Tom Creo

My experience is kinda similiar to rbrown. My mom took me and my bro to see it at a drive in. Scared the crap outta me. It didn't help that my brother was screaming "Turn it off. TURN IT OFF!" towards the end. lol Our love for ED really took off when we got a copy of the HBO VHS. Friends and family alike would stay the nights on weekends to see it. My bro and I even made our own Book of the Dead. lol

I guess the one ED experience I can claim is how disappointed I was with ED II. I would always buy Fangoria and read up about ED's sequel. They had covers and stills for it and never once did they mention it was basically a remake/comedy. Man was I pissed after seeing that. I still give that film the Gas Face.

Solid Snake

So it can be agreed that the film, inherently, was made with no intention for camp?

Mike86

I can't speak for seeing the original when it originally came out but the film to me doesn't seem like it was intentionally trying to be campy. I watched it just the other night before going to the remake and it seemed like it was treating itself like a fairly serious film. Even when I was younger watching the film it never really felt like it was campy like the sequels did and gave me some legitimate scares. I think it's just comparatively speaking with films of today it just comes off campy in ways because of the dated effects and stuff.

Ranger

Anyone notice the lack of CGI? They said they only used CGI for touch-ups.

I'm curious what the NC-17 cut had.

Jane Levy on her audition:

Wonder if they'll include it with the blu-ray.

FRwL

Jay Leno?

csant

I too saw the original but in a theater in the bronx, NY. The theater was quiet as hell and all you hear was "oh and ahhhh". I remember people clapping at the end and still remember people talking about it being scary and one of the best scary movies they've seen as we left the theater. I know I had trouble sleeping that night... probably the only time I've ever slept with the lights on. =)

After watching the remake today... Im not sure what to think. I know it didnt feel too scary and nothing special for me at least. It wasnt terrible though, just not on par with the original one or what was it that the posted said "one of the scariest movies ever made"... not even in the top five. lol =)

Charlie Goose

I saw the original 30 years ago this month in a packed theater on Staten Island with a buddy of mine. The 100 yards from the bus stop to my house that night was the longest walk I've ever had. Every shadow, every noise, was a giggling shemp coming for my fucking soul. Being home was no better. My sister was staying a friend's house, my mother was in the hospital, and my father was passed out drunk, so I was alone. Sleep did not come easily, my friends haha! Not many horror movies have affected me like the original Evil Dead. The remake makes all the correct points like the trees, and the blood, and the self-mutilation, unfortunately it has none of the pizazz, none of the impact of the low budget Raimi version. It's slick and well-produced, and well-acted and stands okay on its own, but there's no comparing it to the original.

asianxcore

Saw this last night and felt underwhelmed.

I enjoyed the FX work & cinematography immensely, but other than that I thought the film was 'meh'.

xage

I loved how the film preserved the the awesomeness of Practical Effects!

The story was average but presentation of Horror is Awesome!

Looking forward for a future mash up with Ash!

Solid Snake

You scare me sometimes.

I still want know how the hell you fund your collection. Grand mystery.

Tom Creo

Finally saw this. Very enjoyable. Loved the burial scene. I wish that the filmakers didn't give away that Mia=Ash during the con presentations. It kinda ruined the suspense in the end. If I would've gone in with the thinking that David=Ash I would've been pleasantly surprised at the outcome. It doesn't match the originality and tone of the original but does it have to? A solid B+.

Solid Snake

That was actually my favorite scene as well. Good emotions there.

Geofferson

Saw this today and thought it was pretty decent...wasn't expecting much, so that helped, I'm sure. Like that the 'skull' necklace made its way into this one from the original too. Mia as Ash was a nice surprise.

hanshotfirst1138

There is a certain edge of black humor that run through even the first film. If you listen to Raimi's commentary track, he's pretty open about the flaws and the many dated bits, it's quite obvious that he doesn't take things too seriously, and I don't think I'm meant to either. It certainly didn't take the rough to straight humor until the sequels though.

My IMDb app should theoretically show everything playing within 60 miles. Theoretically, I'm also an excellent golfer though. There are theaters show events, but few and far between, and most of the time, my accursed job schedule doesn't allow it anyway. The concept of revival houses is cool but rather foreign to me. Someone who worked at my local multiplex told me that they were talking about showing a marathon, but the NC-17 badge deterred them.

