The first thing I ever wrote for Bloody Disgusting was on Jaws. I watched all four movies back-to-back-to-back-to-back and made a journal of sorts of my thoughts. With Evil Dead fever back thanks to the new Starz show Ash Vs. Evil Dead I thought it would be fun to do the same thing with The Evil Dead Anthology. Before starting this marathon I had already seen the original Sam Raimi trilogy more than I can remember. I often refer to it as my favorite trilogy. The Fede Alvarez version, however? I had not seen that…until this marathon. So this journey was a re-visit to Raimi’s work and an introduction to that of Alvarez.

Before diving into the movies I think it’s important to let you know how I watched them. As I’ve pointed out on multiple occasions I am a big supporter of physical media so of course I watched these on Blu-ray. I went with The Evil Dead Anthology from Via Vision Entertainment out of Australia. This was an easy choice because it has all four movies with multiple bonus discs, each with a whole lot of special features and extra content. Plus the packaging is really awesome. The discs actually come in the Book of the Dead. It’s pretty rad and as a bonus for those in the US every disc, minus Evil Dead II, is region free, which is pretty sweet.

The set, pictured above, is undoubtedly one of the coolest things I own. Via Vision Entertainment definitely put a lot of care and detail into this, making sure it’s something that die-hard fans of the series would truly appreciate. I know I certainly do. For starters it’s a 7-disc set, 4 Blu-rays for the movies and 3 DVDs for the extra bonus features. This may seem like a simple thing, but from a collector standpoint this is an important factor. Collectors hate sets that jam a bunch of movies onto one disc. Or at least I do. I want each film to receive the proper respect it deserves and get it’s own disc. Via Vision does that and then goes the extra mile by adding the 3 DVDs with special features that are in addition to the special features that each individual film as on their own disc. One of the DVDs is of Invaluable: The True Story of An Epic Artist. This is a documentary about Tom Sullivan, the man responsible for the design and some of the effects of the original Evil Dead. This is a pretty cool look at the guy who largely helped shape the design and aesthetic of one of the most iconic film franchises in all of horror.

Sullivan’s contributes to this release actually go one step further as he actually sculpted the replica of the Kandarian that comes with it and the Book of the Dead, which features 16 original drawings. When I first opened this set it was such a cool moment because there I was holding the Book of the Dead. So rad. Even if the Book of the Dead didn’t serve as the case for the movies, I’d still want it. It’s just such a cool thing to own. The Kandarian may be the real winner though. From the pictures I think it’s tough to judge the quality. I think it was going to be this cheap-y plastic thing, but it’s actually quite sturdy and has some weight to it. Not sure what it’s made out of exactly, but you could do some serious damage to someone with it. And it’s incredibly detailed.

Alright you Primitive Screwheads, listen up! It’s time we discuss the movies!

The Evil Dead – 1981

As I stated up above, I often refer to Raimi’s first three films as my favorite trilogy. What’s interesting about that is I actually got into the series pretty late. The first one in the series I saw was The Evil Dead but my first viewing was about 6 years or so ago. So really not that long ago. It took me no time whatsoever to fall in love with this series though.

This first entry is the only film in the franchise that eases into things somewhat. It doesn’t immediately open up with a showdown with demonic forces like the other three. On the surface that makes sense because this is the movie that starts the franchise so you need a little backstory, but this isn’t your traditional franchise. Technically this has been re-made twice, so I find it a little interesting that the two remakes don’t follow suit and give a little more exposition before the evil begins to take over. Maybe Raimi felt that was a weak point of this first film, I’m not sure, but it’s just an interesting observation.

In The Evil Dead Bruce Campbell’s Ash reminds me in a lot of ways of Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley from Alien, and really I think these two characters have similarities throughout their respective franchises. Five friends head out to the cabin and while Ash is sort of our focal point at the beginning, a case could be made that Scott or Linda or Shelly or Cheryl is actually going to be our hero. I think we’ve reached a point now where Ash and The Evil Dead are such large parts of horror culture that we forget Ash doesn’t immediately take charge from the outset. He’s really forced into that role by process of elimination. It’s only in the later films that Ash comes out kicking ass from the start. Now obviously this makes sense because you wouldn’t expect your average person to be prepared to battle flesh-possessing demons at moment’s notice. But my larger point is that in this first film it’s not super clear that Ash is going to be the one that steps up until he actually does.

