24 December 2007

Evil Dead (1983)



Director
Sam Raimi

Cast
Betsy Baker
Bruce Campbell
Richard DeManincor
Ellen Sandweiss
Theresa Tilly

Plot
Five college students decide to make vacation in a cabin in the woods. The desolate forest leads them to do what college students are inclined to do, namely indulge in a little occult ritual in addition to making hanky panky sexy time.

They stumble upon an audio cassette player (it's like the iPod of the eighties that works with a steam engine) that summons evil spirits. If you remember audio cassettes, you can summon spirits with them by playing the tape backwards, or if you let the tape lie on your dashboard in the sun and then play it. Of course the only persons with enough mojo to play a tape backwards were Satanic musicians and evangelist preachers. Interesting connection they share.

This cassette contains passages from the Necronomicon, a mythical book invented by H.P. Lovecraft as part of his ploy to mock religion. The Necronomicon of Evil Dead is not so innocuous, and evil spirits start to haunt the cabin. The Bruce and his consorts have to battle the spirits with McGuyver-like ingenuity.

Review
In the year of our Bruce - well, Bruce can make it any year he likes, at any given time – Sam Raimi documented the pristine manner in which to deal with an undead attack. It is true that one Romano first brought us knowledge of the existence of zombies, casting his lots on their side. Alas, this had been before the coming of our Bruce. Generous helpings of whoopass and chainsaws put these metaphysical entities in their place. Evil Dead should be passed from generation to generation to ensure our children and our children's children - even the test tube ones - know how to prepare for an attack from the undead. The Bruce should be made a saint and honoured by having one hand of our firstborn replaced with a chainsaw in his homage.

Conclusion
The Bruce deserves to be further immortalised in the mind of the public with his own strand of poor attempts at humour, from the same genus as those of The Hoff, The Chuck and The Shat. Maybe not The Shat, but Evil Dead is superawesome!

Rating

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ah, Evil Dead is quite the classic. Nice review.

I think I recall audio cassettes from the history books. Didn't Eli Whitney invent those?

Anonymous said...

Hey Garg, thanks for commenting on my blog! Evil Dead is pretty awesome as well, always makes my mood better :D
Come Cpme get your xmas greeting tag from my blog:)

Anonymous said...

Great review!
And all those audio cassette comments; I like hearing reviews from those less that 1000 years old to get a that kind of perspective. Hilarious!

Chelle Blögger said...

I used to own a copy of the Necronomicon and the Anarchist's Cookbook. Seriously lol.

Yes, I was a strange teenage child...

Google sucks piles I'm moving to Steemit

Short and sweet, Google isn't allowing me to post ads on my blogs here on blogspot any longer. Not that I provide my angry nerd rants fo...