as certain elements really have not aged well (that effing tree), it’s a hell of a thing to see a director emerge so fully formed as Raimi did after this.
Verdict: Treat (@BLCAgnew)
Ryan Bisasky:
“Kill her if you can, loverboy.”
I first became aware of The Evil Dead via some unusual circumstances, and this may date myself, but seeing an ad for the Book Of the Dead DVD edition and seeing an NC-17 rating. I knew then I had to find and watch this. And boy was it an eye opener. Never had I seen that kind of graphic gore before and or seen so much blood. Yes, it takes its time and has some questionable acting and content (cough the angry molesting tree) but man, once it gets going , it’s non stop violence and mayhem. In doing a rewatch , even stuff I knew was coming still made me jump out of my seat, an example of this is when cursed Linda turns and jumps out at Ash. And even after all these years, certain gory moments still make me wince. The pencil through the Achilles Tendon physically hurts to see, that and the double eye gouge. And yet some of the gore makes me laugh, in particular Ash chopping up a character with an axe and blood literally pouring down the screen! That, and Ash chopping someone’s head off and blood spewing right into his face (and then the very next shot has a clean Ash!)
The Evil Dead is an early 80s splatter classic! I may prefer Army of Darkness for the slapstick but Sam Rami and crew certainly created one for the ages. Hail to the king, baby.
Verdict: Treat (@TheChewDefense)
The Team
Even if time, and HD, increasingly show the seams of Raimi’s handmade efforts, it doesn’t matter. The Evil Dead remains the greatest of all DIY horror films, a sledgehammer of style and ambition slammed directly into your skull. From the first minutes, with what would come to be known, of course, as “the Raimi-cam” speeding through the forest, this is a film that announces its ambition and energy right away and rarely, if ever, lets up. While there’s a bit of wheel-spinning to actually gets the kids to the cabin and unleash the evil, once things get cooking they don’t ever, ever, E V E R let up until the credits finally hit. Even at such a young age, even with his first feature, Raimi had an unerring eye for how to pace out his mayhem, ramping up to new peaks of terror and grotesqueness, until you think things can’t get any crazier and then he goes even crazier.
The acting from the non-Campbells in the cast can be spotty, but who cares, really. Sam Raimi is the star of this movie, and he fills almost every frame with technique and style, and that drive results in a film that still holds up way more than it doesn’t, with some gore effects even going so far that even to this day I wince when they occur (that goddamn pencil).
Ultimately, Evil Dead II will probably always be the ‘classic’ of this series, the one
where the stars aligned juuuuust right to make something undeniable. But The Evil Dead remains a ferociously entertaining, and creatively inspiring, horror film unlike anything else out there.
Verdict: Treat (@theTrueBrendanF)
I’ve seen all the Evil Dead movies multiple times, but it’s been awhile since my last revisit to the cabin in the woods. I actually have a bit of trouble keeping Evil Dead I and II straight mentally; even though the films are quite different in tone (the wackier stuff is in II), there’s a lot of overlap in the narrative.
The original 1980 debut was the leanest and meanest, and its low-budget nature isn’t a hindrance, but rather adds to its sense of subversive strangeness. While it’s not as polished as its sequels, the ending is a nightmare of stop-motion nastiness that secures the film’s place in the annals of horror. And on this particular rewatch, I was struck by how much of the film’s chilling nature comes from its unique sound design.
It’s a great thing to be said for the franchise that one some point I’ve considered all three films “clearly the best” of the trilogy. At the moment I think I’d give that honor to II, but The Evil Dead is a horror all-timer.
Verdict: Treat (@VforVashaw)
Unanimous Two Cents Verdict: Treat!!
Happy Halloween!
Next week’s pick: