The Madness Begins with Evil Dead

Sam Raimi started off to make Evil Dead as a serious horror flick. He admits this openly in the director's commentary. He was sooo crushed when the producer said to him "I thought you were making a horror movie. This is a comedy". (I paraphrased). Indeed, it is a comedy. A cult classic. This film will have your sides splitting.

Ash and his friends decide to go spend a few days at a cabin in the woods. They find a book in the cellar. This is a very bad book. Not bad in the ewww what kinda crap is that sense, mind you, but Bad in the oh hell we're all gonna die now sense. You know the type. You probably have one. heh. Made ya go look!

Oddly enough, things do start happening. Mainly, the chicks turn into demons. Now, a friend of mine said this isn't far off the truth, chicks are born demonic. He slept in the shed that night. The first victim was outside and got raped by the woods. No, I don't mean she got raped near the woods; I mean she got raped BY the woods. Figure that one out... This is serious down-home laugh-out-loud hysterical. We're talkin' sides aching, coke-spewing funny.

I am not gonna give you the rest of the plot. I am going to say that it went downhill from there... or got better, depending on your own warped perspective.

Bruce Campbell plays Ashley 'Ash' J. Williams, the unwitting hero in this story, and the sequels. Ash has become an American Icon. I'm serious here! Everyone knows who Ash is, but they'd be hard pressed to name their congressman. Campbell plays this part so campy. Gotta love it. He started off trying to play it straight. Really he did. But man, I mean... even he could see where this was going and gave up. If you don't get enough pain from the movie, watch it again with Campbell's commentary... oh man, Hilarious!

Campbell went on to star in the sequel, Evil Dead II, and then the other sequel, Army of Darkness (my personal fave of the bunch). OK, so he did more than Ash. Whatever. This series is what he's known for. This role is why we adore him.

There are other actors in this, naturally, but they are not even worth mentioning. I mean, even they left the set early to like, be with their family, and go shopping...and stuff.

Sam Raimi is the director of this mess, and he wrote it, so he's the one to blame, so to speak. Like he said, he started out trying to make a serious horror flick. It's a good thing he failed; it never would have become the classic that it is today if he had succeeded.

Now, you might want to dismiss Raimi after this, but don't. He went on to direct things like Spider-Man, A Simple Plan, and The Gift. I loved A Simple Plan, but I really wanna see more of Ash!

I don't have the list of DVD features in front of me... but there was a director's commentary and a commentary by Campbell. Campbell's is by far the most entertaining of the two. Don't get me wrong, though, as you should watch them both.

The commentaries give away all the deep dark secrets of filming and the amazing uses of milk. There is a lot of good stuff here. Like that most of the actors left the set before the end of filming so they had to use other people in their place, which added to the schlock value, much in the manner of Plan 9 From Outer Space when they had to replace Lugosi.

Evil Dead runs 85 minutes in length and is unrated. They chose to skip the rating due to the incredible amount of blood and flat-out gore. They knew they would get slammed by the ratings police. Personally, I think any stable kid could watch this and see the fakeness for what it is. And if not, you will be there to laugh uproariously and point it out, being the good parent you are and all... right? Well...ok, so maybe that raped-by-woods scene would be a bit much for the under 15-ish crowd. There are gratuitous boob shots too... and a coupla crotch-shots... Oh well kids, I tried man.

So. My over-all recommendation is DO see it if you love laughing at train wrecks...this is one non-stop hilarious train wreck of a movie. You can pick it up for around $5. Cheap entertainment!