Well, it's gory. Arriving as the latest in the seemingly endless spate of remakes, Sam Raimi, Robert Tapert, and Bruce Campbell themselves are on board as producer for the newest, hereafter called Evil Dead 4. For those familiar with the original, the storyline remains largely the same: a group of friends gather at a secluded cabin in the woods, though this time, instead of trying to party it down, they're attempting to a help a friend through detox. But one of them discovers a mysterious book in the basement, inked in blood and bound in flesh, and unleashes some very angry and vengeful demonic spirits, leading to a hell of a bloodbath.

Raimi's original film isn't the most substantiate film. It's storyline is paper thin, its characters are underwritten (Raimi himself is amusingly game in the DVD commentary, poking fun at many of the film's flaws), and it's obviously made on the cheap. But what it did have in spades, fleshed out even further in its mega-cult sequels, was a personality. Raimi's endless manic camera work and Bruce Campbell's endearing square-jawed hero Ash Williams have made the films choice cult-favorite for decades. Raimi managed to pitch the near-impossible high-wire act of blending dark humor with visceral horror, creating a film with a sense of identity to with its notoriety. Once you looked past the initial shock value, Evil Dead was a weird piece of art, its many striking visuals delivered by a director who, however young, however green, however unruly, was distinctive. First time-director Fede Alvaraez is clearly a horror fan as well, and there's no denying the new Evil Dead's a fanboy film, full of loads of splatter and gore, and it's an intense ride.

But even at its most violent, Raimi's films felt like some sort of weird modern pop-art. Like Dario Argento at his best, even the most gory shots were executed with a sort of artistic flair. Even today, the film, however dated and crude, tingles with a raw energy, manic imagination, and black humor. Alvarez takes a different route, going for a post-millennium endurance test-style horror film. That's not a bad thing, and Evil Dead 4 is reasonably entertaining as a balls-to-the-walls thrill ride. But it lacks the panache of Raimi's original, and more importantly, it's iconic lead (though those who stay through the credits will be treated to a delightful five-second cameo from Campbell himself). Indeed, part of the problem with the film is that it seems to switch protagonists around it's three-quarter mark. But that's just symptomatic of a larger issue: every character in the film is a dumb as rocks, and unfortunately, that joke seems to be lost on the filmmakers. As the charcters wander around cellars in spite of seeing dead bodies and refuses to turn on the lights as they approach their friends in the dark, you kind of want to hit them.

Alvarez piles on the gore in mountains, but but while there are many cringe-worthy, including a number of salacious closeups on the damage that can be done to the human body, but while it'll elicit many groans from the audience, it never encourages the audience to care enough to be involved beyond wondering about the makeup effects rather than caring about any of the film's characters. The film maintains an intense tone throughout, for many horror fans, there's bound to be a certain glee in the film's relentlessness. But the world looks different now, and there's just no recapturing the uniquely raw tone of the original that Raimi deftly mixed with jet black humor. The shocks now feel like they're trying too hard shock rather than just playing their hand-the infamous tree-rape restaged as a weird tentacle hentai-esque, for instance. Ultimately, the attempts at viscera lead to exhaustion, as the film descends into buckets of gore and raining literal blood. For genre fans, this might be some sort of perverse fun. But apart from a handful of striking images-Mia standing in front of a flaming cabin, the film's money shot of a head being spit in two with a chainsaw, but without Raimi's panache, the audience might eventually start to feel numb.

In the end, the flaws in the original film are simultaneously what make it work. By sanding off its edge, by being conscious of itself, Evil Dead 4 is to some extent undone by its eagerness to please. The original wasn't a classic at the time, just a gleefully creative work by a direction anxious to scare. Raimi's electrifying camera work and crazed sense of style weren't out to do anything other than play things straight, it had no shoes to fill. Raimi seemed to throw everything at the wall and make most of it stick, connecting his many images together into a bizarre but somehow distinctive whole. The new film seems too controlled, too conscious of the past, too interested in living up to expectation. Everything feels so calculated that the inensity feels manufactured rather than visceral. This gives the film its own charms, and many horror fans will likely take to its no-holds barred mayhem. It's a certain kind of fun, but quite the distinctive kind that makes the original film such a unique thrill ride. Raimi, Campbell, Tapert, and Alvarez have all done their best, but you get the sense that we've all sort of grown up a bit, and maybe this should've tried to stand by itself rather than throw its hat in the right with the much-loved series. It isn't as good as it could be, but it isn't terrible either. In the end, where Raimi managed to balance between two extremes, Alvarez sort of falls into the middle and negates them, tilting instead on the side of splattery thrill ride. It's fine, but will it inspire the cult fervor the original did and be remember 25 years down the road? Probably not. But for cheer and scream multiplex horror, it does its job well enough.

