The Evil Dead (1981)

Every single time I've sat down to watch The Evil Dead, I've fallen asleep. That's not a joke, that's a confession, and coming from someone who genuinely loves horror, it tells you something. This film arrives carrying one of the most formidable reputations in genre cinema: a landmark of indie horror, Sam Raimi's scrappy debut, the film that launched Bruce Campbell into cult immortality. I came in wanting to be won over. I wasn't.

Stripped of its historical baggage, what's actually on screen is a gruelling, monotonous slog. Shot on a shoestring in a Tennessee cabin, the film leans hard on shaky camerawork, screeching sound design, and gallons of practical gore. In theory, that combination should be exhilarating. In practice, without rhythm, wit, or genuine tension to hold it together, those techniques exhaust you rather than excite you. The characters are thinly sketched victims who scream and flee in circles. The demonic possession unfolds with repetitive, numbing predictability, one person goes, then another, then another, and by the halfway mark the novelty of its DIY grit has completely worn off. What's left is a murky, headache-inducing endurance test.

The effects haven't helped it either. I know practical effects are something genre fans quite rightly celebrate, and the commitment here is genuinely impressive given the budget constraints Raimi was working under. But impressive-for-the-budget is not the same as good, and in 2026 a lot of what's on screen looks rough in ways that break rather than build atmosphere. Some low-budget horror from this era has aged with a certain rough charm. This one, for me, has mostly aged into awkwardness. I've had more fun with other ambitious low-budget genre pictures of the 1980s, like other ambitious low-budget genre pictures of the 1980s, which somehow managed to pair outrageous gore with genuine dark wit and pacing that actually moved.

Here's the thing I'll happily grant, there are flickers of something in here. Moments where Raimi's kinetic energy breaks through and you catch a glimpse of the filmmaker he'd become. The camera work occasionally does something genuinely inventive, a rushing POV through the woods that has real menace to it, and you can see the raw instincts that would eventually produce some brilliant work. It's just that those moments are islands in a sea of monotony. Knowing what Raimi went on to do makes those glimpses interesting, but interesting in a "director's early sketch" kind of way, not in a way that makes the film itself a satisfying watch. And incidentally, if you want Raimi in properly enjoyable mode, I've covered the sequel to this very film, which corrects almost every problem I have with this one by injecting it with humour, confidence and actual momentum.

I do want to be fair here. The historical significance of The Evil Dead is real and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. What Raimi achieved on that budget, dragging a cast and crew through brutal conditions to produce something that actually got seen, got distributed, and genuinely shook people, deserves respect. It mattered. It opened doors. It influenced a generation of filmmakers who went on to do extraordinary things. None of that is up for debate.

But significance isn't the same as quality, and a film's reputation shouldn't function as a guilt trip. If you've tried The Evil Dead and found it a bore, you're not a philistine. You're not missing some essential horror gene. You've just watched a historically important film that doesn't quite hold up as a viewing experience on its own terms, and that's a perfectly reasonable conclusion to reach.

Two and a half stars. Admire the ambition, respect the influence, tip your hat to its place in horror history. Then go watch the sequel instead.

Rating: ★★½  | Year: 1981  | Watched: 2026-04-04

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Sam Raimi: Evil Dead II (1987) · Spider-Man 3 (2007) · Spider-Man 2 (2004) · Spider-Man (2002)
More with Bruce Campbell: Evil Dead II (1987) · Maniac Cop (1988)
More from the 1980s: Nightmare City (1980) · A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Style Wars (1983) · Garlic Is as Good as Ten Mothers (1980)
More horror: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) · Viy (1967) · Nightmare City (1980) · Angst (1983)