The Evil Dead on Blu-ray

In the 1980s the horror genre, which had experienced a renaissance in the 70s with the mainstream success enjoyed by The Exorcist and Halloween amongst others, was made practically illegal. With enforced film classification brought in by the Video Recordings Act of 1984 parliament had made the decision to bring censorship into the home, on the justification that ‘children could be watching’.  The term ‘video nasty’ was coined around the same time, originally applying to a number of low budget horror films that were criticized for their violent content by various religious organizations, the mainstream press and indignant commentators on social morality such as Mary Whitehouse.

By the mid-80s the Director of Public Prosecutions had compiled a list of films liable to “deprave or corrupt” which were all subsequently prosecuted, withdrawn from our shops and banned. Some of these films were obvious trash; Zombie Flesh Eaters contains little to recommend it besides a genuine how-did-they-do-that moment when a zombie fights a shark. Some are simply disturbing beyond comprehension, such as Cannibal Holocaust, due primarily to its horrific scenes of animal cruelty (fans of monkeys, pigs, snakes and turtles avoid). However, some seriously good filmmakers were also unfortunately tarred with this long and indiscriminate brush.  Masters of the genre like Dario Argento, Wes Craven and Mario Bava had to suffer the ignominy of seeing their work maligned, having been grouped alongside basically meritless films such as S.S. Experiment Camp. However, by far the finest and most innovative film to be included on that now-infamous list was Sam Raimi’s The Evil Dead.

The blind idiocy of The Evil Dead being summarily dismissed along with its contemporaries as “liable to deprave or corrupt” should be apparent to anyone who has seen more than a few minutes of it. While it is undeniably a ferocious - and genuinely scary - horror film, making up for its basic plot and low budget with an enjoyably inventive use of camera and wide-angled lenses, it is also fantastically funny and original; it is well documented how Raimi was just as influenced by the comedy of The Three Stooges as by other horror filmmakers. The Evil Dead, and its two excellent sequels, are a riot throughout. The fact that in 2006 it was successfully translated into a Broadway musical is a testament to its irrepressible energy. This month The Evil Dead finally comes out on Blu Ray DVD, and with Halloween conveniently just around the corner film lovers should jump on this opportunity to view it in all its uncut glory.

For the uninitiated: five twenty-somethings take a road trip to a remote cabin, where they discover the Book of the Dead and unwittingly summon up dormant demons living in the nearby forest. One by one they are each possessed until only Ash (the legendary Bruce Campbell) is left to fight off the evil hordes. Featuring some truly stunning special effects (two words: pencil and ankle), as well as the aforementioned camerawork (Raimi and his cohorts fashioned their own rudimentary Steadicam by mounting their cheap camera to a plank of wood and running alongside it; one truly virtuoso sequence was achieved by mounting it to the front of a motorcycle), The Evil Dead proves that with just the right dose of imagination, inspiration, and genuine passion for filmmaking then miracles can happen. On Blu Ray it looks and sounds better than ever (“For God's sake, what happened to her eyes?”) and whether you are an aspiring young filmmaker, a hardcore horror fan, or just in need of some rip-roaring entertainment on a Friday night, it truly has something for everyone. This is cult cinema at its finest, and we should all be grateful that in spite of the actions of Mary Whitehouse et al. it is still here almost thirty years later to be discovered and cherished by a whole new generation.  

 Director: Sam Raimi

Release Date 11 October, 2010

Format Blu-ray

Certificate 18

Running Time 85 mins (approx)

Matthew Kleebauer