[HorrorScience] The Evil Dead (1981)

Today I am going to comment on one of the first films by Sam Raimi, a director who became world famous with the trilogy of Spider-man starring Tobey Maguire, but which already had a small legion of fans thanks to the film I will talk about today: The Evil Dead, known in Spanish-speaking countries by a host of different names, such as Infernal Possession (Spain), Diabolical (Argentina and Uruguay) The awakening of the devil (Mexico) and Diabolical Death (Peru).

This horror film includes many gore scenes and a large number of various special effects that surely blew up the limited budget that the director and his partners, Robert Tapert and Bruce Campbell, had, with the latter acting as producer and star of the film.

The film begins in the same way as many other horror films, with a group of young people ready to spend a weekend in an isolated house in the middle of a forest. The group of protagonists is made up of Ash (Bruce Campbell), Linda (Betsy Baker), Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), Scott (Richatd DeManincor) and Shelly (Teresa Lilly).

As the group of protagonists head to the house, crossing a rickety bridge and walking through the forest, we are shown that something seems to be moving at full speed to get to where they are going.  Once in front of the house, the tranquility of the forest is interrupted by a bench hanging from the roof of the house, which crashes tirelessly against the house due to the swaying of the wind and which curiously stops making noise at the moment when Scott finds the keys to the house and prepares to enter it.

Inside the dilapidated mansion, while the protagonists try to have a good time, the trapdoor that leads to the basement of the house suddenly opens. Out of inevitable curiosity and fear that someone is hiding, Scott and Ash decide to go take a look. Inside the basement They will find a kind of dagger with a somewhat diabolical handle, some recordings and a book with an unusual appearance.

After taking the objects to the upper floor, our protagonists will begin to listen to the recordings, which turn out to be from the former owner of the house, a man who dedicated himself to studying the occult and who explains that The strange book they have is the Naturom Demonto, also known as the Necronomicon, the book of the dead.. After listening to the reading of some passages from the book, they decide to turn off the recording due to the fear that it seems to awaken in some people in the group, but it is too late, the words of the Necromonicon echo in the forest, something has awakened.

That same night, in the middle of a storm, Cheryl starts acting strange, which leads her to abandon the supposed safety of the house and enter the forest, which claims her. Before she can do anything, the girl is trapped between the branches of the trees, which tear her clothes and try to abuse her, a situation from which she will partially escape, as she manages to flee towards the house, thus alerting the rest.

Cheryl's story does not have much credibility, but in order to calm her down, Ash decides to take her to a nearby town, something that is impossible, since the bridge has been collapsed, leaving the protagonists trapped in the forest.

In order to know what is happening, Ash decides to listen to the rest of the recording and that's when he discovers that the words of the Necronomicon have awakened something in the forest.. At the same time Cheryl begins to act strangely, as if possessed by a demonic force, after which she decides to kill the rest of the cabin's inhabitants.

This situation will get worse when the rest of the inhabitants of the house succumb to the possession one by one. Will the protagonists be able to survive the freed demons?

The Evil Dead It is a somewhat typical film, but with very good intentions. Their forgettable characters blend perfectly with a very successful horror atmosphere that will make us nervous from the beginning of the film. As the story progresses, the terror is accompanied by high doses of violence and gore (if you have a sensitive stomach, it is better not to see the film), which will be the tone of the film until the final part and which will only be interrupted with some doses of black humor and others of involuntary humor due to the poor interpretation of the actors.

The horror parts are quite good, they have many moments that will keep us tense, several important scares and many unpleasant or unpredictable scenes, which unfortunately They are undermined by the limited budget, which tarnishes too much the final result in general terms, leaving Evil Dead as a very uneven horror film, despite having some excellent scenes.

What saved this film from falling into oblivion was the undeniable support it had from its producers, who firmly believed in it and ended up turning it into a trilogy after releasing Evil Dead 2 (1987) and The Army of Darkness (1992) alimentando así al pequeño culto que se había creado en torno a ella y al personaje de Ash.

Curiosities about the film:

• Muchas de las escenas donde solo se ven brazos o piernas de los personajes fueron rodadas por el director y el resto del equipo para ahorrar dinero.
• En 1978 Sam Raimi rodó un corto llamado Within The Woods, cuya historia era muy similar a la de The Evil Dead y que también estaba protagonizado por Bruce Campbell.
• Esta película sufrió muchísimos problemas por censura, siendo prohibida en Suecia, Malasia, Alemania, Irlanda, Singapur e Islandia por sus escenas sangrientas, violentas y de mal gusto.
• Los dos tipos que aparecen en la carretera al principio de la película son Sam Raimi y Robert Tapert, los productores (junto a Bruce Campbell) de la película.
• En una escena se puede ver un poster de The Hills Have Eyes (Las colinas tienen ojos) de Wes Craven
• El colgante que Ash le regala a Linda se perdió tras rodar algunas escenas, de manera que fue sustituido por uno similar de color dorado que se pintó de plateado con spray. Como resultado de eso, en algunas escenas se puede ver que el colgante pierde pintura y mancha las manos de los actores.
• Raimi pensó en llamar a esta película Necronomicon, pero ese título ya había sido utilizado, así que decidió cambiarlo a The Book of the Dead (El libro de la muerte) título que iba a ser el definitivo hasta que le dijeron que los adolescentes no irían a ver una película con la palabra «libro» en el título.