I'll give it a B.

Julie Walker

I think fans are retroactively attempting to find 'humor' in the original Evil Dead to make it fit in with the sequels. But aside from a couple amusing moments of obvious humor early on. The film is played straight and serious with the intent to freak the hell out of the audience.

And everything I've read about the making of the film indicates that was the intent behind the film. They studied audience reactions at drive-ins and such and took notes on what people loved from the horror films and what they hated, and were intent on making a film that was better( meaning not boring) than most of the drive in 'trash' at the time. This is what I read in The Evil Dead Companion book that was released years ago that interviewed the cast and crew.

I saw the film for the first time on vhs when I was 11 after a person at the store recommended the film as i was reading the synopsis on the box and was curious to rent the film eventually. The film scared me to death then and was intensely terrifying to the point I had to turn it off after awhile to calm down since it was to much as it never let up. Then I finished the film later on, and was greatly disturbed, but blown away as well.

I think another reason some may find the film less scary today and 'campy' is based on the transfer of the film they're viewing. When it's cleaned up to much and is to brightly lit where it was more dim and grim on the vhs. It does make effects looks faker than before. But if you turn down the color and bright levels a bit, the film may get some of it's old school charm back. Since I recall the last time I watched the film on dvd, I did play with the T.V. settings, and while it wasn't exactly like the vhs in appearance. It did make me unsettled and queasy by the end of the film since it had a more stark and disturbing atmosphere than when it's brightly lit and cleaned up. And that's how The Evil Dead should be. It's not a comedy.

LiquidSky

I did in Tuscaloosa, AL of all places.

Solid Snake

details, man. What was the film like for ya?

hanshotfirst1138

I remember the first time I saw it. I wasn't even born when the film came out, of course, but I remember. Coming from a pretty conservative family, the NC-17 badge was something darkly taboo and forbidden. One day, when my parents were out of town, I walked a ways up to a local mom and pops video store and picked up the old HBO tape. As there wasn't much on it that identified it, they just stuck an R-rating sticker on it and let it be. So I, being a good perhaps not such a good little Catholic schoolboy, rented it and took it home. VHS has that plastic, tactile quality that DVD never has, so I took it down the basement, rewound it, killed the lights, and watched it. It was scary, to he sure, but in a darkly fun kind of way. Ah, the Pre-Netflix days before streaming and DVD. However did we survive?

keith71

"Mia is gone you idiot!"
Don't you just love when demons insult people?

Solid Snake

Well it's that or they want to suck your cock.

Wazootyman

Definitely agree with the retroactive humorous assessment of the first one. I remember watching Evil Dead 1 with a group of my friends when I was about 17. At the end of it, one of my friends started wheezing she was so frightened.

The next week, when I suggested we continue the trilogy and watch Evil Dead 2, she basically said no way in hell. But since it was my house, it went on, and the same person laughed the whole way through

Solid Snake

When was this?

Tom Creo

Oh yeah,
"Queen of Spades. Four of Hearts. Eight of Spades. Two of Spades. Jack of Diamonds. Jack of Clubs!" was when the shit hit the fan. This scene and the delivery of that line scared the hell outta me. Nothing in the remake comes close.

RocShemp

I remember that. Awesome moment.

Another wonderful thing about the first movie is how it flips the script twice. Cheryl is set up as the "Final Girl" early in the film. It's practically screamed at you that she will be the one to survive all of this. Then she's not only suddenly raped but then subsequently possessed. This is around the time that Scotty steps up as the hero and the one to kick ass and take names. Only for then the whole focus to switch to a different protagonist. This time to the meekest of the characters, Ash.

Ash was the hero all along (the "Final Boy" as several film essays have labelled him) whereas Cheryl and Scotty were both red herrings of sorts.

asianxcore

Anyone notice the spike in prices for most of the Anchor Bay DVDs for Evil Dead 1 & 2?

The Book Of Dead Editions have been OOP for a while, but for a long time you couldn't give those away (used).