The Evil Dead (1981)

[Plain Old Tele]

Discuss.

[Goffe]

the worst ED. Not scary, terrible actors, questionable characters decisions and the tiny budget really hurt the movie. it's the only misstep of Sam Raimi's career.  D (25)

[ddddeeee]

One of the best horror movies of all time.

[Blankments]

The Evil Dead is an entertaining exercise in gore in cinema. The effects are delightfully gruesome and definitely worth seeing. Unfortunately, the rest is a film more focused on scares than story, and after a while, it just grows tiresome. Bruce Campbell is charismatic enough but ultimately, the film just feels like a waste of the excellent low-budget effects it has going for it. The Evil Dead is an interesting early work for Sam Raimi, but it is clearly a debut feature thanks to its extremely underdeveloped narrative. D+

[ddddeeee]

I mean, the narrative is purposefully 'underdeveloped' so Raimi can cut straight to the mayhem. I think that's a very odd criticism.

 

This is a masterpiece and people who think otherwise have regrettable taste.

[Blankments]

On 10/26/2016 at 5:32 PM, ddddeeee said:

I mean, the narrative is purposefully 'underdeveloped' so Raimi can cut straight to the mayhem. I think that's a very odd criticism.

 

This is a masterpiece and people who think otherwise have regrettable taste.

I get it that the narrative is truncated as a point, but I found it hard to root for Ash when I literally had no reason to care for him

 

Hopefully Evil Dead 2 grabs me more whenever I get around to it

[elcaballero]

7 minutes ago, Blankments said:

I get it that the narrative is truncated as a point, but I found it hard to root for Ash when I literally had no reason to care for him

 

Hopefully Evil Dead 2 grabs me more whenever I get around to it

If you have a problem with The Evil Dead's narrative being truncated, you are going to love the beginning of Evil Dead 2.

[baumer]

One of the top ten horror films of all time imo.

 

10/10

[Daxtreme]

Ok this movie is kinda genius. How they managed to give every possessed person (who are now demons) a distinct personality even after-possession while ramping up the dread, damn!

 

The scene where Bruce struggles to keep up while his girlfriend laughs maniacally next to him, and his friend is basically dying on the couch, and Cellar Demon™ screams JOIN USSSSS while trying to get out was, quite simply, utter perfection. What a wonderfully batshit crazy and imaginative scene that was.

 

 

Like, I'm not sure how the genre can top this scene? A true descent to madness in its purest, most distilled form.

 

Sam Raimi shows his incredible directional skills here, in a movie that no doubt took the Horror world by storm back in 1981. The only rough scene in my opinion was the forest attack, and that's largely due to the limitations of the time and the small budget.

 

I don't usually like horror all that much, but this movie was absolutely incredible. Genre-defining. Maybe I was just watching the wrong ones...

 

Slow start, but don't worry, the nightmare is winding up, and it's gonna get personal. 

My rating: ★★★★½

[baumer]

So glad you enjoyed it @Daxtreme....not sure what you have seen and haven't, but if you haven't seen some of the 70's and 80's classics, and you enjoyed Evil Dead so much, I would highly recommend you finding films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), Halloween (1978), Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) and the first four Friday the 13th's (1980-1984).