Evil Dead Review
Written by: Danny Smith
created by sam raimi (i know i spelt that wrong) when he was only a teenager at high school!, the evil dead tells the tale of ash and some freinds as they head out to the woods for a weekend, inside the old cabin they discover a casette and a book binded in human flesh. This is the necronomicon - the book of the dead. The book is written in an ancient dialect that none of them can read, but surpirse ,surprise! the previouse occupants left a handy translation that ,when uttered out loud, brings evil spirits into the psyichal realm....
i have often seen this film on shelves in discount video stores , y'know the kind where the guy at the till looks like bill bailey, and after reading the back i was fairly intriqued by its storey line. alas i always found something else to buy (even the phantom menace once....and im very sorry.sniff..) so there it sat on the shelf... and there it still sits as im a tight git.
but after having watched it on the BBC a while back i was amazed, as an amateur film director, that some kid who was younger than myself directed this gore fest of a movie and you know what?, it was actually good!
the evil dead is one of those movies that no-one can forget ,utter the words ''dead by dawn!'' and anyone whos seen the film will know what youre on about.I still cringe when one actress has her ankle pierced with a pencil, ouch.
the special effects are laughably crap ,but still they instill more fear than any cgi creation of modern hollywood horrors just because they are real not some black sock puppet with ping-pong balls attached.
as for cinematography it gets a ten just because the creature in the woods was the director with a camera tied to 2x4 plank of wood. in a word genius ,and a hell of a lot cheaper than a dolly or cherry picker.lol.
some times its shocking , for example ,ash cutting his own hand off and replacing it with the now infamous chainsaw, and others confusing ,like the trees attacking the woman in the woods. what were they smoking to come up with that?.
in the end this is great fun to watch alone or with freinds and if you see it cheap its a keeper but still by the remake too, the basic fact is that this films at least 15 years old and its spawned dozens of video games so if its that bad , why are they still using it as source material?. simple. becuase this is horror at its best , made by a horror nut for horror nuts on a low budget just to entertain, not to bring in the seats at the box office and thats why its a timeless classic along with dawn of the dead and the texas chainsaw massacre.