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Evil Dead
(***)
The epitome of the low budget slasher film is probably Sam Raimi's Evil Dead. It was low budget (duh), it had unknown talents, and a lot of cheap scares. One difference between this and others like Friday the 13th is that Evil Dead is actually a pretty fine movie.
An archaeologist named Dr. Nobi has discovered an ancient book called Necronomicon ex Mortis, which is translated to "The Book of the Dead." For those of you who have seen all three Evil Dead movies, you will know that it is called the Necronomicon only in the 2nd and 3rd. There is a different name for it here, however I don't like it and I don't remember the name anyway.
Not long after, 4 young kids are headed up to a supposedly abandoned cabin for a weekend of fun. Of course, this is the same cabin that Dr. Nobi went to to translate the book. One of the girls begins seeing things soon after the kids find the book and a tape recorder in the cellar, and soon she has a psychotic episode.
What everyone thought was lunacy turns out to be possession. Ashe (Campbell) turns on the recorder and finds out that Nobi did translate the book, and that translation has summoned up demons from the forest. Now, of course, it's after the kids.
What's fun about this movie isn't really in any special effects, or even in acting. Other than Bruce Campbell, there is nothing remarkable with the cast. The special effects were low low low budget. But Raimi uses it to his fullest advantage, and creates some extremely creepy scenes; including one involving a possessed tree raping one of the girls.
This first Evil Dead movie is not the best of the series. It was, however, the first of the "splatstick" genre. There are scares, but there are also a few laughs. Raimi does, of course, get better at this in the future.