Editorials
[‘Evil Dead’ Month] Meet The Deadites!
One of The Evil Dead series’ greatest assets is its host of Deadites, possessed humans who want nothing more than to possess more humans through vague, ever changing means. Some are humanoid, some are monstrous, some are trees, and some are goats. But all of them are awesome. And while they don’t make much sense and lack consistency even within individual films, we love them all the same. Especially the goat. Here is our rundown of Deadites from the entire Evil Dead series, excluding all videogames, comic books, and fan fiction. But including Drag Me to Hell because c’mon.
Head inside to Meet The Deadites!!!
Cheryl:
Cheryl turns into a Deadite after being raped by a tree. Once she becomes a deadite she stabs Linda in the ankle and it looks extremely painful. After this, Scotty locks Cheryl into the basement. Later she escapes and beats Ash with a fireplace poker until he throws the Book of the Dead into a fireplace, after which her body rapidly decomposes.
Shelly:
Shelly gets possessed when a demonic force breaks through her window and abducts her. After scratching Scotty’s face and basically riding him into the living room, Shelly falls face first into a fireplace. Aghast, Scotty pulls her from the fire only to be attacked again. Eventually Scotty begins cutting Shelly’s hand off with a knife, a job she finishes with her teeth. Even down to one hand, Shelly keeps causing problems until Scotty cuts her into a billion pieces with an axe while Ash just watches like a gigantic coward.
Linda:
Ash loses Linda through the pencil wound in her ankle. More than anything, the Linda Deadite is memorable for laughing in a door frame and generally scaring the shit out of me. Ash stabs her to death and buries her, but she rises from the grave and only ceases to be a problem once he beheads her with a shovel.
Scotty:
Scotty suffers many tortures, so it’s unclear which wound shoves him full of Evil Dead action. Once he is possessed, however, Ash thumbs his eyeballs out and dispatches him along with Cheryl by throwing the Book of the Dead into the fireplace.
Linda II:
Linda II turns into a Deadite when a demonic force breaks through her window and abducts her. After comically punishing Ash for a while, he cuts her head off with a shovel and buries her body. Somehow her head comes back, however, and bites Ash on the hand before he cuts it up (along with her equally animated headless body) with a chainsaw.
Ash’s Hand:
Possessed thanks to Linda’s bite, Ash’s hand attacks Ash with comical violence and rude gestures until Ash cuts it off with a chainsaw. It should be noted, however, that Ash’s Deadite hand never actually dies.
Ash:
Deadite Ash looks like Bruce Campbell but with clouded eyes and an even bigger chin. Ash is able to repel him on two occasions: Once thanks to the power of sunlight, and once thanks to the power of love.
Deer Head:
It’s a mounted deer head. It can’t do much but laugh at Ash. Because it’s a mounted deer head.
Henrietta:
Henrietta is one badass Deadite. Throughout Evil Dead 2, she changes forms many times, going from nice old lady to turtle-headed demon, to full on Ted Raimi depending on the situation at hand. Ash kills her by cutting off her arm and head, then blowing off her face with a shotgun blast.
Ed:
Ed gets possessed after Henrietta smashes his head into a lightbulb. His head can spin all the way around and he likes to eat hair. The Ed Deadite meets his end when Ash cuts him into a million pieces with an axe. After that, he went on to host his own QVC show.
Tree Deadite:
We knew the trees were possessed as well, but this is the only one bad enough to get its own face. Ash cuts its eye up with a chainsaw before it is sent to another dimension.
Flying Deadite:
Ash makes its head explode with a shotgun blast.
The Army of Darkness:
I’m not sure if these skeletons even count as Deadites since they don’t really have Deadite features. It’s here just in case.
Cellar Witch:
The Cellar Witch appears to be trapped in a cellar with tons of spikes into which Arthur throws his enemies as a form of corporal punishment. She beats Ash up a great deal, but he ultimately kills her with his chainsaw.
Cellar Monster:
This Deadite also lives in the Cellar, emerging out of a wall as Ash is about to escape. Ash cuts its hand off and leaves it to be crushed by enclosing spiky walls. Somehow, the Cellar Monster Deadite manages to escape the Cellar, but Ash shoots him back down with his newly obtained shotgun.
Cauldron Witch:
The Cauldron Witch shows up just long enough to tell everyone that they’re doomed and kill a couple people. Ash shoots her with his shotgun.
Little Ashes:
These guys comically torment Ash. He kills a couple of them in return, but eventually they tie him down so one can dive down his throat.
Evil Ash:
Evil Ash splits off from regular Ash after regular Ash swallows an evil mini-Ash. At first, the two Ashes are identical. But then Good Ash shoots Bad Ash in the face with a shotgun and buries him. Later, when Bad Ash screws up his safe words while retrieving The Book of the Dead, Evil Ash comes back and leads the Army of Darkness against all medieval humanity. Eventually, Ash blows him up with a sack of gunpowder.
Deadite Book of the Dead #1:
This one flies. And bites.
Deadite Book of the Dead #2:
This one is a black hole.
Flying Deadite II:
This ugly guy carries Sheila off to her wedding with Evil Ash. Regular Ash tries to catch it, but he’s way too big an idiot.
Evil Sheila:
Abducted by the flying Deadite, Sheila gets possessed after kissing Evil Ash, making her real ugly. Ash de-possess her by throwing her off a castle.
S-Mart Deadite:
Even though Ash saved the day and everything should be peachy, this Deadite appears at his S-Mart store. Ash shoots her to death.
The Goat:
Best Deadite ever.
Seance guy:
Throws up a kitten. Cool, but not as cool as the goat.
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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