Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Sixteen days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween.
Sixteen days to Halloween - Silver Shamrocks!

Welcome Boys and Ghouls to Month of the Living Dead, my thirteen (and then some) day tribute to the best holiday of them all: Halloween! Join me, wont you, as I watch the sinister and the silly, the morbid and the macabre, the violent and gruesome in a two week bloodletting that comes to a boil on the eve of all saints.

*cue thunder and lightning effect*

So sit back, turn the lights down low and get ready for today's presentation of. . . .

THE EVIL DEAD! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

*cue commercial break*

The year is 1983 and slasher flicks are all the rage. The bodies pile up at the drive in theaters like cordwood and Kayo Syrup company stock shoots up 150%. Teenagers are squealing and screaming and jumping in the isles like never before. Add to that mix a little independent film you may have heard of: The Evil Dead.

A group of the Worlds Oldest Teenagers (including the Most Famous Chin Known To Man: Bruce Campbell) venture into the remote woods of Tennessee for a relaxing weekend in an old cabin. However their plans are soon set to go askew - for Pure Evil awaits them

The Worlds Oldest Teenagers settle into their weekend digs and start snooping around. In the cellar, Scott and Ash find an old book bound human in flesh and inked in human blood: the Book Of The Dead. Inside this book are passages and incantations for evil, death…and demon resurrection. And of course the first thing to do is start listening to passages from the book recorded on a reel-to-reel deck by an elderly professor. As the tape plays, something Evil and Deadly awakes in the woods, demons that HUNGER FOR HUMAN FLESH! And so, one by one, the World Oldest Teenagers are taken until only Ash is left to fight off the force that is the evil dead!

Groovy.

Somehow, with my lust for all things slasher related as I was growing up in the eighties, I managed to miss the Evil Dead and it's sequels entirely until I saw Army of Darkness back in the mid ninties - of course by which time, the tone of the movies had shifted so much that it was a comedy with horror overtones instead of vice versa. It wasn’t until just a couple of years ago that I got around to watching the first Evil Dead. Of course coming in so late in the game, it's almost impossible for me to say anything fresh or new - it's like reviewing Star Wars or the Godfather - anything remotely insightful has already been said a hundred times over.

Probably the best thing about the Evil Dead is its approach to the genre - much like Robocop often was, it's SO far over the top, the movie goes from gore to comic book. I guess in the Evil Dead universe the human body contains 70 gallons of blood under extremely high pressure. Every wound, every cut, every hack, slash and stab - blood explodes forth like a fountain of red. Sure your Friday the 13th and Halloween knockoffs were bloody, but this is a really, really moist film.

Also- the effects look pretty realistic, not bad considering the exceptionally low budget the film was made under. While I'm no expert on demonic possession or The Walking Dead, the gore looks quite realistic, and the makeup work for the possessed people is really well done. Oh, sure there are shots where the monster is obviously dummies and the stop-motion work at the end is really diabolical, but its better than I could do, so I'm willing to cut them some slack.

The acting is exceedingly amateurish, but was solid enough to serve as a launching point for several careers. Sam, of course went to direct two other Evil Dead films and a couple of movie you may have heard of called Spiderman. Bruce managed to parlay his fame into a couple of leading rolls - the vastly underrated Adventures of Brisco County Jr, for starters - but never really broke out of the B-movie actor roll. He has, however, firmly captured the hearts and devotion of geeks and fanboys everywhere.

It's not a perfect film, mind you. Like I said, the effects are shoddy in places, and really - I think I could have done without the tree rape scene, probably the most disturbing thing in the whole movie. Those points aside, this is a really great horror movie with real heart and love for the genre and gets a total (severed) thumbs up.

TOTAL BODY COUNT: 4
MOST MEMORABLE KILL: Bruce decapitating a flying zombie and getting a face full of blood for his troubles.
GALLONS OF BLOOD USED: Hundreds
SPRING LOADED CATS: 0
THE MORON OF THE MOVIE AWARD GOES TO: Nobody was exceptionally stupid, but Scott was a dick, so I'll give it to him.
BREASTS ON DISPLAY: 1
BEST LINE: "You bastards, why are you torturing me like this? Why?" (delivered as only Bruce could)

THE DVD:
Being a ancient, low budget film shot on what looks to be 16mm stock, you can imagine that the print looks pretty rough. There's a lot of grain and just a hint of print damage here and there - but looks good otherwise. It's a nice, anamorphic widescreen print - so all things considered, we'll give it a pass.

The best part about the DVD is the disc holder. Normally I'm not a huge fan of gimmick packaging. The huge Cylon head for my Battlestar Galactica set doesn't sit on my shelf well, the Disney tins take up way too much of my precious space, and so on. That said this is one of the coolest packages I've ever seen. The disc arrives inside a latex-bound book that is a replication of the Book of the Dead from the film, with some liner notes and original reproductions of drawings from the original book.. Ok, the Latex smells - and the smell hasn’t faded all that much in the years since I bought it, but it looks damn cool.

THE EXTRAS:
We get a couple of commentaries from the first from Sam and producer Robert Tapert, and the other by Bruce. Both commentaries are really funny and informative. Sam is more down with the technical side, while Bruce is well - just Bruce.

Next is the half hour documentary from Bruce called Fanalysis, and it's probably the best thing on the disc. Shot over the course of several visits to comic cons and to the Alamo Drafthouse (damn you for being in Texas, Alamo Drafthouse! Be closer to Seattle, damnit!), it's a look at us (being the genre fanboys) from the other side of the coin (being the ones that get the idol worship). We get trekkies, cosplay, really old Xena fans who had plastic surgery on her face to look like her hero, and nerds, geeks and other cult hero stars (B-Movie god Tim Thomerson and Sam's brother Ted get some face time). It's a bit fluffy, but Bruce is always fascinating to watch.

We then get a 13 minute documentary the Evil Dead phenomenon - too brief to be of any serious depth, but a fun watch to at least see the roots of the film. There's a bunch of behind the scenes footage, some TV spots, a theatrical trailer, a poster and really big still gallery and a couple of talent bios.

THE BOTTOM LINE
Honestly, I've just wasted my time here. If you're at all aware of the slasher genre, then odds are you know of this film and how much ass it kicks. If you don't like exploding heads, geysers of blood and decapitations, I suspect this movie isn't for you. However if you are into that stuff - then look no further. The Evil Dead will fit you to a Tee.

Wont you please join me next time for another journey into the macabre. Until then. . . pleasant SCREAMS! Bwah-hah-hah-hah-hah!

*cue thunder and lightning effect*

My Month of the Living Dead reviews:
* THE EVIL DEAD
* NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD
* PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE
* THE FOG
* REVELATION OF THE DALEKS
* DAWN OF THE DEAD
* THE LAST MAN ON EARTH/HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL
* DAY OF THE DEAD
* RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD
* THE OMEGA MAN
* NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD 3D
* THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED UP ZOMBIES
* LAND OF THE DEAD
* MASTERS OF HORROR - HOMECOMING
* 28 DAYS LATER
* WHITE ZOMBIE
* HALLOWEEN




Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age