The Evil Dead

USA

Sam Raimi

1982

80 min 49 sec

Uncut in the U.K.

An absolute classic in modern horror, made with money gathered from investors, by an unknown director making his first feature with unknown actors, all the ingredients which seem to make up the most gruelling horror films. Set almost entirely in a wooden shack with only a small group of characters .

Most people will have seen this one in one form or another by now so I wont bang on about the storyline, I'd much rather talk about the shite U.K. release. After seeing the uncut version before it was declared a video nasty and banned, and buying the butchered version when it was re-released I can safely say that they have managed to trash the film completely with terribly obvious cuts and confusing scenes which jump from one part to another. Honestly, the tree rape scene, while being very nasty and to many unwatchable, was still the type of scene which unsettled the viewer, a rare thing in these days of production line horror, too scared to overstep the line for fear of heavy censorship. I thought the whole point of horror film is to push the acceptable line of good taste. Any way, if you haven't seen it get the new uncut DVD and if you have only seen the cut version you wont believe what your missing.

Gore

Nothing is left to the imagination in this one with some of the bloodiest gore scenes you'll ever see. If you've seen the sequels they simply cant compare to this