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The Evil Dead (1981) RR
Five young people go to spend a weekend at a remote cabin. They find some stuff left by the previous occupant in the basement and accidentally wake the slumbering demons. Why do I bother with the plot, everyone's seen this anyways?
I was nine or ten years old when I first saw this (back then the Finnish VHS version was cut by 11 minutes and 50 seconds). I hadn't seen many horror films by then so The Evil Dead was obviously very scary (me and my big brother usually watched all the films we rented at least twice but I skipped the nightly rewatch on this).
Fortunately The Evil Dead isn't just nostalgia trip but moderately good horror film with some comedic elements. Raimi's direction is already quite solid and cinematography is very inventive. Most of the effects are good (not the modeling clay stuff in the end though) and in general it looks surprisingly good for the money.
There are some issues though that make it far less impressive for me today. First of all there's way too much comedy. I'm not a fan of horror comedies and while The Evil Dead keeps that aspect somewhat in check it's still too much for me. Then the acting is mostly terrible (especially Bruce Campbell) and there's too much stuff aimed at teen audience (I suppose they were the target audience but it doesn't mean I have to like it). Didn't like the soundtrack either, it felt quite out of place at times.
Despite all the previous complaints The Evil Dead is still good film (at least with some help from nostalgia). I love the passion that was put into it and the raw talent shown by Sam Raimi.
Five young people go to spend a weekend at a remote cabin. They find some stuff left by the previous occupant in the basement and accidentally wake the slumbering demons. Why do I bother with the plot, everyone's seen this anyways?
I was nine or ten years old when I first saw this (back then the Finnish VHS version was cut by 11 minutes and 50 seconds). I hadn't seen many horror films by then so The Evil Dead was obviously very scary (me and my big brother usually watched all the films we rented at least twice but I skipped the nightly rewatch on this).
Fortunately The Evil Dead isn't just nostalgia trip but moderately good horror film with some comedic elements. Raimi's direction is already quite solid and cinematography is very inventive. Most of the effects are good (not the modeling clay stuff in the end though) and in general it looks surprisingly good for the money.
There are some issues though that make it far less impressive for me today. First of all there's way too much comedy. I'm not a fan of horror comedies and while The Evil Dead keeps that aspect somewhat in check it's still too much for me. Then the acting is mostly terrible (especially Bruce Campbell) and there's too much stuff aimed at teen audience (I suppose they were the target audience but it doesn't mean I have to like it). Didn't like the soundtrack either, it felt quite out of place at times.
Despite all the previous complaints The Evil Dead is still good film (at least with some help from nostalgia). I love the passion that was put into it and the raw talent shown by Sam Raimi.