Day 18: The Evil Dead (1981)

Day 18 of Calloween Movie Month

Content warnings: graphic blood and gore, sexual assault, body horror, cannibalism(?)

Recommended?: Yes

Spoilers and discussion of many of the mentioned topics below. You have been warned.

Ash Williams is the best final girl.



The Evil Dead follows a group of college students who rent an old cabin for the weekend. They stumble upon an old recorder and a creepy looking book and unwittingly summon demons.

The Evil Dead has a simple plot and is straightforwardly creepy and dreary, unlike it's later horror-comedy sequels the franchise has become known for. While I'm sure they're all great movies in their own right, this one really hit on something I didn't expect it to.

I talked about movies that feel 'evil' in my review of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre just a few days ago, and I think that this film, while not as oppressive and dark as some of the other movies I think of when I say that, fits right in.

It gets a lot of mileage out of what a possessed loved one would do to a person. People say this movie has no plot or character development, but I disagree. Ash has to witness his friends, his sister, and his girlfriend all succumb to demonic possession and then he has to kill them almost entirely by himself. He starts out as clean-cut and a bit nerdy, and ends up an injured, sweaty, bloody, disheveled mess that seems to be constantly teetering between sobbing his throat raw and laughing until he can't breathe. He can't even properly assure his own safety by chopping up his already dead girlfriend, stopping himself after he sees the necklace he gave her as a gift mere hours ago in a truly emotionally brutal scene.

Not only do the demons take his loved ones away from him, but they revel in psychologically and physically torturing him. Ash, in no uncertain terms, goes through hell. He is not the same person going into that cabin as he is when he limps out of it.

The loneliness they put him through feels palpable, highlighted by the silence only being interrupted by ticking clocks and strong winds and his own unstable breath.

The Evil Dead is a character study one what loss, grief, and being forced into committing and enduring brutal acts of violence does to Ash. And I love it to all it's goopy red bits and pieces.