One of the more memorable and controversial scenes involves Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss). Of course I’m talking about the tree rape. Yes, The Evil Dead contains a scene with a girl being raped by demonic trees. Look, rape scenes are never good. They’re never easy to watch  and generally you just don’t like to see them. Sometimes they are important to the story, however. The first time I watched this film it didn’t really bother me, but watching it again and it’s not really necessary to the story. If this were the only way for the demons to possess people in the film, sure, but we know that’s not the case. People get possessed all sorts of different ways. This is likely one of those things that a young filmmaker puts in to add a little extra shock value. If you take that part of the scene out the film loses nothing, so it probably could have done without it. That being said, I don’t think it’s the most horrible thing either and it’s not extremely graphic.

Thinking back and I always remember The Evil Dead as the film in Raimi’s original trilogy that lacks humor. My memory always told me this was the film that was almost business, only intended to scare. While it’s certainly not as funny as Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, it without a doubt has a dark comedic element to it that I often forget or overlook when thinking about it. The tone in a lot of ways is similar to Drag Me to Hell. I picked up on that more from this viewing and because of it really appreciated the film more as a whole.

Possibly the most interesting aspect of all when viewing The Evil Dead now is how it holds up compared to the rest of the work Raimi and Campbell have done over the years. It’s clear that both were still barely getting their feet wet and learning their way around. Because of that the film has a certain pureness that they’ll never get again. There’s a certain quality you can achieve when you’re doing something for the first time that you can’t recapture again. It’s like a kitten opening their eyes for the first time. It’s beautiful. The Evil Dead was Raimi and Campbell opening their eyes for the very first time.

Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn – 1987

I won’t even pretend to beat around the bush here. Evil Dead II is one of my favorite movies of all time. I consider it to be one of the greatest ever made. A couple years ago I ranked what I considered to be the best 31 horror movies of all time and Evil Dead II came in at #4 and that may have been too low. But seriously, what is there not to love about this movie? It’s perfect in just about every way.

When you look at the three Evil Dead movies done by Raimi you realize that it’s Evil Dead II that is the most balanced of the three. The first one, while it does actually have some comedic elements as I alluded to earlier, is definitely the most serious of the three. You get a little bit of the slapstick element from Campbell but that’s really just a preview. With Army of Darkness you can make the argument that it goes too far the other way. Sure, that installment has plenty of gore, but it’s not really scary and some people will tell you it has way too much comedy. Evil Dead II is nestled nicely in between with the perfect balance.

Evil Dead II is funny and it’s scary. It’s the best of both worlds. If you want laughs, you can put on Evil Dead II. If you want scares, you can put on Evil Dead II. It’s a wonderfully balanced film and we all know how important that is because nobody wants to fall over.

Horror-comedy hybrids came long before Evil Dead II, but I’m not sure there were any done like this. With films like Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein and to a lesser extent entries like King of the Zombies and Zombies on Broadway, slapstick mixed with horror had been done. There are two major differences with films like that, however. For starters, they’re definitely comedies first, no question about it. And two, they were a different type of horror, more of the old school, gothic horror. With Evil Dead II it’s definitely horror first, at least in my opinion, and the horror is gore based as opposed to atmosphere. That’s not to say there isn’t some serious atmospheric horror going on in Evil Dead II, I just wouldn’t say it’s the focus.

Am I saying Evil Dead II is the first time someone took the slapstick comedy of The Three Stooges and placed it squarely into the center of a full blown gore fest? No, someone else may have, but I’m pretty confident in saying that no one before Raimi and no one since have made a slapstick-gore movie more influential and lasting than Raimi’s Evil Dead II. And people have definitely tried since. More often than not the results have not been pretty. The team of Raimi and Campbell just have a certain something that others can’t replicate.

