I am proud to announce that Ruthless Reviews will be immediately filling a big hole in its massive 3100+ movie review site, and this has been a long time coming. Devon, Ezra and myself will be reviewing one of the greatest franchises in camp horror movie history, the 3 Evil Dead movies by Sam Raimi. So, without further ado, here we go.
If you haven’t seen this trilogy, you are missing an iconic part of horror movie history. Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and some other dedicated teen-agers and young adults made a low-budget that stands alone in horrifying and hilarious squeamishness, squishiness and cheesiness. I’m not going into the plot much at all, if you don’t own this wonderful DVD set, shame on you. There are two commentary tracks, one by Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert, and one by Campbell and they are virtually priceless.
Here is a brief summary. 5 college kids embark on a holiday at a remote cabin in East Tennessee. Strange things start happening at the cabin, especially after they uncover and read some of a bizarre book they discover in the basement. The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis (Book of the Dead) is opened and read out aloud, in spite of the warnings.
One by one these kids become horribly possessed, so let the shit-show begin! That is about all I am going to say. For the next hour or so we witness some of the most wonderful and terribly camp gore and horror ever put on the screen. The effort and performances of all the participants was spectacular, considering what they had to put up with to make this movie.
Bruce Campbell, as you might expect, was a superstar in this tour-de-force, The Evil Dead. In this great film Bruce emerged from being a wimpy and impotent wallflower, to one of the greatest Bad-Asses in horror movie history. All of the performances were great, but his was worthy of all the accolades that have been piled on for several decades now.
If you don’t take anything else away from this review, and have not seen this movie, get the DVD, The Special Collectors Edition. As I mentioned earlier, there are two commentary tracks. The only better commentary track that I have ever heard was again by Bruce Campbell, in the classic Bubba-Ho-Tep, but that is yet another story. Watch the move 3 times. First, straight up, and then watch it with both of the commentaries.
The Evil Dead is spectacularly gory, bloody and really quite scary for such a low budget movie. It is also hilarious. The technical excellence, considering that this was a movie made by college student amateurs, was quite an accomplishment. It was the perfect storm of hard work, incredible dedication by all the participants, and the genius of Sam Raimi. This horror classic should be an inspiration to all young aspiring movie makers.
10.0/10.0 With the Goatesian Rating of A Must Watch Horror Movie Classic
Quotable Quotes
- “Join Us…Join Us…Join Us -The Forest
- “We can’t bury Shelly. She’s a friend of ours” (after hacking her into pieces) -Ash
- “Kill her now if you can, Loverboy!” -Cheryl
- ” I know now that my wife has become host to a Kandarian demon. I fear that the only way to stop those possessed by the spirits of the book is through the act of… bodily dismemberment. ” -Voice on recorder
- ” We’re going to get you. We’re going to get you. Not another peep. Time to go to sleep. ” -Linda (singing)
- ” Look at her eyes. Look at her eyes! For God’s sake, what happened to her eyes?” -Shelley