Box Art Review #1
The Evil Dead (1981)
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring Bruce Campbell
The Movie
A lot of people seem to forget that the first Evil Dead
movie even exists. Most nerds, like the kind you’d find at Comic-Con or the
kind who won’t stop pestering you to watch Doctor Who, tend to claim that Army
of Darkness is the superior film in the trilogy. Most horror fans tend to latch
onto Evil Dead 2 (my personal fav) because of the gore effects, the chainsaw
arm, and the slapstick comedy. But poor Evil Dead part the first can’t get no
respect. Evil Dead is totally worth your time if you skipped over it bro, it’s
got some great special effects, though not quite as many as Evil Dead 2, and
some fantastic scenery porn for those of you who can’t get enough of the wilderness,
and most of all it maintains a genuinely eerie atmosphere that, honestly,
rivals the feel of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Oh yeah, and a girl
totally gets raped by a tree; like, you’d think that would be enough to make
Evil Dead more better than the sequels, but Evil Dead 2 is just so great man.
The Cover
So you got Ash front and center covered in hard to
distinguish blood and wielding a chainsaw in a way that not only looks
nonthreatening but appears as if it poses more danger to the wielder than the
spindly skeleton fingers gripping vaguely in his direction. This image is
mostly pretty rad, but that blood man, that needs to stand out a bit more, as
is this looks like a distressed t-shirt; like something a fourteen year old
would buy off the rack at Target, or JC Penny’s if his parents have a bit more
money than mine did. Also, the girl behind Ash is clearly unimportant in the
grand scheme of things. It’s been a while, but the only thing I remember about
Ash’s girlfriend is that he gave her that really shitty looking necklace and
she fucking loved it. Also, is that even Ash’s girlfriend behind him in this
picture? Once again, I can’t tell because of the poor image quality on the
cover; it’s almost like these dudes had no idea they had a classic on their
hands when designing this cover.
If I remember correctly, there’s a part in Bruce Campbell’s
excellent autobiography, If Chins Could
Kill, where he talks about the photo-shoot for this image, and I’m pretty
sure there’s like multiple takes and alternate angles up in that piece.
Checkout Uncle Steve up top handing out a marketable
one-liner like a true horror bro. I always find it funny that they have to
explain what he is the author of, as if the words Stephen King aren’t a
recognizable brand in their own right, and he was more relevant as a pop
culture icon at the time of this movie’s release anyway.
One last thing, it’s worth noting that the scene depicted on
the cover doesn’t actually happen verbatim in the movie.
Movie: 5/5
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