Evil Dead: 
Elite Special Edition 
(1983)
by Billion$Baby

In November of 1979, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert and Bruce Campbell spent 2 months in Tennessee filming this cult 16mm movie. Just over 12 months later, the film was finally completed. After encountering trouble finding a distributor, Irvin Shapiro agreed to release it under the alternative title of The Evil Dead in 1982. This film is full of many ingeniously simple ideas which are very effective. For example, strapping a camera to a wooden board and then running with this through the woodland to create the demon-force point-of-view shots, or placing wooden boards on the forest floor and then racing the cameraman along these in a wheelchair to follow Sandweiss as she races through the trees. To quote Bruce Campbell on the dvd's liner notes : "If blood, guts and demonic possession are what you're looking for, you've come to the right place. The Evil Dead may not have award-winning acting or a complex and thought-provoking plot, but for you gore-hounds out there - YEE HA - you've struck gold!"

Yep, if you're looking for gore, this is the film from Raimi's trilogy that I would recommend. Despite it's small budget, the film goes full gusto in this department. Also, who would have thought that spitting milk at a camera would be quite so effective?! If nudity is also your thing - well, there's two breast shots by Raimi, almost used in homage to the classic exploitation films that this 16mm flick draws inspiration from. I have decided to give a slightly higher than average mark on the nudity rating, purely because some of you may actually have a fetish for trees raping women!!!

Casting is purely functional. Campbell hadn't yet developed his unique comic stylings and wasn't even a protaganist for much of the movie. He only seems to fight when given no other choice. Perhaps the most impressive moment is the last15 minutes of The Evil Dead, where it all gets very surreal. My favourite moment is when Ash checks out the mirror!

Opinions seem to be divided as to the effectiveness of Tom Sullivan's stop-motion effects at the feature's end. Some love it, others don't - Ditto with the film's very last sequence.

All in all, a horror classic. Just don't be surprised to see the possessed cast played by "fake-shemps" (stand-ins) in many of the pick-up shots!

This review refers to the Elite Entertainment special edition, about to
be out-done by the Anchor Bay Book Of The Dead edition. Most of the features on this AB package actually originate from this Elite disc. This is what Elite Entertainment offers :
- 5.1 and 2.0 Dolby Digital sound remixes
- 2 commentary tracks
- 150 photographs
- 20 minutes of out-takes
- Trailer

The most important distinction between this Elite disc and the AB release, is that whereas AB will be releasing the film in it's cropped 1,85;1 ratio, this earlier version released the film in it's original full-screen ratio of 1,33;1. I should also mention that the picture quality of this Elite Entertainment dvd is outstanding. It will be interesting to note how the quality of the AB release compares.

So worth picking up this particular Evil Dead disc if you see it at the right price, or if you want a copy of the film in it's original shooting ratio.