Intro

You know it. You love it. You’ve seen it a million times. You own your own. But wait until you see the packaging on THIS edition…

Synopsis

Please tell me you don’t need a synopsis. You do? So there’s this group of young folk, see, who head off for a stay at a cabin deep in the woods. In the cabin, they stumble upon the Book of the Dead, and before you know it, ancient Sumerian demons have been unleashed and possess one character after another. The only cure is bodily dismembermen……

The first of the trilogy, this balls-to-the-wall gorefest was one of the unchallenged kings of blood until Dead/Alive came along. The splatstick didn’t really get going until Evil Dead 2, but there is still a definite sense of humour on display here. Bruce Campbell doesn’t really get to cut loose as the gifted physical comic the second film revealed him as, but the straighter approach to the material means that this is the scariest film of the three.

Audio

The sound is the best the film has sounded, no doubt surpassing even its theatrical incarnations. We should remember the incredibly low budget of the feature, so don’t go expecting The Matrix here. Still, the music and the sound effects have a definite surround presence (Dolby Digital EX & DTS ES), and the mix is no shrinking violet.

Video

Again, don’t expect miracles. The film was shot on 16mm, and you can tell: the colours, especially, are rather washed out. But the film looks as good as is humanly possible, and the picture (in the original 1.85:1 widescreen) is very clear. Almost too clear: the matte lines around the shots of the moon are now clearly visible, creating a PIP effect.

Features

I’m going to save the best for last…

First the menu: it shrieks and rattles its chains, with a fully animated and scored main page and transitions, scored secondary pages, and still and silent beyond that. The minor extras are the trailer, four TV spots, a poster and still gallery, and bios of Bruce Campbell, director Sam Raimi, and producer Robert Tapert. The major features are two retrospective commentaries. The first, by Raimi and Tapert, is fun and informative, and very scene specific. The other, by Bruce Campbell, is magnificent. Funny, lunatic, and information-packed all at once, it sets a standard by which all commentaries should be judged. Hell, I’d buy the disc if it was nothing but a CD of Campbell doing his thing.

There are also three documentaries. The first, the 26-minute “Fanalysis,” is Bruce Campbell’s fractured take on the whole fandom phenomenon in general and his interactions with it in particular. “Discovering Evil Dead” is a 13-minute look at how the film was picked up and made popular. Its impact on the home video scene and its controversial violence are also touched on. Finally, “Behind the Scenes Footage and Outtakes” is exactly that, 18 minutes worth.

Now we come to the packaging. The box is your very own Book of the Dead, faithfully reproducing the look of the one of the film, and done in a nicely disturbing fleshy rubber… deeply cool. Inside are pages of the book’s artwork and a booklet tracing the history of The Evil Dead’s various home video incarnations.

Closing Thoughts

There have been so many different releases of this cult favorite that it is always dangerous to declare that here, this time, at last, we have the definitive edition. But this one will be very, very hard to beat.

Special Features List

• Director’s Commentary
• Commentary by Bruce Campbell
• Theatrical trailer
• Discovering Evil Dead Featurette
• “Fanalysis” documentary
• Behind-the-scenes footage
• 24 page collectible booklet