EVIL DEAD trilogy - THE EVIL DEAD (1981), EVIL DEAD 2 (1987), ARMY OF DARKNESS (1992)

THE EVIL DEAD (1981)

“We’re going to get you...”

Moral crusader Mary Whitehouse once described it as ‘the number one nasty’ (without having seen it of course). After being screened at the Cannes Film Festival, Stephen King proclaimed it “The most ferociously original” film of the year. Today, Sam Raimi’s low-budget 16mm debut feature is widely regarded as a modern horror classic. With its innovative camerawork, deliriously over-the-top gore-effects, and shear bravura filmmaking, it belies its humble budget and delivers more laughs, jumps, and crowd-pleasing moments than most other big-budget studio fright films can only dream of.

Our hero ‘Ash’, (played by the rugged-chinned Bruce Campbell) together with four friends travel to a remote cabin in the woods whereupon they find a strange book in the cellar and a tape recorder. Unfortunately for them the book turns out to be the Necronomicon (Book of the Dead) and the recordings on the tape recorder turn out to be incantations to awaken the dead...

Using improvised filming techniques such as a rudimentary stedicam consisting of a long plank with a camera mounted in the middle, Raimi swoops and glides through the surrounding mist-covered woods as the dead encroach on the cabin and ultimately invite Ash and his friends to ‘join us...”

Intended as a rollercoaster of pure entertainment rather than a nightmare inducer, ‘Evil Dead’ is still an effective fright machine. It has the requisite ‘jump’ moments, creepy visuals and some truly jaw-dropping gore sequences. It also contains one infamous sequence involving violation by a tree which oversteps the mark in terms of the overall flavour of the film (a fact subsequently recognised by the director), but apart from this momentary lapse in judgement, ‘Evil Dead’ is a pure blast in my book (and in the Necronomicon).

EVIL DEAD 2 (1987)

“I’ll swallow your soul! I’ll swallow your soul! I’ll swallow your soul!”

Opening with a re-cap of the events of the original (re-staged afresh due to problems obtaining the international rights to the first film’s footage), Sam Raimi directs this sequel like a kid in a candy store.

A far bigger budget enabled more ambitious set-pieces, and the director’s love of The Three Stooges physical comedy really comes to the fore. Our hero ‘Ash’ is put through all manner of hilariously gruesome indignities including having to saw off his own possessed hand (look out for an outrageous visual pun). Another memorable set-piece involves a flying eyeball lodging itself in a screaming mouth.

Despite these last two sentences, Evil Dead 2 is less overtly gory than its predecessor, but still delivers raucous splatstick with such aplomb that it is considered one of the very best horror sequels in the history of the genre.


ARMY OF DARKNESS (1992)

“Yo, she-bitch! Let’s go!”
At the end of Evil Dead 2, ‘Ash’ is sucked into a time vortex

and ends up back in 1300 AD – just in time to face the Medieval Dead. Now given a budget of $11 million, Raimi resurrects the skeleton armies from Ray Harryhausen’s Jason and the Argonauts and unleashes our hero and his double-barrelled ‘boomstick’ upon them with the end result being inevitable mayhem. Of course if ‘Ash’ had remembered the correct incantation upon finding the Necronomicon he wouldn’t have inadvertently awoken the army of darkness from their graves – but where would the fun be in that? Battling not only ferocious skeleton armies but also an evil mirror image of himself and an army of mini ‘Ash’ Lilliputians, it’s all great rollicking fun.