The influence shows up in all kinds of places. Raising Arizona and No Telling are two wildly different movies and both are quite different from Evil Dead II. Yet there are shots and moments in both those films that make me think of Evil Dead II and that’s pretty cool.

Campbell, man, what can I say about him? He’s good in The Evil Dead, but he really steps it up big time in the sequel. It’s such a physically demanding performance. I get exhausted just from watching it. It’s like Raimi showed up on set each morning and said, “What kind of hell can I put my good friend Bruce through today?” Apparently the answer to that was a lot of hell.

I would rank Campbell’s performance in Evil Dead II up there with the likes of Buster Keaton. That’s incredibly high praise. I don’t know that this type of physical comedy is appreciated these days like it should be. It’s very much a skill and not easy to pull off. Campbell clearly has a knack for it. He risked his physical well-being for the good of the movie and it absolutely paid off. I hope people truly appreciate how special that is.

Further regarding Campbell it’s always kind of bummed me out that he never became a true megastar after Evil Dead II. Obviously he’s had a great career. He’s very beloved and a pretty big deal but he never really reached that elite, top level status. I mean the producers on Darkman didn’t think he could handle the lead role. In my opinion he should have been able to get any role he wanted following Evil Dead II. I’m sure if you ask Campbell he wouldn’t have had it any other way, but as a fan I wish he would have gotten a little more respect immediately following Evil Dead II.

The last thing I want to touch base on regarding Evil Dead II is the special effects and makeup. Given the crew that worked on this film included Howard Berger, Robert Kurtzman and Greg Nicotero there should certainly come as no surprise, but every effect in this movie holds up so incredibly well. This is basically the standard when it comes to great practical effects that look good and offer up both scares and laughs. The film is pushing 30 and I would say nothing really looks dated. That’s quite the achievement.

Army of Darkness – 1992

This is my least favorite of Raimi’s three films in the original trilogy, but I still love it quite a bit. Unfortunately I feel like there’s a lot of sadness associated with it. It just seems to have been so troubled and dealt such a bad hand. I guess that should be a testament to the film since it’s still quite good, but I can’t help but wonder what could have been.

Army of Darkness was released by Universal. As far as I know it’s only time Bruce Campbell has ever been the lead in a big studio production. As I stated earlier it bums me out that Evil Dead II never launched Campbell into the household name he should be. He should have headlined multiple big studio pictures going forward and yet this was his one shot. The thing is it wasn’t even a real shot. Universal tinkered with the final cut and then let the film sit on the shelf for a year before finally releasing it. Pretty ridiculous if you ask me.

Production issues aside, Army of Darkness has a lot going for it. As a whole it feels much bigger than any other film in the Evil Dead franchise. Every other film takes place in not only the present but an isolated area. Army of Darkness is much more expansive. The most obvious bit is the time travel, but once Ash arrives in 1300 A.D. he doesn’t just stay in one place. He explores a whole new world which is vastly different from just hanging out in a cabin. And the chosen time of 1300 A.D. is perfect because it allows for wonderful set design and props which Army of Darkness takes full advantage of.

Much like it’s predecessors, Army of Darkness takes full advantage of the wonderful practical effects courtesy of KNB EFX. Out of the three films from Raimi’s trilogy this may be the most impressive from a makeup and effects standpoint. The whole franchise is one big splatter fest, but I feel like Army of Darkness rises just above the rest. I’m sure this largely has to do with the costumes and set pieces but that’s just another benefit of the the film being set in this time period. I think the greatest success from the makeup team comes in the form of Evil Ash. I just love his entire look. The skin basically being ripped from the lower half of the face and down that signature chin is glorious. It just looks awesome! Easily my favorite character design throughout the four movies.

What I dislike about Army of Darkness is that I think it’s a little off balance. It takes the slapstick humor of The Three Stooges and goes a little too far with it. Evil Dead II managed to introduce the slapstick comedy to this horror world and mixed the two perfectly. Neither element overshadowed the other. They mixed to form something perfect. With Army of Darkness I think Raimi and Campbell went just a smidgen too far with the comedy. Individually I think mostly everything works, but when you tossed it all out there it gets a little silly at times and I think it takes away from the horror aspect. I still think it’s a truly fantastic movie, but because of this it just falls a little under the other entries. One movie has to be the worst of the bunch and in this case it just so happens to be Army of Darkness.

