"The Evil Dead" Retrospective

So, tomorrow night the wife and I are going to see “Evil Dead the Musical” presented by StageWest Theater Company at the Civic Center’sStoner Theater.  To prepare myself, I decided to revisit one of my all-time favorite trilogies.

Directed by Sam Raimi (Spider-Man 1,2 & 3) and starring B-movie god Bruce Campbell, the series of three films turned the horror-comedy genre on its collective ass some of the goriest and funniest moments onscreen at the time.  If you enjoyed the recent film “The Cabin in the Woods”, then bow down to these classics as much of the framework stems from Raimi’s vision.

***WARNING*** This is a retrospective, so there will be spoilers given.  If you haven’t seen the movies and are planning to, you might not want to read further.

The Evil Dead (1981) – A group of college friends heads to a cabin in the woods.  Ash (Bruce Campbell), his girlfriend Linda (Betsy Baker), Scotty (Richard DeManicor), his girlfriend Shelly (Theresa Tilly), and their friend Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) are looking forward to a vacation at a remote cabin.  Once there, they discover the “Necronomicon” a Sumerian “Book of the Dead” and a taped translation of it.  They listen to the tapes and unwittingly release demons which attack Cheryl in the woods (the infamous tree-raping scene), causing her to become possessed.  Cheryl attacks Shelly, but Scotty is able to lock Cheryl in the cellar.

A demon then possesses Shelly  and she attacks Ash and Scotty.  They try to kill her, but she keeps coming back until Scotty dismembers her with an axe.  When Ash goes to check on Linda, he finds her possessed, too.  Scotty leaves to find a path through the woods but soon returns, mortally wounded by the trees. 

Linda attacks Ash and he kills her with a ceremonial dagger.  Unable to dismember her, he buries her, but she’s soon back and attacks Ash again until he decapitates her.  Left to deal with Cheryl and a now-possessed Scotty, Ash throws the Necronomicon in the fire and watches his remaining friends burn.

Believing he is safe, Ash exits the cabin where he is attacked by a demon.

The movie is both hilarious and terrifying, a rare feat to pull off, though it far closer to a straight horror film than its two sequels. The young (and at the time inexperienced) cast do a stellar job with their respective roles.  If you haven’t before, I recommend reading about the shoot.  Raimi and Campbell were childhood friends, and neither of them really knew what they were doing when they shot the film (and the cast paid for their inexperience as it was a very rough shoot).    

Evil Dead 2 (1987) – Campbell returns as Ash in this much funnier sequel to the first film.  Ash and his girlfriend Linda (now played by Denise Bixler) head to a romantic vacation in the woods. (Evidently Raimi wanted the entire cast back for this first scene, but budget restraints kept that from happening).  Ash plays a recording of an archeologist (the cabin’s previous inhabitant) reading from the Necronomicon.  This releases an evil force with kills and then possesses Linda.  Ash is forced to decapitate Linda and is later briefly possessed himself only to have morning come and believe he’s safe.  When evening rolls around again, Linda’s back. After getting bitten, Ash’s hand gets possessed, and he has to cut it off.

Later, Annie (the archeologist’s daughter played by Sarah Berry) comes looking for her parents with her boyfriend Ed (Richard Domeier) and two locals (Danny Hicks plays Jake, and Kassie Wesley plays his girlfriend Bobby Joe) they hired as guides.  Upon coming upon Ash, they at first think he is a killer, but they soon learn the truth after listening to a tape of Annie’s father where he describes his wife Henrietta becoming possessed and burying her in the cellar.

Soon after, the chaos begins.  Ed gets possessed and is killed by Ash.  Bobbie Joe attempts to flee, but has a run in with our not-so-friendly trees from similar to the first film.  Ash gets repossessed and turns on his companions but is able to overcome the force when he sees Linda’s necklace.

With Annie’s help, Ash attaches a chainsaw where his hand used to be and goes off on the remaining demons (including a now reanimated Henrietta, risen from the basement).  Annie reads an incantation from the Necronomicon that sends the evil force back to where it came from.  It also opens a portal that sends Ash (and his car) back in time to 1300 AD.  Ash is confronted by a group of knights who believe he is a demon (they call him a deadite), but when a real one shows up and Ash kills it, he is hailed a hero.  The movie ends with Ash looking skyward and screaming “Noooo!”

