I've been looking forward to this one for weeks; I haven't seen it for years, but I LOVE the sequels.
As such, this is a tough one to review on it's own merits, but screw it: These "Reviews" are supposed to act as a discussion for people who have seen (or are interested in) the movies already, hence the liberal spoiler policy, so if comparisons to Evil Dead II, or Army of Darkness show up, then they do!
I will say, right off the bat, If you havn't seen the Evil Dead movies, stop reading, head over to your DVD retailer of choice and buy the trilogy, NOW, come back when you're through watching.
One thing that benefits this film enormously is the small cast - there are literally 5 people in the entire film; the nature of the titicular* 'Evil' (it possesses humans with Canderian Demons) mean that they don't even have to introduce extra characters as villains - the 5 main cast play both sides, with only a voice on a tape to provide a little exposition. Also, while the first possession happen early on, the deaths don't start to mount up until the films final act, which gives us plenty of time to get to know everyone.
Unfortunately, "everyone" includes Scotty, the groups requisite asshat - why does every horror movie group have to have one person that you just can't imagine ANYONE being friends with?
Aside from Scotty, there's Ash, Ashes sister Cheryl, ant the 2 guy's girlfriends, Lynda and Shelly. The group are headed out to a run-down cabin in the woods which they have rented cheaply. Once there, they find severel things, including handy shotguns, an old reel-to-reel tape recorder, and the Naturan Demanto (Necronomicon Ex-Mortis in the sequels), roughly translated (we are told) "The Book of the Dead" the tape turns out to be a reading of the book, which unleashes the evil into the woods (again - we are led to believe that this also happened when the tape was made) and the rest is horror movie history!
Speaking of the Sequels, The Ash we see here is a different man to the sequels' Ash; Here, he's far more sweet than the "Hail to the King" ladies man, and far less assured than the "This is my Broomstick" quoting hero we will come to love.
It's great to see physical effects done... if not actually well, then at least competently enough for a feature of this caliber; The stop motion may not put Harryhausen to shame, but they are good enough that their sheer charm carries them the extra few steps that they're intrinsic quality could not, and they are great to see.
Also - keep a look out for the Wes Craven shout-out - I think this is the first in a chain of Raimi and Craven referencing each other.
Oh, and a woman gets raped by a tree.
Body Count: 4
Boob Count: 0
Animal Body Count: 0
Most Memorable Death: Self-killing demons? That's handy!.
*Side note: Not only does Chrome's spell checker not know the word "Movie" (Which it always wants to correct as "Mo vie" but it wanted me to talk about the "Testicular 'Evil'" too...
Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.
Showing posts with label Evil Dead - The. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evil Dead - The. Show all posts
Saturday, 7 January 2012
The Evil Dead - Lisa's Review
***SPOILERS***
As I write the word spoilers at the top of this review, I wonder if indeed it is possible to 'spoil' anything here, as has any horror fan NOT seen this movie?
We follow a group of young teenagers into the woods and a shack where they discover a recording of a Necronomicon. Slowly they all become possessed and start to kill each other. Thats the basic plot folks and all you really need to know.
This is Sam Raimis first venture into the world of horror and its quite fitting that he makes his debut alongside Bruce Campbell who goes on to work with him in many many more projects in the future.
The Evil Dead is a favourite amongst most horror fans and although it is full of terrible (even laughable) effects which look exactly like a GCSE students plasticine project, the movie is still enjoyable on every level. I found the zombie makeup on some of the characters really good in saying that.... It does have genuine scary bits, fantastically gorey bits, laugh out loud funny bits, some great acting (which is novel for these movies) and just a general eerie feel that is missing in most movies these days. I don't know why but when I first saw The Evil Dead and when I watched it again for this review, it reminded me in style a lot of 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (one of my favourite movies). It manages to grab that feel and style sought after so much but usually missed by a mile, that feeling where you feel a little uncomfortable in places, but want to keep watching all the same.
I generally HATE comedy/horror mixes, but this one works. Weirdly the things that make it fall down (poor effects) also add to the charm of the movie and if they attempted to remake it (I hear nasty rumours about this being the case.. and no I don't mean Evil Dead 2), I don't think they could capture the same cult movie feel.
Scenes to watch out for are the possessed hand, the montage of melting plasticine figures, the dismemberment and twitching body parts, the white eyeballed and terribly face painted zombie lady under the trapdoor in the ground, spectacular hatchet kills, spewing severed limbs..... the list goes on and on.
In short, I definately recommend this to any horror fan. A must for the collection!
Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.
As I write the word spoilers at the top of this review, I wonder if indeed it is possible to 'spoil' anything here, as has any horror fan NOT seen this movie?
We follow a group of young teenagers into the woods and a shack where they discover a recording of a Necronomicon. Slowly they all become possessed and start to kill each other. Thats the basic plot folks and all you really need to know.
This is Sam Raimis first venture into the world of horror and its quite fitting that he makes his debut alongside Bruce Campbell who goes on to work with him in many many more projects in the future.
The Evil Dead is a favourite amongst most horror fans and although it is full of terrible (even laughable) effects which look exactly like a GCSE students plasticine project, the movie is still enjoyable on every level. I found the zombie makeup on some of the characters really good in saying that.... It does have genuine scary bits, fantastically gorey bits, laugh out loud funny bits, some great acting (which is novel for these movies) and just a general eerie feel that is missing in most movies these days. I don't know why but when I first saw The Evil Dead and when I watched it again for this review, it reminded me in style a lot of 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (one of my favourite movies). It manages to grab that feel and style sought after so much but usually missed by a mile, that feeling where you feel a little uncomfortable in places, but want to keep watching all the same.
I generally HATE comedy/horror mixes, but this one works. Weirdly the things that make it fall down (poor effects) also add to the charm of the movie and if they attempted to remake it (I hear nasty rumours about this being the case.. and no I don't mean Evil Dead 2), I don't think they could capture the same cult movie feel.
Scenes to watch out for are the possessed hand, the montage of melting plasticine figures, the dismemberment and twitching body parts, the white eyeballed and terribly face painted zombie lady under the trapdoor in the ground, spectacular hatchet kills, spewing severed limbs..... the list goes on and on.
In short, I definately recommend this to any horror fan. A must for the collection!
Please use the comments bellow only to comment on this post - to write your own review, please comment on the main post for this movie.
Sunday, 1 January 2012
WEEK 33: The Evil Dead
Alternate Titles : Book of the Dead
Year: 1982
Reviews / Author Comments due: 7/1/2012
DPP Status: Removed from list September 1985 after the distributors fought the ban in court.
BBFC Status: Passed uncut rated 18 in 2001
IMDB: The Evil Dead
Wikipedia: The Evil Dead
DVD: R1 Uncut
Feel free to use the comments section of this post to add your own reviews and thoughts about this movie.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)