Evil Dead – 2013

By the time Fede Alvarez released his take on Evil Dead I was well beyond the point of hating remakes just because they are remakes. Let’s be honest, that’s stupid. A good movie is a good movie regardless of whether or not it’s an all new original, a remake, a re-imagining, a re-boot or whatever the hell else you want to call it. All I want is a good movie. Thankfully Alvarez delivered on just that. And if you still think you have to dislike it because you’re anti-remake, guess what? It’s not even a remake!

As I said earlier I hadn’t seen this film until I watched it as part of this set. Now it wasn’t because I didn’t want to. I just didn’t get around to seeing it in theaters and then just never got around to seeing it at all. Oh how I wish I would have watched this one on the big screen!

Much like the first two films in the series, Evil Dead is about a group of 5 friends that head to a remote cabin in the woods. The purpose of this trip is to help one of the friends, Mia (Jane Levy), get her life back on track. Mia has quite the drug problem and has overdosed on more than one occasion. Her friends fear that another OD will kill her so in one last attempt to save her they plan this trip to a cabin where she spent many days in her younger years. Rounding out the group of 5 is Mia’s brother David (Shiloh Fernandez) and his girlfriend Natalie (Elizabeth Blackmore), Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Olivia (Jessica Lucas). They all sincerely want the best for Mia and are prepared to do whatever it takes to help her.

At this point I don’t think I need to beat around the bush. You know what eventually happens right? They come across the Book of the Dead, read from it and then before you know a demonic being is after them all. We already know that so let’s not waste time. Thankfully Alvarez knew this as well and he didn’t mess around. They quickly get that book open and let the fun begin and oh how does it begin!

The rather unpleasant incident involving trees from the first film returns here and much to my surprise it happens to Mia. Before getting around to seeing this I had heard plenty about Mia. So I knew she was going to be our main character and alive and well, relatively speaking, at the end of the movie. Seeing her become the first possessed was incredibly shocking. What a smart movie to make your first victim the hero. Well done.

What I love about Evil Dead is that it doesn’t hold back. When you take on a beloved franchise like this one you have to do something really special for it for people not to completely shit all over it (and even sometimes that isn’t enough). Alvarez, along with the guidance of Raimi and Co, was very much aware of this fact and kicked it into high gear and never looked back. Focusing on a more serious tone jam packed with all the gore you could ever ask for was such a wise decision. The humor in the Raimi films is really specific to Raimi and Campbell and quite honestly you need those two to try and pull something off like that in this day and age. The gore though? Other people can pull that off and Alvarez sure did.

There are so maybe scenes that are cringe worthy for all the right reasons. The cutting of the tongue, the ripping off of the face, two arms/hands being cut/ripped off, I can just go on and on. And best part is that it all looks so freaking awesome! But that’s not it, oh no! Evil Dead isn’t just a gory good time, it’s legit scary! There were multiple times I was seriously scared while watching the film, most notably the last scene in the basement. This is the scene when Mia is basically gliding around. That’s very disturbing and I’m pretty sure it made me jump.

If that’s all not enough for you let me remind you that this movie literally rains blood. Yeah, it’s pretty cool.

As far as the whole remake nonsense goes, ridiculous. This is not a remake, not even close. Yes the same demonic forces are at play courtesy the Book of the Dead and everything takes place at the same cabin, but that’s it. The characters are different. What happens to them is different. It all just takes place in the same world. And that makes it all the more rad.

Final Word

I’m not going to rank the movies because that seems unnecessary. I love them all and I love anything Evil Dead related. I will say that Evil Dead II is my favorite, but that’s also because it’s one of my favorite movies all time, period and that’s as far as I’ll go. Each film has it’s own reasons and moments that make it special. Every entry can stand alone as an individual film and they tie together to form a wonderful anthology. The fact that we’re now getting more Evil Dead and will get at least a second season’s worth is a beautiful thing. The world with more Evil Dead is a better place.