Director Sam Raimi and good friend Bruce Campbell set out to make a real scary movie...although filmed on 16mm, THE EVIL DEAD is good enough to be your next nightmare and a hell of a lot better than your run of the mill slice and dice. Campbell plays Ash Williams, one of five college friends set out to have a wild weekend in the woods. Two guys...three girls journey to a remote cabin, of course in the middle of the woods. And the woods whisper "Join Us". The group stumbles upon a book and a tape recorder belonging to the previous inhabitants, warning of evil spirits lurking in the woods. When the dead come out to play, the newest victims turn into horrid ghouls. Ash, who at heart is a cowardly pansy, turns out to be the macho, macho man to the rescue. It takes courage, a shotgun and a chainsaw.

When the flesh-eating demons start their attack, the blood doesn't just ooze; it splatters, gushes and flows by the bucketful. And there is the scene where one of the girls is beckoned into the woods only to be attacked and raped by a...tree?! Cheap special effects galore decorate this vacation to a little north of Hell. The comedy was unintentional. It is a product of bad acting by actors with little or no experience. But still, Raimi as writer and director has stumbled upon something here. THE EVIL DEAD more than deserves its youth restricted rating. As if it really matters, other cast members are: Betsy Baker, Hal Delrich, Ellen Sandweiss and Theresa Tilly.

"The Evil Dead" is not at all the sort of film I normally watch. However, it's a historically important one, as it gave director Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell their big break...and is a great example of a super-cheap film that earned back a fortune for the filmmakers. In many ways, this early feature by Raimi reminds me of George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" (the 1968 version) and Peter Jackson's "Bad Taste" as they, too, were early films of these directors and earned a fortune...catapulting these men to A-level films.

The plot here isn't exactly deep. Five young people go off to a cabin in the woods. They find a tape recorder and play it...only to have a professor on the tape blurt out an incantation from a book he found...and the incantation brought out the evil dead who soon began invading the bodies of these folks. For some odd reason, Ash (Campbell) is spared and the final portion of the film is a total bloodbath as he is forced to violently dismember his friends in order to avoid being killed by these not demonic beings.

While the gore level is off the charts in this film, it's so ridiculously over the top and fake looking that it is worth seeing. Had they had a better budget, no doubt the gore could have looked much more realistic...and the film would have turned me off completely! As it is, it's somewhat comical because it's so ridiculous. Not a great film but for its budget, an amazing picture...one all budding filmmakers should see.

Sam Raimi's acclaimed horror debut is certainly not for the faint of heart. As the advertising slogan goes, what many consider to be "the ultimate experience in gruelling terror" is a gripping, frightening, gory roller-coaster ride through all manner of unbelievable and scary happenings. I actually think the first half hour of this film is the best, just before all hell breaks loose and the special effects guys have a field day. The first half hour is the set up, an atmospheric sequence full of dark shadows, spooky cellars and the eerie isolation of a remote cabin in the woods - the film manages to tap into the same fears that THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT later exploited.

The amateur nature of the film means that the acting can hardly be called "refined", although most of the youngsters manage to make their characters likable and convincingly portray terrified people. Favourites include Cheryl, who is the first to get spooked out and who draws a picture of the book of the dead; Scotty, the joker and natural leader of the group; and Ash, who overcomes being a wimp in the first half to become a shotgun-wielding executioner in the second. The amateurish aspect does have its strong points however, as the film exudes a kind of "raw terror" in which the viewer can really relate to the characters and their situation.

The graphic gore content certainly earned the film a notoriety - it was very nearly classified as a "video nasty" - and of course it got heavily cut by the BBFC. Seen uncut, it's a surprisingly nasty and gruesome little film where the gore may not be convincing but is certainly disturbing. Watching a zombie biting off its own hand from which a white liquid then sprays is one of the most horrible things I've watched. Other "highlights" include a scene where a zombie is dismembered with an axe and the body parts continue to wriggle like jelly, a woman getting stabbed in the ankle with a pencil, an eye-gouging, a zombie getting its face burnt off in a fire, and the celebrated ending in which the final zombies suffer total meltdown - achieved via some natty stop motion animation for total disgustingness.

It's rare when a film manages to combine both old-fashioned atmosphere and new-fangled gore so successfully, but this is a milestone in that aspect. Black comedy is also thrown into the brew to lighten up some heavier moments, such as when Ash tries to give the mortally wounded Scotty a drink - but the poor man is unable to swallow. The demon/zombie creatures themselves are covered in a crude blue makeup but achieve their desired scariness by having some horrible looking blank yellow eyes which really makes them look sick. Their mocking of Ash also provides some chills as they sing "we're gonna get you, we're gonna get you!" and laugh at his situation. Two scenes involving the zombies stick in my mind; the first "shock" moment where a card game is interrupted by a girl suddenly possessed, and the scene where a zombie smashes up from the basement taunting Ash with the words "It's your sister Cheryl!". These guttural demon voices have to be heard, but they're just another highlight in a film full of great, memorable scenes.

In the film's most notorious scene, we see an innocent girl run out into the woods - to promptly get tied up by a number of branches and shoots and then suffer a supernatural sexual assault. In a startling display of bad taste and misogyny, we watch as the possessed tree first strips the heroine of her clothes and then attacks her with a branch. Followed by a brilliant sequel and a not-so-brilliant second sequel, THE EVIL DEAD really is a sick modern classic and a must for all gore fans. And on top of that it's darned scary with it. A true horror film then.