'The Evil Dead Trilogy': A Series of Undead Events

I think that Sam Raimi has had quite a big impact on anyone and everyone my age. I was two years old when Spiderman came out and perhaps as well as sparking a love for the webslinger, Raimi’s superhero trilogy (among other things) inspired my love for horror and for weird and wild filmmaking. After all, his signature style carries over surprisingly well to the comic-booky, larger-than-life world of Green Goblin, Doc Oc and most terrifying of all - J K Simmons. Delving back into Raimi’s first feature film The Evil Dead and the other two entries in his bizarre trilogy makes all of his little Raimisms pop a little more - and since I have watched them I feel like I could follow this up with a deep dive on the horror and clever parallels in the writing of the Spiderman trilogy too. But for now, I’m going to get groovy and talk Evil Dead.

The thing that seems to always come first in discussions of The Evil Dead (1981) is the budget and the production. It is definitely an intriguing side of the film; the movie is a triumph of low-budget filmmaking that is creative and visually stunning at every turn. Bruce Campbell described the shoot as “twelve weeks of mirthless exercise in agony”. It was, effectively, a few buddies and some actors that they hired to fill in the gaps, making a tropey B movie. It outdoes itself in this respect, though. It is fresh and groundbreaking, even now. The gore ended up getting the film labelled as a ‘video nasty’ at the height of British censorship in the 80s, partially also because of that scene. To quickly talk about what The Evil Dead actually is - Ash Williams and his girlfriend Linda rent a small cabin in the middle of nowhere with Ash’s friend and his partner as well as Ash’s sister. They find a strange audio recording with some Latin chanting and after playing it it quickly becomes clear that a demonic presence has arrived. That scene - a sequence where Cheryl, Ash’s sister, is assaulted by the thin branches of a tree that try to undress her in a scene that obviously implies a sexual attack - is a turning point for the whole film. Any cliches that seemed so obvious before are disregarded as the strange logic of the film invades the small cabin. Despite an established tradition of a ‘final girl’ that had been on full display in movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween and Friday the 13th , the only way that Ash can survive the attack of his possessed friends is by kiling each of them. The camera spins and snap zooms in alarming and fresh ways that heighten the surreal nature that the arrival of the Deadites brings. The effects, though clearly dated, are impressive and at times grimace-worthy. The tension towards the end, as more and more bizarre visuals take hold, is amazing. Ash is the most conflicted character, who struggles with the idea of killing the creatures that wear the faces of those that he loved. It is campy, gross and aged but it is so good.

Tonally, then, the first film is grim and dark with moments of squeamish horror. Evil Dead II (1987) departs from this with a swerve that leaves the whole film feeling like a horror-comedy that is sarcastic and gripping. Watching all three films in a row, the tonal shifts are definitely a little confusing but on rewatches it just makes each of them more unique and makes each of them have merit on their own. Evil Dead II starts with a recap that retcons some of the events of The Evil Dead. The rest of the people who came to the cabin are mysteriously missing, not neccessarily written out of the story, but not important enough to include or to recast. Ash’s girlfriend has been recast though, and we get to see the moment that Ash decapitates her with a shovel shot again, with all the experience of the first movie under the teams belts. This film looks a lot more modern and still features the startling camera movements, extreme close-ups, tilts and upside down moments that I can now associate with the moments of horror and suspense in Raimi’s films. Perhaps the biggest retcon is that the cabin was not rented, the group had thought it was abandoned and just decided to stay there. This allows for the original owners of the cabin to feature more prominently, with the daughter of the owners bringing some lost pages of the Book of The Dead (the text that was read in the first film to summon the demons). Ash and this archaeologist, Annie, have to fight the possessed form of her mother and eventually bring the evil that haunts the cabin into a physical form so that they can send it back in time, essentially saving the world. The best moments in the film come slotted in between these huge events though. While Annie makes her way back to the cabin to see her parents, Ash’s hand becomes possessed and tries to kill him. There is real horror here, but the physical comedy of Ash being flipped over by only his hand and a point of view shot from the perspective of his hand, crawling toward a knife gives the whole thing a definite tongue-in-cheek feel. Linda’s body attacks Ash, still missing it’s head, with a chainsaw - while cackling madly of course. Ash cuts off his hand with the chainsaw, screaming and laughing as he is drenched in blood. His detached hand flips the bird at him. Ash clearly changes as a character when he laughs and howls along with the possessed items in the house. It is hard to know when you should be wincing and when you should be grinning, but that feels intentional at every turn. In a twist on the premise of the first film, the first of the humans to turn is not locked in the cellar. Instead Ash himself is thrown down there, as he appears to be the threat when Annie and her group arrive to a partially destroyed cabin covered in blood. Towards the end of this film, Ash starts to embody the more confident and potentially deranged zombie killer that most might picture when they think of Bruce Campbell’s character. Replacing his hand with a chainsaw, and cutting the end off his shotgun he becomes an icon in one line.

