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6
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8 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
The
Evil Dead
has a story so basic it almost sounds like ad copy. A group
of five young friends travel to a secluded cabin in the woods
of Tennessee for a weekend getaway. Once there they find a strange
book and the reel-to-reel tape recording of notes from the book's
scholarly translator. They listen to the tape and are horrified
to learn that the professor thought that by translating the
work he had inadvertently summoned demons who possessed his
wife's body. As the recording plays, in the woods outside invisible
demons rise from the earth and move towards the cabin intent
on possessing and killing all within. That's it. That's the
story. The film has about 20 minutes of setup to show us the
cabin and to (very) briefly sketch the five characters. After
that the remaining hour of running time is a series of ever
escalating set pieces of over-the-top violence that slowly whittles
the cast down to one battered survivor (with bad taste in shoes).
A completely fun and truly demented rollercoaster ride through
a dark spook house, Evil Dead has
the feel of being made by people who want nothing more than
to scare the hell out of you. Much like its most obvious progenitor,
Night Of The Living Dead, ED
uses its shoestring budget in such creative ways that the lack
of money actually enhances its nerve-rattling aspects. Forced
to be scary rather than slick, the filmmakers give more jolts
per minute of running time than any five movies released that
same year. It's a minor classic of the horror genre that, while
having lost a little of its power over the past 20 years, still
holds up very well. On this disc's commentary tracks the filmmakers
claim to have wanted to give the movie a look that wouldn't
nail it down to a definite time period and they mostly succeed.
It's this nonspecific feel of the setting, clothing and dialog
that will help keep ED fresh for
audiences for a very long time.
Much has been written about Evil Dead
over the past 20 years and almost all of it has been positive.
Starting with the breakthrough praise from author Stephen King
that gave the film a huge boost in reaching an audience, there
has been a steady stream of fanzines, magazine articles, websites
and books dedicated to this low-budget gore show. The best reference
on the film's production is Bill Warren's great book The
Evil Dead Companion, which covers just about everything
you'd want to know about the film and its two sequels, Evil
Dead 2 (1987) and Army Of Darkness
(1992). Between the extras on this DVD and the Warren book I
think it might be possible to know almost too much about
the creation of the Deadites!
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Elite's
DVD of the film is just about the best way to see it on home video.
It contains two separate commentary tracks; the first with writer/director
Sam Raimi and producer Rob Tappert and the second with star Bruce
Campbell flying solo. Unfortunately, the Raimi/Tappert track is
a little disappointing. Their comments are rather spotty, leaving
some sizable gaps that I think a moderator could have eliminated.
Both men seem to be having a good time and they do impart a number
of pieces of information but out of the film's entire running
time I think the useful bits make up only about 25 minutes total.
Much better prepared and amusing is Campbell on his solo track.
With very little dead air he moves from stories about the hardships
of washing Karo syrup out of your hair to why the early 8mm films
Raimi, Tappert and Campbell made were the perfect way to get experience
for a horror film. Campbell is very detailed in his commentary
and also very kind to everyone involved, even when it's obvious
that he wasn't happy with some things at the time. This track
is a standout and I can't imagine any fan of the movie not loving
it.
The major benefit of the Elite DVD is that the film is presented
fullframe, showing the entire 16mm image as it was shot. Editions
of the film that came out after this release have been matted
at 1.85:1, which serves to lop off a significant amount of the
top and bottom of the image. This is that very rare instance where
the original compositions of the film are best seen unmatted and
fullframe. I've viewed some of the film in its 1.85:1 presentation
and there's quite a lot of detail that gets lost, so I honestly
feel this version is the better way to see the movie. I've also
been told that on some other releases of Evil
Dead the 'tree rape' scene has been edited of one shot
to tone down the harshness of the sequence, but it is intact
here (for better or worse). Even though this edit was supposedly
done at Sam Raimi's request I think that kind of revisionist tampering
is pointless. Just leave the older movies alone to shine with
warts and all, guys! (Or maybe I should direct that thought to
George Lucas instead...) The disc includes a 5.1 Dolby Digital
soundtrack as well as a 2.0 for the less theatrically inclined.
The extras are rounded out by the trailer, a still gallery of
well over 100 images, and about 20 minutes of mostly silent behind-the-scenes
footage from the film's long production. For fans of the Evil
Dead movies this is the DVD to own of the first film. It
may not be wrapped in fake human flesh, but at least the film
looks the way it should. And until Raimi, Tappert and Campbell
can somehow shake loose the rights to their prototype short film
Within the Woods, you won't see a better DVD of this low
budget horror gem. 4/16/03 |
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