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The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi) 1982
It’s mostly an exercise in technique as Raimi plays with
us, trying to tweak our primal fears. We never really see what’s behind the
evil, even though the characters sometimes do. As they search for it in the
dark, they’re as anxious for it to reveal itself as we are. Raimi opts to show
us the invisible demon’s point of view as it chases its victims down, and this
is one of the more effective tricks that he uses. Above all else though is a
fear of death, or more specifically, a fear of losing the integrity of our
flesh. The film is exceptionally gory but that gore isn’t used so much to
gross us out as to disturb us by reminding us how easily breakable our own
bodies are. As a multitude of fingers get crushed, flesh gets ripped down to the
bone, and eyes get punctured in excruciating detail, the movie moves beyond the
merely grotesque and toward making us actually afraid of the same treatment
after we enter the supposed blackness of death.
* * * 1/2 01/27/02 Jeremy Heilman
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A testament to the power that low budget films still have
to disturb us, Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead is quite a potent piece of
filmmaking. Made in 1982 for about $50,000, the movie is almost entirely set in
a small cabin located in some very dark woods. After a mildly creepy opening
thirty minutes, that, aside from a outrageous scene that turns the table on
man’s rape of nature, only provoke mild discomfort, the film begins
reanimating the dead and becomes truly scary. There seem to be no concrete rules
about how the unseen evil that haunts these kids operate, and that’s perhaps
one of the more unnerving things about it. Though the sequels to this film
explained much about the mysterious goings on that are displayed here, few
answers are to be found in this film itself. After finding a mysterious book
from Kandahar (heh), all hell breaks loose for the film’s five teens, and
we’re along for the wild ride. 
The story is so stripped down in The Evil Dead that
its imaginative flourishes are that much more impressive. The relentless way
that Raimi continues to confound our expectations makes the film akin to an
amusement park ride and the brief bursts of humor and heart are greatly
appreciated. It’s far from a rapid flurry though; he ekes out the maximum
scare potential out of each effect he uses. It’s about as perfectly controlled
as this sort of thing gets, and even though we know the effects are cheesy and
fake they lose none of our power to keep us on edge.