“Guts, Guts, Guts Galore!” (Evil Dead Trilogy Review)

While the original Evil Dead Trilogy may seem like unnecessary gratuitous violence, it’s actually quite effective for making an audience quiver with fear. At times you want to look away but can’t help but watch as Ash (played by Bruce Campbell) fights these evil possessed entities. Now, that’s all because of Sam Raimi’s (the director) master storytelling techniques and amazing shots to help the story effortlessly move along. The first movie is by far the goriest of the franchise… So, I’ll try to explain it as nicely as possible. Ash and four of his college friends drive over to a cabin in the woods for vacation. None of them know what to expect and when they get there, it’s pretty much completely fallen apart and the rocking chair outside is hitting the side of it. A few hours go by and everyones having a good time, partying. All of a sudden things get freaky…… the cellar door swings open on its own, Ash and one of his friends, Scotty go down to check out what’s down there. They find a book written in hieroglyphics, titled “Book of The Dead” and an old tape recorder with one cassette tape still inside. They go upstairs and play the tape with their other friends… but that was a really bad idea because the tape they played recited an ancient chant that woke up The Evil Dead. Soon, all of Ash's friends become controlled/possessed by these demons. Little does Ash know, the only way to stop them is by body dismemberment and the entire movie becomes a pure gore-fest. Ash eventually defeats them and walks outside, unbeknownst to the remaining evil demon lurking behind him. The demon catches up to him and the movie ends with a close-up of him screaming……… and that’s right where ‘Evil Dead II’ starts… and believe it or not, this ones a full-blown comedy. Anyway, Ash didn’t die like I originally thought… instead the evil demon pushes him back, making him levitate about thirty-feet-away from the cabin. He lands on a tree and gets knocked unconscious for about two minutes. He wakes up and tries to drive the hell away from the cursed cabin but realizes the bridge he drove in on, is now smashed and dismantled to the point of no return… Ash then lets out an agonizing scream because he’s now stuck here forever. The movie cuts to a woman who has pages from the Book of The Dead and we (the audience) discover that she’s the daughter of the man who recorded the cassette tape in order to study and experience these evil demons. She meets up with three other people who help her get to the cabin another way since the bridge is knocked down. When they all arrive there, they see Ash holding a bloody chainsaw and screaming. This woman's first instinct is that Ash probably killed her parents with the chainsaw since she expected her parents to be there. Ash tries to explain himself but they don’t listen. 

One of the people with the woman punches him repeatedly knocking him out cold and locks him in the cellar. Ash eventually wakes up to see that the woman's mothers decayed corpse rises up and attacks him. Ash begs and begs for them to let him out. They’re extremely hesitant at first but let him up. Once they hear someone else down there, they open up the cellar door and help him out. Ash informs them on what’s happened in the past two days and the woman explains that she can stop The Evil Dead by reciting what’s written on the pages she has. Ash thinks his problems are finally ending when suddenly, one of the people gets taken by a demon into the woods. They try to help them but unfortunately fail miserably. They die and right after that happens, Ash gets possessed by the evil demon and attempts to kill the woman and remaining person. The woman grabs a chainsaw and tries to defend herself but Ash has suddenly snapped out of it and is no longer possessed. They’re both not sure how long he won’t be possessed so, they decide to quit stalling and recite what’s on the pages. She starts reciting but it’s hard to concentrate on that when Ash’s fighting off demons in the background. As she’s about to finish reciting the passage, she gets stabbed in the head by a severed-off demon hand and dies before finishing. Ash then gets pulled into an evil dead portal and winds up in the year 1300 A.D. He seems slightly confused because there’s hundreds of medieval knights and horses surrounding him. An ancient dragon flies over to Ash and tries to eat him until he shoots its head with a shotgun. All the medieval knights and townspeople then chant his name and worship him and then the movie ends…… and “Army Of Darkness,” (which is technically Evil Dead III) starts a few minutes after the second movie ends. Ash is now getting dragged towards the pit of death because crazy conspiracies say his powers are in-human and deserves to die. He gets shoved into the pit, landing in shallow, shallow water. He’s still alive, but his leg is mildly hurt. Some creepy-looking, paranormal creature emerges from the darkness and fights Ash. Ash no longer has his shotgun or chainsaw, so there’s no way to self-defend. Ash is being strangled very tightly and is near-death. He probably would’ve died… but an elderly wizard tosses him the chainsaw and he luckily grabs it and chops the paranormal creature in half. He grabs a chain which pulls him up and out of the pit. He discusses with the wizard how he can get back to the present time safely. The wizard-guy tells him he must go to the local graveyard and recite three specific words and grab the book of the dead to defeat the Evil Dead Army and get back to his time. About thirty-five minutes go by and he has forgotten the words and recited them incorrectly, which released the Evil Dead Army from their graves and caused this medieval town's gruesome doom. 

When Ash tells the townspeople this, they lose all hope and he’s no longer worshiped. Another ancient dragon flies over the village causing major chaos across the entire village. After Ash witnesses this, he realizes he could help the townspeople fight and (hopefully) defeat the Evil Dead Army. The movie then fades to an awesome training montage between both armies. They all start fighting and at first, it seems like the townspeople are losing… but eventually Ash meets the Evil Dead Army’s leader/captain and slices him up and explodes him, leaving loads and loads with gun-powder. The Evil Dead Army is now defeated and Ash awakes in his own time… and the camera reveals him telling his story to a customer at the store he works at. The customer has a look of boredom and disbelief on his face…… And then all the Evil Dead movies are over and everything is resolved… and I think that was a fantastic way to end it.

I really, really, really like these movies. Not just because I’m a fan of horror and horror/comedy movies… but also because the effects are superb, especially since everything was done on a very low-budget. With the first movie, it was obviously shock-value and jumpscares that disguised the fact that it was so budgeted. There’s a scene in the first movie, with someone getting shot in the face and rather than cutting to something else then back to the shot-person revealing a big wound, the camera stayed on them and we (the audience) saw the entirety of that happen. The second and third films are really good too because they had a higher budget to work with, creating better, more realistic special effects. The music in the second and third movie was dramatically better than the music in the first movie… but that was probably because the legendary, ‘Danny Elfman’ composed the original score, which made the movies much, much scarier. I do have one minor complaint about all three movies…… I expected the setting of where these movies take place to get bigger and broader because it felt kinda crowded and desolate while I was watching them. To be honest, if I saw that same tiny cabin again, I’d enjoy these movies a lot less. 

Honestly, I couldn’t tell who the main character was until well past an hour into the first movie once I realized Ash was the only person surviving. I wasn’t such a fan of the characters at first, but I eventually got used to them and Ash is probably my favorite character since he’s most likely the strongest and survives throughout the whole trilogy. Ash’s character development is drastic because he goes from being a normal guy, trying to figure out what’s happening to a complete demon-killing badass.

If you or someone you know is a fan of horror-comedies, I highly recommend The Evil Dead Trilogy because they’re absolutely essential to any fan of horror movies and comedy movies. Overall, I enjoyed these movies more than most normal-budgeted horror movies that come out nowadays!

The Evil Dead = 9.5/10

  Evil Dead II = 9.5/10

Army Of Darkness = 7.5/10