The Red Circle

By Tom Nix

I’ve had the pleasure to watch The Evil Dead on the big screen during a screener in college. Even then, almost 20years after its initial release, there were parts that made the people in the theater jump, cringe, and scream.

It’s certainly not the story that does it. Five kids go to a cabin in the woods, accidentally invoke the undead, and die. Essentially, that’s the flick in a nutshell. What makes it the undying cockroach of indie horror is all in the presentation. Sam Raimi dominates this film visually. He made this movie when he was 20 years old (!!!), and the visceral visual style of this film has more or less stuck with him for his entire near 30 year career. Inventive camera rigs beget evocative camera moves, and the lack of any proper budget doesn’t hinder the crew from showing every inch of the violence that befalls the characters.

The film is brutal. From pencil shivs to penetrating tree branches. There’s some stuff there that is still a little hard to stomach, even with today’s torture porn movies. You’ve got entire bodies getting chopped up by axes, and pus filled corpses spewing all kinds of fluids in the faces of the heroes. 30 years on, it’s not hard to see why the film was rated X and banned in some countries on release. Along with defining Sam Raimi’s visual style, it also defined his work ethic.

And what this means is his willingness to absolutely destroy a human being working on his films. Listen to any commentary or interview about life on set with Sam. Hell, watch any of his movies. The characters in the films are typically not enjoying themselves, and Sam Raimi is the one personally responsible. I can’t think of any other movie that almost single-handedly sums up an entire director’s career as well as this one. It all started here.

The film can’t be mentioned without adding its the one that introduced the first cult hero in Bruce Campbell. The Evil Dead Trilogy introduced this living cartoon character to a generation of internet obsessed nerds. The man has made a career out of his overblown man’s man image. And that all started here.

The Evil Dead is a towering giant in the genre of splatter horror. The reason? It’s probably still the best one out there, and we’re 30 years past expiration date. It’s an unhinged, insane movie made by unhinged, insane people. It’s probably responsible for a lot of the horror films that are coming out today. Find an self respecting horror director under the age of 40, and ask them why they’re in the business. Chances are they’ll tell you it all started here, with The Evil Dead.

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