The Evil Dead

So I caught up on my biggest and hopefully last horror outstanding debt. I've been heavily skeptical of this film for three years now, it got worse after the remake became my favourite, but in the end The Evil Dead is a decent demonic genre film even today. The visual effects weren't too bad after all, there’s also quite a lot of gore for its age and the atmosphere is quite dark, though it dragged before the film got going. When I compare it to Halloween where blood is a foreign concept to the filmmakers and it is only two years younger, I have to give it a strong rating here. The remake, however, is well beyond insane. 70%. (11/07/2015)

On the one hand, it is perhaps too frantic and prolonged by several unnecessarily long scenes of destroying "friends", yet on the other hand, it is definitely imaginative, playful, solidly suspenseful atmospheric fun. I saw Evil Dead for the first time today, so I really can't go on and on about nostalgia, VHS tapes and whatnot. But even so, the film has a kind of special charm that is hard to describe. I'm curious about the sequel. (27/07/2012)

The cult value, of course, prevails. If it hadn't become such a theme, there would be no reason to revisit this slasher, but history would have it otherwise. Today, however, the first film is like a bit of Deja vu, a strange sense of Ash having two hands, of not making fun of the Necronomicon yet, because this is the actual first encounter with evil. And, of course, Bruce is still a young innocent man here. It's interesting, but other parts of the Evil Dead phenomenon have more charm for me. (20/02/2019)

The first half is excellent. With a minimum of resources, Raimi manages to evoke an oppressive atmosphere of fear. The tree rape scene is something that is not easily forgotten. But the second half is terribly jumbled, as if Raimi didn't know what he wanted to do and was paying for his inexperience as a filmmaker. What I mean is that the scenes are poorly sequenced. In one scene there is a brutal death, and in the one that immediately follows, the characters look uninterested, as if not much had actually happened a few minutes before. I consider Evil Dead to be merely a good, not great, precursor to the flawless sequel. (27/06/2002)

To etch such an innovative notch in the annals of horror at 21 requires quite a lot of filmmaking talent, and Raimi here proves with every minute that he has more than plenty of it. The perspective shots and the visual tricks with the foggy environment in the first half generate an atmosphere that is thick as oatmeal (and also delivers rape-by-tree and the book of the death), while the great make-up and an endless dose of inventive camera movements in the second half hold the entertainment value at the highest level, even though the script is stuck in one place. The watering of the light-bulbs and the window projecting blood are immortal moments with deserved cult status. A simple premise exploited to the fullest with a very unorthodox and delicate climax – modern ghost stories can’t hold a candle to this. 80% (16/01/2019)