The Evil Dead

On the one hand, it is perhaps too frantic and prolonged by several unnecessarily long scenes of destroying "friends", yet on the other hand, it is definitely imaginative, playful, solidly suspenseful atmospheric fun. I saw Evil Dead for the first time today, so I really can't go on and on about nostalgia, VHS tapes and whatnot. But even so, the film has a kind of special charm that is hard to describe. I'm curious about the sequel. (27/07/2012)

Since the remake is knocking on the door, I decided to watch the original 1981 film without being some kind of horror movie fan. And I have to say that this 30+ year old film does not do the genre any shame. Many of the scenes are nicely paced, the atmosphere is thick, and the visual effects are quite well done for the time (the rape in the woods was really scary). Otherwise, the make-up artists also did a great job and created more than one hideous face. (16/03/2013)

When I saw this legend of B-movie horror films in 1990 for the first time, to this day a functional genre cult, I was perplexed. Now that I have repeated this experience, my doubts are still there. I consider Evil Dead to be an amateur film that fails fatefully in all the aspects that are important to me. Terrible acting performances, a nonexistent script, cheapness, the idiocy of the film characters - should I continue? Even that one star I'm giving it is not for any merits because the film is bad and is taken seriously to the extent that it is somewhat amusing in its twisted way. Nevertheless, Sam Raimi showed here (at least in his camera work) that he has filmmaking in his blood, and when he adds enough perspective (which he already demonstrated in the sequel of the same title) and gains some experience, he can shoot in a grand style. Overall impression: 10%. (08/07/2013)

The cult value, of course, prevails. If it hadn't become such a theme, there would be no reason to revisit this slasher, but history would have it otherwise. Today, however, the first film is like a bit of Deja vu, a strange sense of Ash having two hands, of not making fun of the Necronomicon yet, because this is the actual first encounter with evil. And, of course, Bruce is still a young innocent man here. It's interesting, but other parts of the Evil Dead phenomenon have more charm for me. (20/02/2019)

I get why this film has cult status, but for me it’s not worthy of a full score. The first half was great, but the second has several dull moments, the plot gets stuck somewhere and all I could do was wait for an ending that was clear. The final disintegration of the demons didn’t have any atmosphere due to the not very good special effects. It needs a remake, those special effects today don’t work as they should. (03/01/2008)