The Evil Dead (1981)

• Play
• Add to Instant Queue
• Add

Plot Summary

Five college students travel to an isolated cabin in the middle of the Tennessee mountains to spend their Spring Break vacation. While exploring the abandoned cabin, they discover the "Naturan Demanto", a Sumerian version of the Book of the Dead. They also find a tape recorder that plays demonic passages from the book which unleash evil demons upon the five friends. The demons isolate and kill off the students one at a time, beginning with Cheryl. She heads out into the woods after hearing voices to investigate. Once there. far away from the safety of the cabin, she hallucinates vines and tree branches possessed by demons attack her.

Once Cheryl returns to the cabin, her friends do no believe her and assume that she had been attacked by a wild animal. Her brother, Ashley 'Ash' J. Williams, decides to drive her into the nearby town so that she could find a safe place to stay for the night. However, once Ash and Cheryl arrive at the bridge that connects the mountain to the road into town destroyed, they head back to the cabin. Once there, Cheryl while possessed by one of the demons, stabs Ash's girlfriend Linda in the ankle with a pencil. After the attack, Scotty forces Cheryl into the cellar and locks that hatch afterwards. During the chaos, Scotty's girlfriend Shelly is also attacked and possessed by a demon after it crashes through her bedroom window while she is changing. Now possessed, Shelly attacks Scotty and inflicts numerous fatal injuries upon him before Scotty dismembers her with an axe. Traumatized by Shelly's death, Scotty leaves the cabin in an attempt to find an alternate route through the woods.

Ash goes to check on Linda, still injured from the ordeal, to find that she too has become possessed, but unlike the others makes no attempt to attack him. Scotty also returns, now more injured than before after being attacked by the possessed trees as well. He reveals to Ash that there is in fact an alternate route out of the woods, but passes out before he could continue. Throughout the ordeal, Linda from the background and Cheryl from within the cellar start laughing maniacally as Ash's predicament. As Ash screams in rage, the two women seem to snap suddenly out of their possession, but it is revealed to be trick once Cheryl tries to strangle him after trying to release her from the cellar. Ash grabs Linda and locks her outside the cabin, before tending to Scotty, but is too late as Scotty succumbs to his wounds and bleeds out. Unknown to Ash, Linda sneaks in the cabin through the back door and attacks Ash with a ceremonial dagger from behind. He counters the attack and stabs Linda through the chest with the dagger, seemingly killing her.

Crestfallen, Ash takes Linda's body to the tool shed outside and attempts to dismember her with a chainsaw, but can't find himself to do it so he buries her body instead. While mourning her death, she returns back to life an attempts to strangle Ash, who in return chops her head off with his shovel. After returning to the cabin, it is revealed to Ash that Cheryl had escaped the cellar. Now armed with a double barrel shotgun, Ash heads out into the woods and finds her and shoots her, but it has little to no effect on her. After barricading all of the doors and windows, Ash descends into the cellar to find some extra shotgun shells, and while down there he experiences a series of strange events such as mysterious voices and blood seeping from numerous crevices and openings in the walls and ceiling. Scotty's body reanimates and tries to kill an unsuspecting Ash, but his crippled after Ash gouges his eyes out. It is then that Ash notices the Book of the Dead near the fireplace, slightly burning, giving the illusion that the destruction of the book would stop the demons as well after witnessing both Scotty and Cheryl burn as well. Cheryl breaks into the cabin and subdues Ash with no effort whatsoever. While Scotty precedes to pin Ash down to the floor, Cheryl precedes to beat him with a fireplace poker. After several attempts, Ash finally throws the Book of the Dead into the fireplace just as Cheryl is about to impale him with the poker. Afterwards the demons leave the bodies of Scotty and Cheryl, which continue shortly after to rapidly decay and turn into mush. Ash believing he has survived the night, heads outside as the sun rises. It is then that a demon emerges from the woods quickly descends upon Ash, who turns to see it and lets out a blood curdling scream right before the film ends.

Overview

Though originally a short film titled "Within The Woods" as a way to interest investors, The Evil Dead (sometimes shortened "Evil Dead") transpired into a full length film after the filmmakers experimented with techniques that would later bring critical acclaim to the film and the horror genre in general. The film is directed by Sam Raimi and stars Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss and Betsy Baker.

Production

With the budget of $375,000 and the entire cast and crew, Raimi and Co. shot The Evil Dead in an abandoned cabin in the wilderness of Morristown, Tennessee. The film itself took almost 2 years to complete and on many occasions had to replace the original actors with stand ins, due to their unwillingness to work for such a long period. The only actor to stay loyal to the film and Raimi himself was none other than Bruce Campbell who played the lead role "Ash Williams" even though the film itself causes a tortuous toll on the actor at the time.

Critical Reception

Following the release of The Evil Dead, it received several bans throughout several countries, including Finland, Germany, Ireland, and Iceland. The film was the first to receive the label of "A Video Nasty" in the U.K during the 80's, which at the time garnered fan uproar and controversy. It wasn't until 2001 when Germany released an uncut version of the film until finally being ordered seizure again only a year later by the Berlin-Tiergarten Court. An unrated version of the film was later released in Finland via DVD by Future Film.

At initial release, the film received poor to mixed reviews by both critics and reviewers, but throughout the years has received critical praise and acclaim for both it's horror and comedy factors. It currently holds a "100% Certified Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes and has also been selected by the American Film Institute as one of the 400 candidates for AFI's "100 years.... 100 thrills" list.