The Evil Dead
| The Evil Dead | |
|---|---|
 1983 theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Sam Raimi |
| Written by | Sam Raimi |
| Produced by | Robert G. Tapert |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Tim Philo |
| Edited by | Edna Ruth Paul |
| Music by | Joe Loduca |
Production company | Renaissance Pictures |
| Distributed by | New Line Cinema |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 85 minutes[2] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $375,000[3] |
| Box office | $29.4 million |
The Evil Dead is a 1981 American independent supernatural horror film written and directed by Sam Raimi (in his feature directorial debut) and the first installment in the Evil Dead franchise. The film stars Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker and Theresa Tilly as college students vacationing in an isolated cabin in the woods, where they find an audio tape that, when played, releases a legion of demonic entities. Most of the group suffer from demonic possession, forcing its sole survivor, Ash Williams (Campbell), to survive an onslaught of increasingly gory mayhem.
Raimi, Campbell, producer Robert G. Tapert and their friends produced the 1979 short film Within the Woods as a proof of concept to build the interest of potential investors, which secured US$90,000 to begin work on The Evil Dead. Principal photography took place on location in a remote cabin in Morristown, Tennessee, in a filming process that proved extremely uncomfortable for the cast and crew. The film's extensive prosthetic makeup and stop-motion effects were created by artist Tom Sullivan. The completed film had its first, albeit private screening for friends and family at the Redford Theatre in Detroit on October 15, 1981, which attracted the interest of producer Irvin Shapiro, who helped screen the film at the 1982 Cannes Film Festival. Horror author Stephen King gave a rave review of the film, which resulted in New Line Cinema acquiring its distribution rights and giving it a wide theatrical release on April 15, 1983.
The Evil Dead grossed $2.4 million in the United States and $27 million overseas, for a worldwide gross of $29.4 million. Both early and later critical receptions were universally positive; in the years since its release, the film has developed a reputation as one of the most significant cult classics, having been cited among the most successful independent films. It launched the careers of Raimi, Tapert, and Campbell, who have continued to collaborate on several films together, such as Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy.
The Evil Dead spawned a media franchise, beginning with two successors written and directed by Raimi, Evil Dead II (1987) and Army of Darkness (1992), a fourth film, Evil Dead (2013), which serves as a standalone sequel, a fifth film, Evil Dead Rise (2023), and a sixth film, Evil Dead Burn (2026), and a follow-up television series, Ash vs Evil Dead, which aired from 2015 to 2018; the franchise also includes video games and comic books. The film's protagonist Ash Williams is considered to be a cultural icon.[4]
Plot
[edit]A quintet of Michigan State University students – Ash Williams, his girlfriend Linda, his sister Cheryl and their friend Scott, and his girlfriend Shelly – vacation at a remote cabin in the rural hills of Tennessee. As the group approaches the cabin, they notice the porch swing move on its own, but it stops when Scott grabs the door key. While Cheryl is drawing a picture of an old clock, it stops and she hears a faint voice instructing her to "join us." Her hand becomes possessed, turns pale, and draws a picture of a book with a face on its cover. Although shaken, she does not mention the incident.
When the cellar trapdoor flies open during dinner, Shelly, Linda, and Cheryl stay upstairs as Ash and Scott investigate the cellar. They find the Naturom Demonto, a Sumerian version of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, along with an archaeologist's tape recorder. Scott later plays a tape of incantations that resurrect a demonic entity (The Kandarian Demon). Cheryl yells for Scott to turn off the tape recorder, and a tree branch breaks one of the cabin's windows. Later that evening, an agitated Cheryl heads into the woods to investigate strange noises, and she is attacked and raped by demonically possessed trees. When she escapes and returns to the cabin bruised and anguished, Ash agrees to take her back into town, only to discover that the bridge has been destroyed. They return to the cabin, where Ash learns from the tape that the only way to kill the entity is to dismember the possessed host. As Linda and Shelly play Spades, Cheryl correctly calls out the cards without looking at them, turns into a white-eyed monster,[a] and begins levitating. In a raspy voice, she threatens to kill everyone, stabs Linda in the ankle with a pencil, and throws Ash into a shelf. Scott knocks Cheryl into the cellar and detains her inside.
Everyone fights about what to do. Paranoid, Shelly goes to her room but is drawn to look out of her window, where the Kandarian Demon crashes through and attacks her, turning her into a monster too. She attacks Scott before he pushes her into the fireplace and then stabs her in the back with a Sumerian dagger, apparently killing her. When she reanimates, Scott dismembers her with an axe and buries her remains. Shaken, Scott leaves to find a way back to town. He returns shortly after, mortally wounded by the possessed trees, and dies while warning Ash that the trees will not allow their escape. Ash checks on Linda and realizes that she has become possessed. She attacks Ash, who stabs her with the Sumerian dagger. Unwilling to dismember her, he buries her instead. She revives and attacks him, forcing him to decapitate her with a shovel. Her headless body bleeds on his face as it attempts to rape him. He escapes back to the cabin as Linda dies.
Back inside, Ash discovers that Cheryl has escaped the cellar. Scott's dead body also reanimates into a monster. Scott attacks Ash and inadvertently knocks the book close to the fireplace. As Scott and Cheryl attack Ash, he grabs the book and throws it into the fireplace. While the book burns, the zombies freeze and decompose rapidly. Large appendages burst from both corpses, covering Ash in blood. As dawn breaks, he stumbles outside. As he walks away from the cabin, the Kandarian Demon races through the forest and attacks him as he screams in terror.
Cast
[edit]- Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, a young man who goes away with his friends to an old cabin in the woods, where they stumble upon the Naturom Demonto, the Sumerian Book of the Dead
- Ellen Sandweiss as Cheryl Williams, Ash's younger sister
- Richard DeManincor as Scott, a friend of Ash (credited as Hal Delrich)
- Betsy Baker as Linda, Ash's girlfriend
- Theresa Tilly as Shelly, Scotty's girlfriend (credited as Sarah York)
- Sam Raimi as a local fisherman and the voice of the Evil Dead (uncredited)[5]
- Robert G. Tapert as another local fisherman (uncredited)[5]
- Bob Dorian as the voice of Professor Knowby (uncredited)
Production
[edit]
Background and writing
[edit]Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell grew up together and have been friends from an early age.[6] The duo made several low-budget Super 8 mm film projects together.[7] Several were comedies, including Clockwork and It's Murder!.[8][9] Shooting a suspense scene in It's Murder! inspired them to approach careers in the horror genre; after researching horror cinema at drive-in theaters, Raimi was set on directing a horror film, opting to shoot a proof of concept short film – described by the director as a "prototype" – that would attract the interest of financiers, and use the funds raised to shoot a full-length project.[9][10] The short film that Raimi created was called Within the Woods, which was produced for $1,600.[11] For The Evil Dead, Raimi required over $100,000.