Its place in the horror canon is sealed and its influence undeniable, but there is much that has not aged well about Sam Raimi’s low-budget debut – especially when it comes to its treatment of women. After four decades of “cabin in the woods” imitations, the original’s impact has dulled somewhat. We know exactly what to expect when five young people blithely rock up for a country getaway – especially when their car journey is intercut with scenes of a growling, menacing entity hurtling through the woodland fog. A few ominous portents and the odd involuntary summoning of a demon entity later, all hell breaks loose.
The Evil Dead still has the energy of a fresh new film-maker really going for it. There are inventive camera angles and effective jump-scares and atmospheric settings (it’s amazing what you can do with some fog and a few bright lights). And the film’s commitment to being the goriest ever made is admirable, even if you feel the film-makers’ giddiness at the special effects is driving the story more than any dramatic imperative. Blood flows by the bucketload, by the tanker-load – enough to earn Evil Dead infamy as one of the key “video nasties” of the 1980s – but from today’s perspective, the gore is so unconvincing as to be comical rather than disturbing.
What is more unsettling is the punishment the film inflicts on its three female characters. They are almost interchangeably passive and underwritten, and they bear a disproportionate brunt of the onslaught. These women are variously raped by vegetation, hacked to pieces, stabbed, bludgeoned, incarcerated, buried and burned – and none of them survive to get justice. Instead we get Bruce Campbell as our final girl: the wussy bystander who eventually discovers his “masculinity”, though it speaks volumes when a hero expresses his nobility by deciding not to shoot his girlfriend in the head. You could say this is all good gory fun, and The Evil Dead remains a triumph of brains over budget. But in retrospect, you can’t help wondering if Raimi and co didn’t have some women issues to work through?
