The Evil Dead (1981)

The Evil Dead is a low-budget Sam Raimi film (his first I think) that has become a cult classic due to the excessive bloodletting, mutilation, gore, and other demonic effects, all centered around a "story" of a few college grad students, or frat brothers and sorority sisters (there are five of them--two guys and three girls), who drive for a "holiday" up into rural Michigan for a night at a log cabin. The cabin turns out to be possessed by legions of demons. It stars relative unknowns, except for the redoubtable and handsome Bruce Campbell as "Ash," who has become a sort of low-budget horror and B-Movie genre icon, starring in the Evil Dead sequels such as Army of Darkness, as well as the short-lived cult TV "Wild, Wild West" homage "The Adventures of Brisco County Junior." He's a handsome dude with a square-jawed visage and is always perfect for these parts.

The other characters are stock--including the bonehead other male, Scotty (Richard Demanincor) who is a clown and a goof, and who is also a shit heel, at the end wanting to "take off" from the possessed cabin and admitting that "I don't care what happens to her" about what happens to Ash's girlfriend, who is stabbed in the ankle by a demon wielding a pencil, and who becomes a demonically possessed thing that sits in the middle for the floor with completely white eyes and a maniacal grin.

Chained in the cellar is an ashen-faced woman, demonically possessed, who cackles like an old-fashioned witch out of a storybook, and has all-white eyes and bleeds from the mouth. Etc., etc.

Ash's girlfriend, Linda (Betsy Baker), alas, does not end up in a good way. Think chainsaw.

There is an infamous, pseudo-comic scene where a woman (Ellen Sandweiss) is sexually assaulted by possessed tree branches; there's a thing, a force, lurking out in the woods, right from the beginning of the picture, from the audience's POV, sweeping the marshy ground--but, the tree branch rape scene, for all its shock value of the time, isn't THAT humorous. It's almost a miscalculation.

The cabin is possessed, being the former abode of an archaeological researcher who brings back artifacts from a dig such as a skull-headed sacrificial dagger, and a weird book (the "Noctaram Demorntu") which has cryptic sigils and drawings of skulls and demons and things. His voice is heard on an old reel-to-reel tape recorder describing his ancient demonic finds and the possession of his wife by the Akkadian demon, and the woman that is later raped by living tree branches gets up, with her hands over her ears, and yells, "SHUT IT OFF!" This is in response to some chanting on the tape.

This is a very violent film, but almost all of it is cartoonish and even bordering on slapstick. Blood, black ichor, milk, and other weird bodily substances flow out of demonized faces that look as if they're charred and rotting, and the soundtrack has enough over-modulation of the possessed women's voices to please an army of Exorcist clones. There is no plot except that Ash and his buddy can't escape the demonized women (the film has a mildly distasteful undercurrent of sexism in that only the women get possessed here, which was, I'm sure, not intentional; but there, regardless). They can't escape because the demon force has destroyed the bridge. (What, they can't drive until they find an alternate route?)

The film ends with a final shock, the Thing or demonic force lurking in the woods not being vanquished, but coming forth (from the audience's POV), to claim the Last Survivor. Evil Dead is gory and sickening and fun to watch for THOSE reasons. But it gets tedious halfway through, and its claustrophobic, log cabin-grounded atmosphere and lack of a real storyline, make it a viewing experience that will inevitably bore some, whether they are gore hounds, psycho demons, or the cinematically possessed, or not!

But, it just goes to show you a recommendation from none other than STEPHEN KING went a long way back in those august days of yore.

Starring Bruce Campbell as Ash, Ellen Sandweiss as Cheryl, Betsy Baker as Linda, Richard Demanincor as Scotty, and Theresa Tilly as Shelly. Written and directed by Sam Raimi. This micro-budgeted film, by the way, went on to earn around THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS.

(Must have made a pact with a demon or something.)