“Groovy.”

Evil Dead II is, to me, the best of the trilogy. The story is equal parts funny and horrific and the ending - Ash falling with the embodiment of demon evil into the dark ages - is badass and one of the best cliffhanger endings I have ever seen. Ash realises that he is the hero from the sky that Annie read about in the pages of the Book of the Dead and starts to shout in protest: “No… Nononono!” We pan out smoothly to see the armies of man in plate armour cheering for Ash.

Army of Darkness (1992) is a bigger and harder to tackle beast. Originally called Medieval Dead: The Army of Darkness (a title that suits the ridiculous film much better), it picks up in the moments directly after Evil Dead II and retells the epilogue of that film with more steps. It undermines the end of the last film in a way that Evil Dead II never did to the first, but it comes into its own very quickly. Here, Ash is battered and beaten from his last few days of fighting Deadites and seems more cocky, more grumpy and basically solidifies the position that he grappled with at the end of the last film and becomes a horror symbol. He shoots his sawnoff gun in the air, before yelling “This … Is my BOOMSTICK!” at a crowd of soldiers and peasants. Some of his most well-known lines come from this film. As a result of The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II, Ash Williams is a different character. But I think this makes this film stronger - if a little confusing. For this adventure into the past, Ash needs to be charismatic and badass. It lets him hold up the whole film, especially given the lack of other fleshed out characters. Ash goes on a journey to find the Book of the Dead, interspersed with surreal horrors that, in this case, go further than before. These moments of insanity had been my favourite parts of the rest of the trilogy, but here they pass into cartoonish slapstick that disregards the plot and continuity and, while entertaining, takes away from the film as a whole. The strange reversed footage when Ash is inspecting the magical books is awesome though; that’s the kind of stuff I’m here for. The backwards moving smoke and mist, the point of view shot that zooms, as if flying, to chase Ash. Raimi is a talented filmmaker, without a doubt. It’s also very funny to me that Army of Darkness was written both by Sam Raimi himself and his brother, Ivan Raimi, who has a successful career as an emergency physician. This film is fun and is something I would recommend to anybody and the vision of the two brothers writing together perfectly reflects the vibe that I get when watching the best parts. The advance of the titular Army, with skeleton warrior dolls, actors and animation blended together to make it coherent and colossal. Danny Elfman (of Oingo Boingo!!) wrote the March of the Dead music that accompanies the skeleton’s attack. The impressive effects work used on Evil Ash, the gorgeous shots of the fighting and the noteworthy choreography in the final sword fight between Evil Ash and Ash Williams himself. It is well deserving of its place alongside two other markers of film history in an amazing filmmaker’s catalogue. And, no matter what, go and watch the final scene of Army of Darkness. It’s fun, fresh and will make anybody grin like an idiot.

So Raimi’s films hold up. Three more films off the list. Maybe I’ll watch the TV show next? Or play the game? No matter what, I’m avoiding the remake like the plague. I have to give credit though - Hail to the King baby!

Follow me on Twitter! @pastadeficit

Let me know if you liked this bigger approach to a whole series! Tell me what to watch, read, play or anything else, and I’ll give it a look. Thank you for reading this extended rant about some of my new favourite films.