37 years after its initial release, On October 15th 1981 at the Redford Theatre, The Evil Dead has spawned two sequels, a reboot, comics, video games, merchandise, a television series and a stage musical. The film shows no signs of succumbing anytime soon.
CONCEPT
A group of friends travel to Tennessee to stay at a cabin in the woods. The previous tenant had conjured up demons by reading from the 'Book of the Dead' (in the sequels it becomes known as the Necronomicon). When a tape's played with the incantation on it, the demons come back to terrorize the friends. Violence, gore and brutality ensue. Especially when the only way to kill your possessed friends is by bodily dismemberment - and they do not shy away from losing limbs. Sounds pretty amazing right?
"I believe I have made a significant find in the Kandarian ruins, a volume of ancient Sumarian burial practices and funerary incantations. It is entitled "Naturum De Montum", roughly translated: Book of the Dead. The book is bound in human flesh and inked in human blood. It deals with demons and demon resurrection and those forces which roam the forest and dark bowers of Man's domain. The first few pages warn that these enduring creatures may lie dormant but are never truly dead. They may be recalled to active life through the incantations presented in this book. It is through the recitation of these passages that the demons are given license to possess the living."
THE MEN WHO STARTED THE CURSE
Now two names come to mind when thinking about The Evil Dead, and those are of course Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell. Sam Raimi went on to have a huge career - with directing films like the original Spider-man Trilogy (2002-2007), Drag Me To Hell (2009) and Oz the Great and Powerful (2013). Bruce Campbell went to star in films like Maniac Cop (1988) and Bubba Ho-Tep (2002). But what these two did was amazing especially since they were both in their 20's. They were able to create a film that has withstood time and was so terrifying that people still remember the first time they watched it.
FILMING
Although made on a shoestring budget of only $350,000, The Evil Dead is spectacular. Especially during the tough filming conditions, which included freezing nights and multiple injuries. Many of the actors were stabbed or thrown into objects during principal photography. Campbell recalls it as "12 weeks of mirthless exercise in agony". While nearing the ending of shooting, the cast and crew started burning the furniture in the house to stay warm. Raimi is known to have abused his actors on set especially Campbell. He said "if everyone was in extreme pain and misery, that would translate into a horror." Many times they would bring in Raimi's brother, Ted Raimi to be a stand in for the actors when they were busy doing something else, mainly because of the tight budget and who better to get free labor from than your brother.
RECEPTION
Raimi had his premiere showing at Detroit's Redford theater because that is where Campbell watched movies as a kid. Audiences were excited and loved the film but they still needed to get a distributor. Raimi was willing to show it to anyone who would watch it. Eventually he was able to show it to Irvin Shapiro, who distributed George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead among other films. Shapiro loved it and saw the possible of commercial success. Because Shapiro was one of the founders of Cannes film festival he showed it in the 1982 lineup. But, when it received a recommendation from the legendary writer Stephen King, the film's popularity exploded overnight. Because of his approval, as well as many other respected critics, New Line Cinema decided to pick up the film and distribute it.
New Line took a different approach when it came to a domestic release and decided to release the film in theaters and on VHS at the same time. This made it accessible to anyone who wanted to watch it.
RELEASE
When it was first released it received an X rating for substantial graphic horror violence and gore. The MPAA rating helped with its notoriety and it became the highest selling VHS the year it came out. I think that the tree scene helped cement its place in history let alone the rest of the violence. In the UK it was placed on the "Video Nasties" list. It maintains a 95% approval rating on Rottentomatoes.com and earned $29.4 million dollars at the box office. Everything within the universe of The Evil Dead is iconic from the outfits to the quotes. Even years later it is held in such high esteem as being one of the greats of the horror genre.
