The Evil Dead

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Template:Infobox Film The Evil Dead (also known as The Book of The Dead , Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and The Evil Dead, the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror) is a 1981 horror film directed and written by Sam Raimi, starring Bruce Campbell. It is considered a classic of the genre.

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Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story is simple: Five college students venture into the Tennessee woods to spend a weekend of fun in an isolated cabin. Instead, the teenagers find the Book of the Dead otherwise known as the Necronomicron. They find and play a tape recording of demonic incantations from the Book, and unknowingly open a portal to the netherworld. The characters are then killed off in a somewhat disjointed sequence of scenes of extremely intense, bloody and "realistic"-looking violence, and the film ends with the apparently invisible evil spirit bearing down on the last survivor, Ashley J. Williams better known as "Ash."

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Trivia

  • The movie was filmed in Morristown, Tennessee off of Kidwells Ridge Rd.
  • The two fishermen on the side of the road at the beginning are writer/director Sam Raimi and producer Robert Tapert.
  • Shooting began on November 14, 1979. The original cast left after six weeks of filming which was the original shooting completion date. There was still much shooting left to do and the remainder of the film was shot with family and friends dressed like the actor for behind or side shots. This became known as "shemping" and the person as a "Fake shemp" as an homage to the Three Stooges.
  • The "Book of the Dead" is referred to as Naturom Demonto in the film and "Necronomicon Ex Mortis" in the two sequels. Terminology used by the unleashed horrors and professor studying them shows that Raimi's version of the notorious faux-occult book is influenced by H.P. Lovecraft's book that has been often used in the ensuing modern Cthulhu Mythos.
  • When listening to Professor Knoby's recording and recitation of the Book of the Dead you can hear a distorted version of the words, "Sam and Rob are the hikers down the road."
  • The film was screened at the Cannes film festival in 1982. It received a widely publicized review from author Stephen King, published in the November 1982 issue of Twilight Zone.
  • In the scene when Ash first finds the Necronomicron, a torn poster advertising Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes is visible in the background. In response to this homage, a scene from "Evil Dead" is visible on a television screen in Nightmare on Elm Street.
  • The poster for "Evil Dead" can be seen in a closet containing a chainsaw in the horror film Dead & Breakfast.
  • The film plays when Donnie and Gretchen go to the cinema in Donnie Darko. The filmmakers originally wanted to use C.H.U.D., but could not obtain permission. Director Sam Raimi allowed them to use the footage from The Evil Dead for free.
  • In Season 3 episode 1 of ReBoot they go to a FPS like game, the character they are fighting is a modified version of Ashley J. Williams, A.K.A. Ash from the Evil Dead series. This episode does a good job of copying the cabin including the Deer's head, the moving lamp, the tape recorder, piano, the basement trap door, and even include the "Dead before dawn" and "Groovy" quotes along with the user's chain saw arm and shotgun.
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Censorship

Because of its graphic violence, the original version of the movie was banned in several countries, including Finland, Iceland, Ireland and Germany. The "tree rape" scene was also objectionable to some and seen as being misogynist.

In Germany, the movie's release was hindered by public authorities for almost 10 years. Original 1982 cinema and video releases of the movie had been seized, making the movie a hit on the black market video circuit, with pirated copies abounding. A heavily edited version was first made available in 1992. Several high-profile horror enthusiasts, among them even author Stephen King, publicly criticized the German ban on the movie. In other German language markets, the movie was never restricted from distribution. The first legal uncut version of the movie entered the German market in 2001, on DVD.

In one scene early in the film, the characters appeared to be smoking cannabis. The actors were not genuinely 'high', however the shot had to be abandoned because the actors tried using real cannabis, but this caused them to become unpredictable. However, in the initial shot of the group in the cabin together, smoke from the cannabis scene is still visible.

In the United Kingdom, the movie was one of the first to be labelled as a video nasty in the mid 1980's and was only released uncut in 2001.

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Sequels

Two sequels were made, Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn (1987) and Army of Darkness (1993). Each succeeding film has featured more humor than the preceding one, so much so that many do not consider Army of Darkness a true horror film. The films' mix of humor and gore has been called "splatstick," a portmanteau of "splatter film" and "slapstick."

At the beginning of each sequel, the preceding story is summarized, though with some small changes. These changes, along with the similarity in plot to the original film, lead some fans to consider Evil Dead II a remake rather than a sequel. In actuality, Sam Raimi couldn't afford the rights to use the original footage of Evil Dead in the sequel. Instead, he remade the whole ending, and the sequel continues from where Ash gets thrown through the trees.

The series is regarded as a cult classic, and a book, The Evil Dead Companion (Bill Warren, ISBN 0312275013), has been written about it.

In an interview in 2005 [1], Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert talked about plans to make another sequel called Evil Dead IV or Army of Darkness II, again starring Campbell. However, it was recently revealed that filming will begin in 2006 for a movie entitled They Call Me Bruce, starring Bruce Campbell as himself. This movie may be seen as a non-canon title in the Evil Dead series because it concerns Campbell being mistaken for Ash by fans of the movies who force him to fight real Deadites in their hometown. There are also plans for a remake of the original Evil Dead, with a different director and different actors.

Sam Raimi's 1978 30-minute movie Within the Woods, also starring Bruce Campbell, has sometimes been called a prequel of the Evil Dead series, which is incorrect, since Within the Woods was made before any of the series proper. The movie Within the Woods was, in fact, created to raise funds for the filming of The Evil Dead. Originally, the short was to be included on a DVD by Anchor Bay Entertainment, but was dropped due to unknown legal issues (but, according to the licensor, not music issues, as widely reported).

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Video games

The Evil Dead trilogy has inspired four video games: The Evil Dead, for Commodore 64; Evil Dead: Hail to the King, for PlayStation, Sega Dreamcast, and the P.C.; Evil Dead: A Fistful of Boomstick, for PlayStation 2 and Xbox; and Evil Dead: Regeneration, released in September 2005 for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and P.C.

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Comic books

Dark horse produced a 3 issue comic book mini series of Army Of Darkness the movie. Dynamite Entertainment has later released the a follow up comic book series, continuing the story after the third Evil Dead film. Currently released are: Army Of Darkness: Ashes 2 Ashes, Army Of Darkness: Shop Til You Drop (Dead), Army Of Darkness: Ash Versus The Re-Animator.

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External links

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