Finally someone suggested for me to review a film they love! I am stoked that someone cared enough to take the time to do so. Here is one from the re re re re watch pile…
The Evil Dead (1981)

Film: What can be said about The Evil Dead that hasn’t been said before? Nothing! So why bother reviewing it at all? By the very fact that you are reading this review means you must have already seen it, or intend on seeing it! Why haven’t you seen it though? Are you crazy? It’s horror movie royalty; not like the king or queen, but certainly the insane half-uncle who has been locked in the Tower of London for thirty years and fed nothing but the dead corpses of prostitutes!

I’m not even going to give you a synopsis of this film, I mean, you’ve all seen it! You all know it’s about a bunch of kids who go to an abandoned cabin in the woods, read from an evil old book which bring forth demons who possess the dead and the living and very soon they are all picked off in bloody and gory fashions! I’m not gonna tell you that, you KNOW it already! everyone does!

My relationship with this film starts when I was a young teen, and in high school I had friends that were older than me… I was one of the stage/ acting/ theatre kids so my group was a bunch of people ranging from 13 or so to 16 or 17, we were a real mix of ages, with me being on the younger side, and I was getting invited to older kids parties and getting to make out with older girls. I got to see this pic at a friend’s house who wasn’t one of the theatre kids, but a friend of one of them, and we, about ten of us, had a sleepover at his place and ate pizza and watched horror films. 

One of those films was The Evil Dead and it did two things: scared the crap out of me, and made me a lifetime fan of the film, and not just this film: I love Evil Dead II and the remake! I can’t comment on the TV series yet as I’ve not had an opportunity to watch it…

… but let’s just say as far as Army of Darkness is concerned… we’ll, I’m not a fan.

So this is the review. If you have seen it, I hope this review spurs you on to watch it agin, and if you haven’t, well everything you have done so far in your life is a waste, as you haven’t yet seen The Evil Dead.

Score: *****

Format: This Australian release bluray of The Evil Dead runs for about 85 minutes, and has a pretty good 1.85:1 picture with an really good DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio track.

Score: ****

Extras: Heaps of awesome extras on this disc!

Commentary by Rob Tapert, Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell which is a really complete commentary and highly informative.

Picture-in-picture: Join Us! the Undying Legacy of The Evil Dead is really cool. Other horror directors and producers like Society’s Brian Yuzna, Re-Animator’s Stuart Gordon, 30 Days of Night David Slade, The Blair Witch Project’s Dan Myrick… so many more, discuss why The Evil Dead is so damned important, but it’s done as a picture-in-picture deal with a mini pop up screen as they all talk.

One By One We Will Take You: The Untold Saga of the Evil Dead looks at the genesis of the film, and where it went. Heaps of interviews with the stars and various crew members make for a cool 50 odd minute making of/ retrospective.

Treasures From the Cutting Room Floor is a B-roll of unused footage and goes for yet another hour.

At The Drive In is an Anchor Bay Q&A and DVD giveaway from a promo event for the film from a few years ago.

Discovering Evil Dead looks at the horrible events that Palace Pictures had to go through to get The Evil Dead released on VHS in the U.K. during the Video Nasty era.

Make-up Test is… a make-up test from the film, and a few effects shots tested as well.

Score: *****

WISIA: It’s The Evil Dead, everyone should watch it a couple of times a year.