Thursday, November 22, 2007

The Evil Dead

     The Evil Dead was the first movie collaboration with Director Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell. It spawned two more sequels making it a trilogy, plus a remake and a sequel to the remake. 

      The story starts as a group of 5 young people takes a vacation in a deserted cabin deep in the woods, far from where anyone can hear you scream (sounds like the ideal getaway doesn't it). During their mundane partying, they hear noises in the basement (which appears to be about three times bigger than the house itself) so they investigate. They find a tape recorder, a strange dagger, and a book (Noturam Demontos, book of the Dead). As they listen to the tape recorder, a man describes how the reciting of the passages of the book can awaken the evil beings that haunt the forests and dark bowers of man's domain. The man on the tape recorder recites the passages and before long the forest starts to come alive. 

      One by one, the happy vacationers are possessed by evil demons and start killing and eating each other. The main character "Ash" is for some reason, never possessed, but has to deal with his sister, girlfriend, best buddy, etc... all getting possessed and turning into vigorous flesh-eating evil possessed creatures. 

     Unfortunately, they can't leave because the surrounding forests seem to be possessed also. One girl tries to escape and is actually raped by a tree. Poor Ash goes through hell just trying to survive the night because hopefully, the demons will recede back into the forest when the sun rises. Until then, he has to dismember and bury his girlfriend (which doesn't really work). He gouges eyes, chops up friends, and gets lots of blood splattered everywhere. 

      When he finally becomes the only non-possessed, non-dismembered person there, and it's almost dawn, he thinks he's gonna be alright...not in this film.  In this, the first entry in the Evil Dead franchise, the movie seems to be trying to be as scary as possible but comes out a bit humorous.  Then in the second entry, it's meant to be humorous but oddly comes out much scarier.  Then part three came along and was just full-out Three Stooges comedy.  Not appreciating such slapstick humor, I didn't really like part three at all.  Stick with this one, it's by far the best of the lot.

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