“Dead by dawn! Dead by dawn!”
Has there ever been a better horror movie title than The Evil Dead? Sure, in context it has nothing to do with the plot, and explains nothing, but it’s undeniably evocative – chilling and silly in equal measure, like the film itself. It’s the kind of title you’d see on the marquee at a drive-in theater, which is perfect for Sam Raimi’s bloody splatter-fest of a film.
The franchise would take some weird twists and turns with future installments, which we’ll get to in due course, but the first Evil Dead is unmistakably a horror film. In fact, rewatching it for the first time in years, I marveled at how much of the structure was lifted wholesale for The Cabin in the Woods. But Cabin was a slick Hollywood production shepherded by Joss Whedon, whereas Evil Dead‘s very existence constitutes a miracle. It was made for $350,000 by a twenty-year-old director, working with a crew of largely untrained actors (and his assistant editor: Joel Coen).
It’s obvious that the actors are untrained, but that just adds to the movie’s lo-fi, analog charm. Richard DeManincor (credited as Hal Delrich) in particular has some pretty atrocious line readings as Scotty, but in spite of that Evil Dead never incites laughter, probably because the scares are so effective (the one that doesn’t hold up is a possessed Linda [Betsy Baker] bolting upright when Ash touches her). The makeup effects are surprisingly well-done (ditto the prop work – just look at that dagger), and Raimi’s ad-hoc camera equipment produces some genuinely stirring shots, such as the first one (achieved by Bruce Campbell pushing Raimi on a dinghy while Raimi filmed), where the camera glides jerkily over a marsh. Raimi does a lot with a little here; POV shots abound, because, well, they’re cheaper, but they produce a you-are-there quality that makes the movie hard to ignore or look away from. And the infamous tree rape scene is still grisly and hard to watch; even if the assailant isn’t human, it’s still one of the more disturbing rape scenes ever put on film.
It’s no surprise that Evil Dead‘s secret weapon is Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, the unlikeliest of franchise heroes. What doesn’t get talked about that much is the characterization that Campbelll and Raimi bring to the role. Ash is never presented as a hero, but rather as a dedicated survivor who really doesn’t want to die. Tellingly, when Shelly (Theresa Tilly, credited as Sarah York) is possessed and rampaging through the cabin, Ash stands against the wall, too frightened to use the axe in his hands. Tom ends up handling the dismemberment.
A big reason the franchise took such a turn is because Campbell and Raimi really discovered each other as artists on Evil Dead. Their sense of humor makes a few appearances here, such as Ash treating Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), turned into a ghoul and imprisoned in the cellar, as more of an nuisance than a threat. Through Ash, you can see glimpses of Raimi’s penchant for abusing his lead characters, a tendency that would follow him to A Simple Plan, Spider-Man, and Drag Me to Hell.
So much of The Evil Dead was improvised, or otherwise done on the fly, that it makes horror accessible, able to be done by anyone (to wit: they used live ammo on set). It takes real talent to make it this well, though. While future installment would vary in tone, the first retains its gritty, homemade terror.
Evil Dead II, by contrast, is a flat-out comedy, but of the Sam Raimi variety. It’s like a very funny horror film, or a very gory comedy, in the vein of Peter Jackson’s early work like Dead Alive or Meet the Feebles.
The film is still hilariously low-budget (here’s a terrific oral history about it from The Hollywood Reporter). Most of it was filmed in a gymnasium in in a North Carolina high school, and Raimi needed to start with a recap of Evil Dead, but couldn’t get the rights to his own film, so Evil Dead II starts with a compressed, inaccurate retelling of the first film, where Ash and Linda (played by Denise Bixler, who did not play Linda in the first film, which I find hilarious) go to the cabin alone before Linda, and then Ash, gets possessed. From there, Evil Dead II is almost a remake of the first one, as Ash is joined by a new group of people, and they have to fend off possession and attack by the Deadites.
The new group are pretty inconsequential, although Annie (Sarah Berry) is the daughter of the professor whose voice we heard in the first one, so that’s some nice connective tissue. What this, and the show Ash vs. Evil Dead, shows is that you can put Bruce Campbell opposite anyone and he will absolutely walk away with the show. Campbell has matured nicely here (there was a six-year gap between the two movies); he’s grown into his features, especially his chin, and now that he’s a genuine heartthrob he can be the goofy action hero that the new Evil Dead requires.
You have to remember: a lot of Evil Dead II is laugh-out-loud funny. It’s straight-up slapstick, as the main conflict comes from Ash’s right hand being possessed. It smashes plates over his head, skitters around like a bug after being lopped off, and even stops to flip him the bird. It’s pretty ballsy for a horror film to take a more comedic bent, essentially repeat its predecessor, and irreparably maim its main character in the process. But without Ash’s hand being possessed, we would never have gotten one of the coolest weapons in film history: the chainsaw hand. There’s a part of me – a big part – that gets a big goofy smile on my face when Ash tries his hand out for the first time, looks at Annie, and says simply: “Groovy.”
After making two films that almost didn’t see the light of day, it’s a testament to Raimi’s anything-goes attitude that he was willing to upend the entire franchise by sending Ash through a portal back to the 1300s. The ending has a real Twilight Zone vibe to it, and like the first film (which ends with Ash getting possessed), it could have worked as a downer ending, instead of a way to set up the batshit craziness of Army of Darkness. It works, even though it shouldn’t, just like the films themselves.
10/1: Dawn of the Dead (2004)
10/2: The Exorcist
10/3: Pontypool
10/4: Hocus Pocus
10/5: The Orphanage
10/6: Rosemary’s Baby
10/7: Alien
10/8: Scream series
10/9: Scream series
10/10: Cujo
10/11: The Cabin in the Woods
10/12: Pulse
10/13: The Babadook
10/14: Friday the 13th
10/15: The Last House on the Left (both versions)
10/16: The Thing (both versions)
10/17: Little Shop of Horrors
10/18: Hush
10/19: Silent Hill
10/20: The Shining
10/21: Funny Games (2007)
10/22: Evil Dead series
10/23: Evil Dead series
10/24: The Mist
10/25: The Ninth Gate
10/26: The Fly
10/27: A Nightmare on Elm Street
10/28: The Nightmare Before Christmas
10/29: 28 Days Later/28 Weeks Later
10/30: It
10/31: Halloween (either version)
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