Skip to main content

The Evil Dead (1981) - Sam Raimi


The Evil Dead is one of the most creative and fun horror movies, of all time. This is the movie that kicked off Sam Raimi's career and boosted the chin of Bruce Campbell. The movie was made with such passion, that you can really see it shine though. You can tell the actors and everyone else was having such a great time making it. Its the kind of expression and fun that is left out of sequels and other movies that are made down the line. 

Horror icons like Steven King and Wes Craven are huge fans of the movie. Steven King called this movie "...the most ferociously original horror film...." I think that he was really onto something here. The movie pays tribute to Wes Craven with a poster for The Hills Have Eyes. Equally Wes Craven payed homage to The Evil Dead by playing the movie on televisions in Nightmare on Elm Street. 

If you haven't seen this movie then I don't know why you are even reading my articles. Go do what you can to find this movie. Find it however you can, DVD, Netflix, whatever, you need to watch this movie. The movie is about a group of young adults that go out to a cabin in the woods and are terrorized by demons. The movie is pretty creative with its scares, featuring terrible makeup with tons of prop arms and legs. There is blood and guts galore, no shortage here. If you are into gore films this movie is for you, it was banned in many countries. It even fought off an NC-17 rating in 1984.



Now this movie was my 100th movie review. I am well on my way to watching every horror movie ever made, its going to be a tough ride but I will make it some day. I chose this movie after I had a lot of requests and friends coming over for a celebration.

Evil Dead is one of the greatest horror movies of all time, I couldn't help but love everything about this movie aside from the continuity. I am a stickler for that kind of thing though and this movie has almost no continuity. People who are dead are in different places, rooms are conjoining or don't exist, it is really strange. The movie is a solid 9 in my book, you couldn't find a better 100th movie. 

Director: Sam Raimi
Country: USA

Did ya know...

The recap of The Evil Dead includes a shot where the "evil force" runs through the cabin and rams into Ash. When this shot was filmed, Bruce Campbell suffered a broken jaw when Sam Raimi (who was operating the camera) crashed into him with a bicycle. Or so people were led to believe. This was a story concocted by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell as a gag to see how many people would believe it actually happened. Freddy's glove makes an appearance. Stephen King helped fund this movie. 


Labels:

Comments

TicoP said…
The only person that could have missed this must be born post 1995 or something. In the eighties censorship was a big deal in Norway, so when I was in England in the mid 80's, I was tipped on a store called Psychotronic video. It was located in Camden Town, and it had a motorcycle glued through the shop front window. The print I got was a decent looking bootleg that I had for years. I've seen this around 100 times, and have to admit I'm a bit tired of it, but probably will get the Blu Ray one day. No hurry for me, buy anyone reading your reviews that hasn't seen this, should ashamed of themselves. Nice one Sid.
July 15, 2010 at 11:43 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t...
Post a Comment
Not scared yet? »

Le Diable au Convent (1899) - George Melies

Le Diable au Convent is longer than the two previous Georges Méliès ventures into short form horror. This particular French short shows the Devil himself running a convent and terrorizing the poor old nuns that live there. However he is finally vanquished by the good of Faith. This is yet another Méliès classic, showcasing the art work that really goes into his short film-making. This is one of the earliest examples of a horror movie that could rely on its elaborate set design and artistic design. Everything in this film, although horribly aged, has been packaged extremely well. If you are a fan of production and set design then I would highly recommend just about anything that Melies has his name on. Though nothing that is considered too extreme actually happens, Satan does have his way with a convent. The satanic imagery itself must have kept this film on the traveling carnival circuit. It certainly wouldn’t fit into the good moral bag that society shoved i...
1 comment
Not scared yet? »

Spookies (1986) - Genie Joseph, Thomas Doran, and Brendan Faulkner

It's impossible to get a decent movie when you take two films and just squash them together. That is essentially the story of how this movie came together. The film started as Twisted Souls. However, according to the financial backer they didn't have enough horror. So they ended up hiring another guy to come in and add a monster in virtually every scene.  This movie started out being directed by Brendan Faulkner and Thomas Doran. It basically is the tale of two sets of teenagers that arrive to a strange building surrounded by a strange cemetery. It was your usual tale of teenagers in a big hows with a few monsters. Then they brought in Genie Joseph and added even more. Like a haunted birthday party, a murderous cat-man, zombies, and an old wizard. It really became a smorgasbord of horror with a very thin plot-line leading it around. This movie is hard to summarize in a conventional way. It just packs so much.  The most interesting part of this movie are ...
2 comments
Not scared yet? »