The first and best of Raimi’s Evil Dead films doesn’t forget to scare the
hell out of you while also mining for laughs with its magnificent bad
taste. Campbell (who returned for the later outings and has a frenzied
cult following) plays one of five friends on a very, very ill-conceived
holiday in a deserted woodland cabin. Their discovery of the
Necronomicon prompts the arrival of an unseen, unspeakably evil
force, leading to terror, madness, dismemberment, and some of the most
ingeniously effective gore ever seen on this kind of budget. The
sequels are hilariously bonkers; this one’s actually a chilling
horror film with it.
