For other uses, see The Evil Dead (disambiguation).

The Evil Dead
Poster for The Evil Dead
Directed by	Sam Raimi
Produced by	Sam Raimi Bruce Campbell Robert Tapert
Written by	Sam Raimi
Starring	Bruce Campbell Ellen Sandweiss Betsy Baker Hal Delrich Teresa Tilly
Music by	Joseph LoDuca
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date(s)	October 15, 1981
Running time	85 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$375,000
Gross revenue	$29,400,000 (est.) (As of July 26, 2006)
Followed by	Evil Dead II Filmi'>Evil Dead II
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Evil Dead (also known as Evil Dead, 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 written and directed by Sam Raimi, and starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss and Betsy Baker. The film depicts five college students and their vacation in an isolated cabin in the Tennessee woods, which turns into a nightmare when they find an audiotape that is a key to unlocking evil spirits.

The film was extremely controversial for its graphic violence and gore, being initially turned down by almost all U.S. distributors, until a European company picked it up. It premiered on October 15, 1981 to moderate box office receipts, grossing $2,400,000, considering its $375,000 budget and mixed critical reaction.[1] Today, it is widely accepted by critics and audiences alike as a classic of the horror genre and has a worldwide cult following.

Plot

Five college students venture into the Tennessee woods to spend a weekend in an isolated cabin. Instead, they find grief in the form of the Book of the Dead (a separate Babylonian text in the film, unrelated to the Egyptian text) otherwise known as the Morturom Demonto (renamed Necronomicon in the sequels, which shows an H.P. Lovecraft influence[2]). They find and play a tape recording of demonic incantations from the book, unwittingly resurrecting the slumbering demons that thirst for revenge. The characters are then possessed one by one, beginning with Cheryl (Sandweiss) after she is brutally raped by the trees, by the evil force in sequences of intense, bloody violence and horrifying voice-overs. Cheryl makes it home to the cabin but nobody believes her. Ash then decides to drive her into town where she can stay the night. Upon nearing the bridge they discover it is completely destroyed and the supports are bent into the shape of a hand. Soon after, Cheryl becomes a demon and stabs Linda in the ankle. They lock her in the cellar, but soon after Shelly becomes possessed and attacks Scotty who dismembers her with an axe. They wrap the dismembered body-parts in a blanket and bury them, after which Scotty leaves to find a trail out of the woods. Ash then runs back into the cabin to find the cellar door wide open and experiences a strange series of events including the cellar filling with blood and hearing things in his mind. Scotty returns but he is mutilated by trees, but before losing consciousness he tells Ash there is a trail in the woods. Ash goes to check on Linda, but he finds her possessed, so Ash is forced to drag her outside and cut her head off with a shovel. The head comes back to life and taunts Ash, and the body gets up to chase Ash back to the cabin. Ash finds Scotty dead when he gets back to the cabin, and when he goes to check on him, Cheryl jumps at the window and breaks it in. Ash shoots her, but she doesn't die, and Scotty's body leaps up. The two then begin to beat Ash up. Suddenly they begin to scream, and smoke starts to rise from their bodies, so Ash realizes that The Book of the Dead has fallen into the fireplace. He grabs it and throws it into the flames. The demons stop and begin to rot away as dawn breaks, finding Ash to be the only survivor. Ash heads outside and stands there for a while, but a spirit runs him down. The screen goes black as Ash turns around with a look of fear on his face. Then, the credits roll.

Production

Raimi and Co. managed to secure a budget of $375,000, and with the cast and crew, headed for an abandoned cabin in the woods of Tennessee. The movie was shot over a period of about 2 years, during which many of the cast and crew abandoned the production. Because of this, Raimi used 'shemps' or 'stand-ins' to replace the actors who had left. One of the only actors loyal to the project from the beginning was Bruce Campbell, who went through torturous circumstances as the character 'Ash.' According to the Evil Dead DVD commentary, he would often return home after a night of shooting in the back of a pick-up truck, due to the fact that he was usually covered in corn syrup, which the crew used as fake blood.

Censorship

Because of its graphic violence, the original version of the movie was banned in several countries, including Finland, Germany, Iceland, and Ireland. The "tree rape" scene in the movie was also described by some as being misogynistic. [citation needed] 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. Several high-profile horror enthusiasts publicly criticized the German ban on the movie, including author Stephen King (who gave it a rave review in the November 1982 issue of Twilight Zone). A heavily edited version was made legally available in 1992, but the first legal, uncut version of the movie did not enter the German DVD market until 2001. In Finland, The Evil Dead was later released uncut on DVD by Future Film, and rated K-18. In the United Kingdom, the movie was one of the first to be labeled a video nasty in the mid-1980s and was finally released uncut in 2001.

Evil Dead: The Musical

With the approval of both Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, a musical version of the film was staged, enjoying a successful workshop in Toronto and performances at the Just for Laughs Festival in Montreal in 2004. The New York off-Broadway production started previews on October 2, 2006. The official Opening Night performance was November 1, 2006. The show continued with 8 performances per week at the New World Stages until closing February 17, 2007. Evil Dead: The Musical has recently started production in Toronto starting from May 1, 2007 with the run extended from June 23, 2007 to August 4, 2007. On August 4, 2007 it was announced that the show has now been extended for a final time until September 8, 2007

See also

• Evil Dead (series)
• List of zombie films

External links

• The Evil Dead at the Internet Movie Database
• Evil Dead Interactive - Contains scripts, trailers, art, sound clips, and everything else Evil Dead.
• Deadites Online - Internet site with information regarding the trilogy
• Music video "Awaken: Al Despertar El Diablo" pays homage to the Evil Dead Series