Evidently, Raimi had the idea while filming the original film to do a sequel where Ash is transported back in time.  Not having the budget for that film, the idea was scrapped, though it eventually became the premise for Army of Darkness (Evil Dead 3). There’s always been a lot of argument about whether Evil Dead II is a sequel or a remake, since the first section of the movie is basically a different version of the events of the first film.  The movie is a sequel though.  Raimi couldn’t get the rights to use the footage from the original film, so they reshot it to get audiences who hadn’t seen the first film up to speed.

Soap opera fans will also recognize Kassie Wesley (now Kassie Wesley DePaiva), who played Blair on “One Life to Live” from 1993 until the show went off the air in January of 2012.

The movie’s higher budget was largely in thanks to Raimi’s support from Stephen King.  After giving the first movie a glowing recommendation, when King heard the sequel was having trouble getting funding, he wrote to Dino De Laurentiis and asked him to finance the film (De Laurentiis produced several King movies in the 80’s, including Silver Bullet and Maximum Overdrive).

Sam Raimi’s love of “The Three Stooges” definitely shines through as several of the bits are nearly direct recreations.  Also if you look closely, in one scene you can see Freddy Krueger’s claws hanging on a wall in the tool shed.  It’s an homage to Wes Craven who has Heather Langenkamp watching “The Evil Dead” in the original “A Nightmare on Elm Street.

Army of Darkness (1993) – After a brief overview of Ash’s adventures thus far (don’t miss a blink or you’ll miss it cameo of Bridget Fonda as Linda), “Army of Darkness” picks up where “Evil Dead II” left off with Ash in 1300 AD.  Captured by Lord Arthur (Marcus Gilbert) who believes he is in league with his enemy Duke Henry (Richard Grove), Ash is thrown into a pit with some deadites.  After he kills them, Ash is viewed as the “Chosen One” and seduced by Sheila (Embeth Davidtz) who believes in him.  All he wants to do is get back home though.  Arthur’s wise man (Ian Abercrombie) tells him that he can get him home if he goes after the Necronomicon.

Ash sets out for the Necronomicon, but along the way, he must battle miniature versions of himself and an evil version of himself.  He successfully gets the book, but inadvertently awakes the Army of Darkness, led by Evil Ash.  After Sheila is taken by a deadite, Ash agrees to lead the human army against the army of the dead using science books from the trunk of his car to input modern weapons into the equation (I keep a Chemistry book in by trunk for just such an occasion).

Ash is successful; he defeats the army, saves Sheila, and brings peace to the region.  The wise man uses the Necronomicon to create a potion that will allow Ash to sleep until he returns to his time.  What happens next, depends on what version of the film you watch. 

Although De Laurentiis gave Raimi creative control, Universal Pictures took over in the editing process and forced a change in the ending (and also the PG-13 cut that made it into theaters).  If you are watching the theatrical cut, you’ll see Ash returned to his modern time where he is working at S-Mart and telling the tale of his adventures to a co-worker (Ted Raimi). 

If you’re watching the director’s cut or the official bootleg version, then you find Ash waking up in a post-apocalyptic world after taking too much of the potion and oversleeping.

“Army of Darkness” is less of a horror film than an action-comedy.  While it definitely has horror conventions, there are far more aspects of the old Sinbad movies and Ray Harryhausen’s work.  The story is similar to Mark Twain’s “A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court with healthy doses of Three Stooges slapstick, “Gulliver’s Travels” and Looney Tunes cartoons.

These three films are nothing short of brilliant.  There’s no denying that Bruce Campbell plays up the cheese factor and sets a new bar for campiness, but he is one of the talented physical actors I’ve ever seen.  His portrayal of Ash is what makes these movies and why the character has become a cultural icon (spawning video games, comic books and a musical in addition to the movies).

“The Evil Dead” series is a tribute to independent and B-movie innovation at its finest.  They are full of creativity, and they are just so much damn fun.  There has long been talk of a fourth Evil Dead, but for now, we’ll have to settle for the 2013 remake that will have Raimi as the producer and Bruce Campbell in a cameo.