In the 1980’s our beloved heavy metal music and horror movies were under attack by a wide variety of groups hoping to censor the public, especially children, from what they deemed “dangerous” content. There’s a plethora of interviews and videos that focus on the PMRC’s war on music, but what we don’t get to see a lot of are attacks on our genre.
A shocking video was unearthed via reddit that takes us back to the late 80’s when Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead sequel was hitting theaters. The two-part video was recorded off of a British television show in which Raimi appeared in order to defend not only his movies but the genre in which we all those so much.
It’s crazy to see how close-minded people used to be, as this one politician continues to make claims that horror movies influence violence, yet refuses to provide examples of the “studies” used in his argument. Raimi, interestingly enough, agrees that entertainment can be influential, but would rather live in a free society where he has the ability to watch whatever he wants than have censorship determine what he can or can’t show his children. The naysayer then claims the show is censoring him by removing his mic, using that as an example of how it’s okay.
Someone in the audience goes off on a beautiful tangent, explaining that everything on the news is way worse than the fantastical elements of a horror movie.
This all came to a head because of the scene in Evil Dead where Cheryl is allegedly raped by a tree. Raimi expresses regret in the sequence, although he denies that Cheryl is raped, explaining that she was attacked and had her clothes torn off and that it’s up to the viewer’s imagination to decide. Even so, he says he was young when he wrote it and that it made him uncomfortable, and that he wishes it weren’t in the film.
He continues to explain that horror movies/he’s not trying to glamorize violence, and this is proven in the fact that it’s supposed to scare viewers, not arouse them.