Editorials
Grueling Terror: The 5 Scariest Moments in the ‘Evil Dead’ Film Franchise
There’s no franchise like the Evil Dead franchise. Four quality entries (plus a TV series, which we’re not covering in this particular article) that each, in their own way, have managed to push the boundaries of originality, black comedy, fear and fun. Not to mention buckets, troths and otherwise gnarly amounts of blood and gore. That’s the Evil Dead Way, after all.
With Evil Dead Rise cheese grating its way into theaters this week, let’s take a look at five of the scariest moments from the Evil Dead franchise so far. Come to sweet Henrietta…
The Tree Scenes – The Evil Dead + Evil Dead 2013
We can converse about whether or not the controversial scene from 1981’s The Evil Dead should exist (Sam Raimi even later said he regretted it) but the fact is that it does and it is horrifying. I included both the original and remake scene here because A) I’m a coward and this is a cop out, and B) While handled differently, they are both frightening for the same reason.
In the original The Evil Dead, Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss) runs out into the woods and is assaulted by possessed trees. The total confusion and fear you feel the first time you watch this scene play out is quite intense. You start by thinking “Where is this going?” and the more graphic it becomes you start thinking “Surely, they aren’t doing what I think they are doing!” … and then the scene leaves absolutely no doubt. Confusion meets helplessness and dread. Then, it sets in that we’ve only just begun. What the hell is coming next?!
In the 2013 Fede Alvarez remake, Mia (Jane Levy) crashes her car trying to escape the cabin. Her evil doppelganger (which, I take as a physical manifestation of herself possessed by the demon about to possess her) shows up and chases her into some vines and it’s “Oh no, here we go again.” This time however, her possessed self stands before her puking up a very long, very gross, very thorny vine that wraps and slithers up her leg and inside of her body.
It’s just as violating as the original, though not quite as graphic.
Ouch, You’re On My Ankle – The Evil Dead
After the aforementioned tree sequence, Cheryl eventually goes from staring out the window to transforming into a whole ass demon, levitating and threatening everyone in the cabin.
In an unnerving voice, the demon says “Why have you disturbed our sleep? Awakened us from our ancient slumber. You will die! Like the others before you. One by one. We will take you.” There’s something about it that just makes me want to run away. I mean from wherever I am at the moment. Just take off running down the street. Like a reflex.
After Cheryl passes out, they inch toward her and for some reason try to touch her face. Then…it happens. She pops straight up like her alarm just went off and stabs her friend with a pencil. Right in that vulnerable soft spot of the foot between the Achilles and the ankle bone. Then she digs it around (gags), starts to move it in a circular motion (I’m gonna pass out), and cranks it up and down, back and forth (I have died and am writing this from the spirit realm). It’s the grossest foot/ankle/Achilles injury in movie history. Hostel could never.
Varinope Veins – The Evil Dead
Ash (Bruce Campbell) goes to check on Linda (Betsy Baker) and suddenly a small mark on her leg turns black and spreads quickly throughout her entire limb. The weird, unnatural look of it all mixed with the awful sound it makes immediately turns my stomach. It’s one of those situations that is somehow freakier because it looks cheap. Before you have a moment to process this “shit that should not be” moment, Linda pops up, eyes completely white and possessed. Worse yet, she’s smiling like your mom when she’s so pissed off her only response is to laugh through her teeth because she knows you’re getting an ass whooping when you get home.
Possessed Linda then starts uncontrollably laughing. Not just a normal laugh but a nails on chalkboard Deadite cackle. A cackle that doesn’t even break stride when Ash starts to beat the hell out of her with all his might. She sits cross legged in the doorway smiling and looking like a bobble headed Miss Carmody from The Mist on mushrooms.
Yes, I know how frightening that sounds. So was this.
Pokémon No – Evil Dead 2013
The whole cabin is being possessed by Kandarian demons one by one. Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) goes to check on Olivia (Jessica Lucas), who’s just had her whole body and mouth covered in puke (that strangely resembles Tropical Blend V8 Splash). He discovers her in a dark bathroom with a flickering lightbulb, hovered in a corner. He approaches her, and you can clearly hear the familiar sound of chunks of skin being sawed off by a piece of broken glass.
Olivia turns around with a giant chunk of her face missing. Because of course. Eric then slips on a chunk of skin and brutally hits his kidney on the toilet on the way down. Olivia stabs him in the shoulder with the glass and proceeds to repeatedly stab him in the eyeball THROUGH HIS GLASSES with a long syringe. And I mean, she was into it. Like Sam Carpenter (Melissa Barrera) in Scream when she finally goes all “Billy Loomis is my dad!” She was going deep and with precision. It’s extremely gnarly. A Saw trap could never.
After inexplicably laying there and taking this punishment, Eric has an eye opening moment of clarity and shoves her off, eventually beating her to death with a sink. Then as a bonus package we get to watch him pull the severed needle from his tear duct, in its entirety. Sorry but I’m done living after that. Check please.
Ash Finally Cracks – Evil Dead 2
You might accuse me of choosing this scene over a few of my honorable mentions merely to include Evil Dead 2 in the party and you’d be sort of right. It feels wrong to not include it! Army of Darkness, fine. It’s a classic but it’s more humor, fantasy and action packed. But Evil Dead 2 has scary moments too, dammit!
This scene, while semi-comedic, is also disturbing in that it’s the pinnacle of Ash’s descent into madness. He’s just chopped off his own hand, been hit in the face with an explosion of blood turned to black goo and the poor bastard can’t even sit down in a chair without it breaking, sending him humiliatingly falling to the floor. He looks up and the mounted deer head on the wall begins feverishly laughing at him like a possessed version of that Talking Big Mouth Billy Bass from the McDonald’s commercials. The entire room turns into a scene from Beauty and the Beast as everything from the lamp to the books start maniacally laughing at him. What’s scary (other than that freaky-ass deer head) is that Ash finally breaks here.
When he begins cackle-laughing alongside the possessed household items and even dancing with them you know he’s totally lost it. This is pure madness. Which is kind of a scary feeling. What kind of anarchy-induced nightmare is next? FOR GOD’S SAKE HOW DO YOU STOP IT?!?!
Then, when his laughter turns into a desperate wail you start to wonder alone to yourself….”Is this what Hell is going to be like?”
Evil Dead Rise will be unleashed in theaters on April 21, 2023.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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