100 Scariest Movie Moments: #76 The Evil Dead

In the event that a classic movie has a sequel that even remotely lives up to the original, there is unquestionably going to be a debate over whether or not they form a single film together, or are better viewed as separate entities. This is doubly true when the original ended on a cliff-hanger and the sequel picks up from there. ‘…Was the cliff-hanger more interesting than the resolution?’ This is true of both Halloween and The Evil Dead. However, I personally come down on opposite sides of the two debates. For Halloween, “He's still out there” was an ominous send-off for the film. And the follow-up, although good, could never really live up to that dread. In the case of Evil Dead on the other hand, the sequels expanded on the original in a way that formed thematic perfection.

Some time ago Sam Raimi said that if you removed the beginning and end of Evil Dead 2, you could splice Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness together to form the single film he’d originally envisioned, which grows ever more comedic as Ash (Bruce Campbell) goes mad from the horrors that he's facing. A few years ago, I did actually splice the films together in precisely this manner and watched them with some friends, and I was impressed. At no point during the four-and-a-half hour viewing did I find myself bored, nor did I feel that the shifts were abrupt. (The Cabin isn't ripped apart anymore? Clearly the Deadites put it back together to trap the next group!)

So in only reviewing the original Evil Dead, I find myself feeling quite limited, as this journey into madness was only made evident as the series went along. Still, there is a horrifying quality to this film not often found in modern horror films. First and foremost, there's only a single prominent scene of a cast member being attacked while alone, and it doesn't end in her death. (Yes, I'm referring to the infamous “tree rape.”) Rather, the evil wants to attack them all together, to induce fear as they watch their possessed friends fall to it.

The fact that the movie actually takes time to let us get to know that these are not complete jackasses is probably why it resonates so much more than many modern slasher films. These are human beings with relationships to one another, and friendships, who are being tortured. And none of them ever do anything to become particularly unlikeable.

Better yet is the fairly limited knowledge of the rules by which the Evil is playing. Right up to the final moments of the film we don't know the Deadites true weaknesses or what their limitations are. Granted, there are moments when they don't seem all-powerful, but a strong argument could be made that they're trying to infuse their victims with a false sense of hope. They certainly seem to be at their most powerful when their victims are actively trying to flee, and we're never even shown (in the original film, at least,) the means by which their final assault on Ash is carried out. As far as we can tell they got tired of playing, and just decided to finish him off.

I feel as though any discussion of this movie has to bring up the line “You bastards, why are you torturing me like this?” It's bugged the living hell out of me every time I've seen this film. Given that the vast majority of the movie has fairly subdued performances by the standards of the rest of the series, and this particular line seems to almost be written and acted as if its a parody of terrible movie lines. I have absolutely no idea what Sam Raimi or Bruce Campbell were going for. It's almost as if it’s a line from Bruce Campbell's later career as the King of Ham.

Is Evil Dead the best horror film? Or even the best of its own series? Far from it. However, on the scale of quality, it falls well above most of its genre, and there was actual talent and effort put into it. No nerd could possibly be complete without having seen this film.