The Evil Dead

I wouldn’t be on this site at all if it wasn’t for Army of Darkness. Up until the age of about 15, I was terrified of movies. Not all of them, obviously. I wasn’t running out of Dumbo screaming about the pink elephants; but anything with a suggestion of violence in freaked me out something rotten. I’ve no clear recollection why this is; I’ve never been, and still am not the bravest of souls, but it was something approaching a psychological problem. I once ran and hid because someone put on Out For Justice. I think perhaps I could trace it back to Superman 3 - Rated U, with terrifying made-into-robots bit - or to Raiders of the Lost Ark, rated PG with mummified corpses and melting faces. If that was the sort of thing you could get away with in a PG, my adolescent logic went, then an 18 rated movie must literally tear out your mind and stamp on it. Then, Army of Darkness happened. I watched it at a sleepover (noted, calling it a sleepover at 15 isn’t very cool; I could call it a party if you want, but we’d all know the truth). I took some convincing, but while advised that it was very gory, it was also funny. Mildly peer-pressured into it, I gave it a go. Fucking hell. Army of Darkness was brilliant. I’d never felt so exhilarated when watching a movie. I enjoyed them before, of course, but never properly loved them - and not in the way that you might, for example, love Snickers bars. It was very close to full on teenage romantic love. I had a movie-crush on Army of Darkness. And so, I saw the Evil Dead movies backwards. Expecting more of the same from Evil Dead 2, watched with the same two friends who’d half bullied me into watching Army of Darkness. I was surprised to find it quite a lot darker. Yes, I am talking about the incredibly daft Evil Dead 2, but remember I’m coming at this from Army of Darkness, having only seen one kind-of-sort-of-horror movie. In its own, separate way, I loved it just as much. It was more grown up, more mature (yes, I’m still talking about the movie with chainsaw hand). Then, Memento-like, we’re back at the beginning. I watch The Evil Dead. I’m expecting maybe a little darker again, but holy fuck. The banging on the door that just stops. The voices. The aggressive spiritualist writing. The tree. Pencil. Axe. Basement. Why is she doing that to her own arm? Oh, god, get her out of the fire! Wait, did he just pull off that guy’s penis? I was, in the best possible way, terrified. The Evil Dead is largely regarded as a comedy these days, which still surprises me. Its sequels are undoubtedly so, but the original is ferocious. There are moments of camp, sure, but they are true camp, that is failed seriousness. The intent is never anything less than it claims: the ultimate experience in gruelling terror. Continuing my dating metaphor (let me assure you, I wasn’t doing any real dating at 15), I then went horror-promiscuous. Lying about my age at the local video library, I went through their expolitation shelves in one summer, previously avoided like cursed ground. Now, not every movie was The Evil Dead, or even Army of Darkness, a movie I now regard like a first girlfriend: with a passing fondness but no lust. Some of them were even The Howling 6: The Freaks, of which the less said the better. Nonetheless, my love of movies as it still stands today, now branched out from horror but always leaning that way, was formed there: in Cats Video Library, Redruth, pretending to be Cornwall’s shortest, skinniest 18 year old and ogling gaudy VHS covers; in Andrew Chesney’s front room, watching my first horror in a state of euphoria; in my parents' lounge, watching The Evil Dead by myself, terrified. * A post script to this tale of young love and chainsaws. When moral Heimdall James Ferman stepped down as head of the BBFC in 1999, many previously banned horror movies got a full release, including finally the full version of The Evil Dead. For years, I had been watching (and watching, and watching) the BBFC’s cut down version, not only in 4:3 but literally with bits just cut out of it with no real editing, so that the score jumped and popped all over the place and much of the gore was excised. The newly uncut (a strange phrase) version of The Evil Dead was the first movie I bought on DVD, with my first grown-up paycheque. Seeing it in its true form, the violence hideously and brilliant restored and the score finally not sounding like it had been composed by Captain Beefheart, it was like watching it for the first time. I was a 15 year old boy again, horrified and amazed. The Evil Dead is fucking brilliant.