Evil Dead Critical Analysis - Movie Review Example

The initial shot specifies that this is no standard drama or light comedy, without being gory, violent or even in particular scary. 

Applied upon a vague background of moving fog appears the title, swaying waywardly. It fades away and the camera begins to move over what is exposed to be a dark pond in a gloomy forest in the kind of ‘how do they do it’ tracking shot for which the film is known (America Online, 1994). The camera races through the woods evading trees with inches to spare, in place of some subjective point of view that is not human beings. The soundtrack is a looming dissonance of hollow laughter and bizarre howling tones. Inter-cut with these glimpses of a world seen through the eyes of some inconceivable evil, are shots of a car wandering through a forest. Inside are five innocent-looking youngsters, two of them are singing happily.

There is no clear connection between the two until the camera comes to the edge of the forest and takes a glimpse down at the automobile that the youngsters are travelling in. At the same time, some kind of unknown force takes control of the car, almost crashing it into a meeting truck. It is then apparent that they are not welcome in these woods.

A rather indiscreet indication is received in the way common to many horror movies of the lesser kind, most particularly the "Friday 13th" series. A slight remark, an improbable justification and then the event is forgotten. What could go wrong? They're blissful school kids going away to have fun. The bridge that nearly collapses beneath their car is passed in a similar, hasty fashion. Not even the hammock on the porch of the house that swings by itself without any wind draw more than a brief, uncomfortable glance.

As is often the case in horror movies, the actual horror starts comparatively peacefully. The hints of what is to come are rather subdued, but not essentially less scary. One memorable scene, for example, is where one of the girls is making a drawing of a clock on the wall; suddenly the swinging pendulum stops as if this is only happening in her individual time zone, and her hand starts awkwardly to draw of its concurrence. The result, on a torn, shrunk paper is a rudimentary sketch of a book with face-like features on the cover. As she regards it with a disgusted sort of wonder, the trapdoor in the floor in front of her rattles on its hinges and something is heard diminishing down in the darkness.

The Evil Dead, like all Sam Raimi films, contains an abundance of energetic, flamboyant camera moves and some very effectual editing. However, some would say that this is nothing but cheap effects anticipated to cover up weaknesses in the storyline, which is a bit like saying that any movement in a ballet that isn't necessary for the characters to get from one place to another is to be evaded. Camera moves can have a splendour of their own, lending essence to people and things and making the screen seem 'less flat'. In Evil Dead, they also serve to create a feeling of unknowingness and threat, especially combined with peculiar sound effects and a musical score that is often close to complete noise.

The total budget for the film was less than 350.000 American dollars (worldwideboxoffice.com). As a consequence, the make-up and effects don't look like something from Industrial Light and Magic. Considering the budget, they are unexpectedly effective though. What Howard and Spielberg do with computers, Sam Raimi does with old tricks, like stop motion animation, which just adds to the feeling that he is celebrating those before him.

The Evil Dead is a scary, funny, fiercely stylistic, extremely formalistic celebration of a genre, as well as of the possibilities of the camera in imaginative hands. It is also almost a picture of a film, emphasizing everything typical about a genre to the point where it becomes either amusing or great art, or perhaps both.