The lowest 81% movie is in fact Evil Dead which also allows me to brings in the fact that we are just 10 movies away from finally dropping into double figures and a change in the process once we get to the 50 to go section.. It will also be a time of reflection as we move into the final two sections of this list. This 1981 movie was one of the first video nasty’s that were banned and who knows what else. There was a batch of movies that were banned from general release and were only available through the video market whether legal or otherwise in this country. As I said the second movie was the first horror movie I ever watched so catching up with this one many years later was a strange watch as it was a longer version of the first ten minutes of the second movie. Anyway onto the usual information for you with the stars being Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker and Theresa Tilly. It was produced on a budget of $400k and went on to make $2.7m in the states but hauled in $29.4m worldwide from the box-office. The main driving force behind this movie were the two behind the camera and one in front of it – Namely Bruce Campbell, Writer and Director Sam Raimi and Produced by Robert Tapert. On the critics front we don’t need to wake the scoreboard controller but there is definitely a difference in opinion with IMDb giving this a 7.5 out of 10 and Rotten Tomatoes gave this 95%. Yes, Evil Dead has a 95% score on Rotten Tomatoes but lets move on shall we.
The story is not a difficult and complex one as a group of 5 university students go for a road trip to a cabin in the middle of the woods. There’s Ash Williams, Linda (his girlfriend) Cheryl (his sister), Scott (his friend) and Shelly (Scott’s Girlfriend). So here they are in the middle of Tennessee when the car just steers itself on route and when they reach the cabin the swing on the porch is swinging by itself until they touch the doorknob and it suddenly stops. Cheryl is hearing voices telling her to ‘Join us!’ and she draws a picture of a book without planning on it just as the clock stops. The cellar trapdoor flies open during dinner and the two guys decide to go down there an investigate They find the book that Cheryl drew along with a tape player which they decide to turn on. The tape has the voice of a man reading allowed the passages of the book they have just found. There are incantations that are read allowed which wake demons possessing the woods surrounding the cabin. Now it is a matter of life or death as to whether they will survive, get possessed by those demons and start attacking the others, whether the tree will become alive and start attacking them or even the cabin itself. The gore and scares come thick and fast after that introduction.
As mentioned this is a classic eighties horror which kicked off the video nasty era and it got itself a bad reputation which made it bigger and more successful than thought possible. This is a great horror but you need to remember if watching this for the first time how low budget this thing is. The special effects are poor and the scenes that had to be reshot or taken in a studio you can see different length hair of the actors of the moon is on a black drop sheet. The actors were decided by who were friends of the main three people involved rather than ability so don’t look for an Oscar winner from this movie. This doesn’t stop this movie from being a 300mph horror speed rush of a film. It is great as a treat to go back to now and again and its it great to introduce this movie to new people as it’s a shocker and brought gore into a movie and was damn scary for its time. It can still hold a scare for some people and good for it. I can see time not being very kind to this movie as the older it gets the more jaded it will become but for me I love it and many others do to. It has a cult following and I can see why and I am happy to be included in that as well. If you haven’t seen it and would like to be scared and can live with a little gore then you should go for it.
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