The Evil Dead
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The Evil Dead (also known as The Book of The Dead , Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and The Evil Dead, the Ultimate Experience in Grueling Terror) is a 1981 horror film directed and written by Sam Raimi, starring Bruce Campbell. It is considered a classic of the genre.
Plot summary
Five college students venture into the Tennessee woods to spend a weekend of fun in an isolated cabin. Instead, the teenagers find the Book of the Dead otherwise known as the Morturom Demonto (Or Necronomicon in the sequels). They find and play a tape recording of demonic incantations from the Book, and unknowingly open a portal to the netherworld. The characters are then killed off in a sequence of scenes of extremely intense and bloody violence, and the film ends with the apparently invisible evil spirit bearing down on the last survivor, Ashley J. Williams better known as "Ash."Trivia
- The movie was filmed in Morristown, Tennessee off of Kidwells Ridge Rd.
- The two fishermen on the side of the road at the beginning are writer/director Sam Raimi and producer Robert Tapert.
- Shooting began on November 14, 1979. The original cast left after six weeks of filming which was the original shooting completion date. There was still much shooting left to do and the remainder of the film was shot with family and friends dressed like the actor for behind or side shots. This became known as "shemping" and the person as a "Fake shemp" as an homage to the Three Stooges.
- The "Book of the Dead" is referred to as Morturom Demonto in the film and "Necronomicon Ex Mortis" in the two sequels. Terminology used by the unleashed horrors and professor studying them shows that Raimi's version of the notorious faux-occult book is influenced by H.P. Lovecraft's book that has been often used in the ensuing modern Cthulhu Mythos.
- When listening to Professor Knoby's recording and recitation of the Book of the Dead you can hear a distorted version of the words, "Sam and Rob are the hikers down the road."
- The film was screened at the Cannes film festival in 1982. It received a widely publicized review from author Stephen King, published in the November 1982 issue of Twilight Zone.
- In the scene when Ash first finds the Necronomicon, a torn poster advertising Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes is visible in the background. In response to this homage, a scene from "Evil Dead" is visible on a television screen in Nightmare on Elm Street.
- The poster for "Evil Dead" can be seen in a closet containing a chainsaw in the horror film Dead & Breakfast.
- The film plays when Donnie and Gretchen go to the cinema in Donnie Darko. The filmmakers originally wanted to use C.H.U.D., but could not obtain permission. Director Sam Raimi allowed them to use the footage from The Evil Dead for free.
- In México the film's title was dubbed El Despertar del Diablo (The Devil's Awakening), and all following sequels took on that name.
- The car used in Evil Dead was a Delta 88, this car can be seen in almost all of Sam Raimi's future movies.
- In Brazil the first movie was released in video as A Noite do Demonio (The Night of the Devil), the second theatrically as Uma Noite Alucinante (A Helluva Night), then the first movie was re-released in theaters as Uma Noite Alucinante: Onde tudo começou (A Helluva Night: where it all began) and the third movie in the trilogy was released as Uma Noite Alucinante 3 (A Helluva Night 3).
Censorship
Because of its graphic violence, the original version of the movie was banned in several countries, including Finland, Iceland, Ireland and Germany. The "tree rape" scene was also objectionable to some and seen as being misogynist. Now in Finland The Evil Dead has been released fully uncut and it's been rated K-18 on DVD by Future Film.In Germany, the movie's release was hindered by public authorities for almost 10 years. Original 1982 cinema and video releases of the movie had been seized, making the movie a hit on the black market video circuit, with pirated copies abounding. A heavily edited version was first made available in 1992. Several high-profile horror enthusiasts, among them author Stephen King, publicly criticized the German ban on the movie. In other German language markets, the movie was never restricted from distribution. The first legal uncut version of the movie entered the German market in 2001, on DVD.
In one scene early in the film, the characters appeared to be smoking cannabis. The actors were not genuinely 'high', however the shot had to be abandoned because the actors tried using real cannabis, but this caused them to become unpredictable. However, in the initial shot of the group in the cabin together, smoke from the cannabis scene is still visible.
In the United Kingdom, the movie was one of the first to be labelled as a video nasty in the mid 1980s and was only released uncut in 2001.
See also
External links
- [Evil Dead Interactive] - Contains scripts, trailers, art, sound clips, and everything else Evil Dead.
- [Deadites Online] - Internet site with information regarding the trilogy
- [Within the Woods] - Largest UK based appreciation site for ALL things Evil Dead.
- [Evil Dead Soundboard] - Evil Dead Movie Soundboard (1981)
- [Evil Dead: The Musical] - A fan-made stage production of Evil Dead I and II.
| Sam Raimi's Evil Dead series |
|---|
| Films: The Evil Dead | Evil Dead II | Army of Darkness |
| Videogames: The Evil Dead | ' | ' | |
| Comic books: Army of Darkness: Ashes to Ashes | Army of Darkness: Shop Till You Drop Dead |
| Other topics: Ash Williams | Within the Woods | Bruce Campbell | Robert Tapert |
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