The cabin in the woods style of horror film has become a trope so done to death over the years that it’s easy to forget why it became popular in the first place. Now whilst I’m not sure on the exact origins of this style of film, one film does shine out as one of the earliest examples of cabin in the wood’s horror and that’s Sam Raimi’s 1981 directorial debut, The Evil Dead.
With the fifth film in the franchise releasing later this month, I think it’s worth taking a look back at the film that caused such a stir around its release.
Five friends from Michigan State University have rented a remote cabin in Tennessee woodland for vacation. Things seem off from the moment they arrive, but upon discovering a book of the dead, Ash (Bruce Campbell), Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), Scott (Richard DiManincor), Linda (Betsy Baker), and Shelly (Theresa Tilly) become the target of a malevolent demonic force.
The story behind the making of The Evil Dead is really inspiring. Lifelong friends Raimi and Campbell wanted to get into filmmaking, they begged and borrowed enough money to get it made of their own backs, then following a gruelling 12 week shoot they shopped it around to local theatres and festivals until it got picked up by a distributor for a wide release. You don’t really hear of these kinds of stories anymore, even with the lowest budget productions you kind of need a distributor to get it into theatres, and they tend to go for broke and roll it out everywhere at once rather than a slow word of mouth build as long rollouts cost substantially more and won’t necessarily yield better results.
With the fifth film in the franchise releasing later this month, I think it’s worth taking a look back at the film that caused such a stir around its release.
Five friends from Michigan State University have rented a remote cabin in Tennessee woodland for vacation. Things seem off from the moment they arrive, but upon discovering a book of the dead, Ash (Bruce Campbell), Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), Scott (Richard DiManincor), Linda (Betsy Baker), and Shelly (Theresa Tilly) become the target of a malevolent demonic force.
The story behind the making of The Evil Dead is really inspiring. Lifelong friends Raimi and Campbell wanted to get into filmmaking, they begged and borrowed enough money to get it made of their own backs, then following a gruelling 12 week shoot they shopped it around to local theatres and festivals until it got picked up by a distributor for a wide release. You don’t really hear of these kinds of stories anymore, even with the lowest budget productions you kind of need a distributor to get it into theatres, and they tend to go for broke and roll it out everywhere at once rather than a slow word of mouth build as long rollouts cost substantially more and won’t necessarily yield better results.
With that said, The Evil Dead rarely feels like a film from a bygone era, but it does reek of a film made with inexperience.
It’s ambitious, which is what matters most, but it is a bit sloppy. The plot is threadbare, and the characters have zero depth, there was reportedly once a two-hour cut of the film which gave the characters greater depth, but it moved at a snail’s pace so was trimmed back to eighty-five minutes for a tighter and more terrifying experience.
But this is made up for with some excellent building of tension, great scares, and some fantastic practical effects. The horror creeps in slowly, first just by crafting an unsettling atmosphere, then by small acts of demonic possession, before going into full blown possession, blood and guts flying everywhere, and some wildly inventive gross-out stop-motion for the grand finale.
The Evil Dead is a visual treat too, with Raimi really pushing himself to see just what is possible with a camera once you’re stripped of all your usual filming equipment. The tracking shots are really great, Raimi needed to get inventive and so shots such as the iconic closing shot of the camera flying through the woods and the cabin into Ash’s face were achieved by strapping the camera to a motorcycle that was then ridden through the tight and tricky course.
Having the camera swing around the characters wildly during action sequences, or the liberal use of Dutch angles give the cabin a really unsettling appearance. It feels cramped and dingy, generally unpleasant, and once the blood starts to pour it can be quite affecting.
Whilst the effects are somewhat dated by modern standards, but that doesn’t stop the gore in particular being really effective. It’s easy to see why this film was banned by the BBFC for a while, and the full theatrical cut only being passed as an 18 certificate in 2000. The finale in particular goes real hard with the blood and gore, and honestly, even with the rubbery masks the cast are wearing it’s very difficult to watch at times. The tree rape scene is really hard to sit through without crossing your legs or looking away, and I’d like to think of myself as someone who’s good with graphic imagery, but The Evil Dead definitely pushed a few buttons for me here and there.
It's easy to see why the Evil Dead franchise has become so popular, and why Raimi was eager to make sequels following the success of the first film. It’s not perfect, it’s a very rough around the edge’s kind of film, but when you factor in that this was made on a budget of around one hundred thousand dollars and it was pretty much all the crew’s first major production, there’s something really raw and exciting about it. It’s easy to see why the cabin in the wood’s formula became so popular following The Evil Dead, but very wisely Raimi switched things up very significantly for Evil Dead 2.
It’s ambitious, which is what matters most, but it is a bit sloppy. The plot is threadbare, and the characters have zero depth, there was reportedly once a two-hour cut of the film which gave the characters greater depth, but it moved at a snail’s pace so was trimmed back to eighty-five minutes for a tighter and more terrifying experience.
But this is made up for with some excellent building of tension, great scares, and some fantastic practical effects. The horror creeps in slowly, first just by crafting an unsettling atmosphere, then by small acts of demonic possession, before going into full blown possession, blood and guts flying everywhere, and some wildly inventive gross-out stop-motion for the grand finale.
The Evil Dead is a visual treat too, with Raimi really pushing himself to see just what is possible with a camera once you’re stripped of all your usual filming equipment. The tracking shots are really great, Raimi needed to get inventive and so shots such as the iconic closing shot of the camera flying through the woods and the cabin into Ash’s face were achieved by strapping the camera to a motorcycle that was then ridden through the tight and tricky course.
Having the camera swing around the characters wildly during action sequences, or the liberal use of Dutch angles give the cabin a really unsettling appearance. It feels cramped and dingy, generally unpleasant, and once the blood starts to pour it can be quite affecting.
Whilst the effects are somewhat dated by modern standards, but that doesn’t stop the gore in particular being really effective. It’s easy to see why this film was banned by the BBFC for a while, and the full theatrical cut only being passed as an 18 certificate in 2000. The finale in particular goes real hard with the blood and gore, and honestly, even with the rubbery masks the cast are wearing it’s very difficult to watch at times. The tree rape scene is really hard to sit through without crossing your legs or looking away, and I’d like to think of myself as someone who’s good with graphic imagery, but The Evil Dead definitely pushed a few buttons for me here and there.
It's easy to see why the Evil Dead franchise has become so popular, and why Raimi was eager to make sequels following the success of the first film. It’s not perfect, it’s a very rough around the edge’s kind of film, but when you factor in that this was made on a budget of around one hundred thousand dollars and it was pretty much all the crew’s first major production, there’s something really raw and exciting about it. It’s easy to see why the cabin in the wood’s formula became so popular following The Evil Dead, but very wisely Raimi switched things up very significantly for Evil Dead 2.