Evil Dead (1981): Cursed Cabin, Demon Gore, and Zero Good Decisions

What happens when a bunch of broke Michigan kids decide they’d rather summon Deadites than get normal jobs? Ambrose and Kelly hike back to the cabin to dig into The Evil Dead and the beautiful chaos behind it.

They walk through how Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and friends went from backyard Super 8 shorts to a miserable winter shoot in Tennessee, sleeping on floors and inventing Fake Shemps, Shaky Cams, and sticky DIY gore just to get this thing finished.

Then they break down why the film still works as pure dread energy. Plus the five emotional states of horror, Ash’s total mental collapse, one infamous scene that still divides fans, and how an X rating, Video Nasty panic, and a Stephen King rave turned it into a cult legend.

In this episode, we…

• Trace the scrappy origin story of The Evil Dead.
• Geek out over blood recipes, cracked lenses, and painful makeup.
• Map Dread, Terror, Horror, Shock, and Disgust onto key moments.
• Compare the original to Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, and the 2013 remake, then hand out Coffin ratings.

Listen now and follow The THING about Films wherever you get your podcasts.

Transcript

[Ambrose]: Welcome back, everyone. Tonight... oh man. Tonight we are talking about a true low-budget masterpiece.

[Kelly]: The one. The only. The movie that launched a thousand nightmares.

[Ambrose]: That’s right. Tonight, we are talking about the original Evil Dead. But honestly? We’re mostly talking about the absolute chaos behind the camera.

[Kelly]: Oh, god. Yeah, the production was almost scarier than what was happening on screen. It’s this remarkable story of just... sheer willpower.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, it is basically independent filmmaking at its most brutal.

[Kelly]: Right? And just how much misery a few friends from Michigan were willing to endure just to make something truly terrifying.

[Ambrose]: You ain’t kidding there. So, let’s actually set the scene here. Lets start at the very beginning. We’re in the late 1970s, Midwest America, right?

[Kelly]: Right. And you’ve got this trio of buddies: Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert Tapert. Just three guys from the Detroit suburbs making these little Super 8 films in the backyard. But they wanted more, you know? They wanted to make a feature. And the motivation—which I absolutely love—was basically just fear.

[Ambrose]: Fear of what, exactly?

[Kelly]: Fear of a normal life! I mean, Sam Raimi was apparently terrified of having to go work at his dad’s furniture store.

[Ambrose]: And Tapert, wasn’t he looking at a career in... what was it? Fisheries and Wildlife?

[Kelly]: Yeah, which he dreaded. So for them, filmmaking wasn’t just art—it was a literal escape route.

[Ambrose]: And they picked the horror genre for a very specific, very practical reason.

[Kelly]: Oh, it was purely commercial. Which is wild, because Raimi actually loved comedy. Like, he was a huge Three Stooges guy.

[Ambrose]: Oh, you can totally see that in his later stuff. The slapstick is all over it.

[Kelly]: Absolutely. But back then, if you were a kid in Michigan trying to get a movie into drive-ins? Horror was your best bet. It sold tickets.

[Ambrose]: So it was a business decision first and foremost.

[Kelly]: Pretty much. But before they could ask people for cash for a full movie, they had to prove they could actually do it.

[Ambrose]: Which brings us to their prototype.

[Kelly]: Right, this short film called Within the Woods back in 1978.

[Ambrose]: Yeah. And didn’t that thing cost them... what? Like, sixteen-hundred bucks?

[Kelly]: Something like that, yeah. An absurdly tiny amount of money. But it was everything.

[Ambrose]: Oh, yeah. Plus, it actually starred Bruce Campbell and Ellen Sandweiss.

[Kelly]: Yeah, so it was basically just a mini Evil Dead. Like, it had all the core DNA.

[Ambrose]: Right? You’ve got the possessed hand, the gore, the creepy cabin...

[Kelly]: Exactly. It was their proof of concept. It showed potential investors, "Look, we’re just kids, but we can make something genuinely scary."

[Ambrose]: And with that little film as their calling card, they started the much harder part...

[Kelly]: The fundraising. Or, what Bruce Campbell actually called "The Pitch of Humiliation."

[Ambrose]: I love that. You just imagine them, these young, scruffy guys putting on suits...

[Kelly]: Oh, yeah. Trying to look respectable, going door-to-door to, like, local dentists and lawyers.

[Ambrose]: Pitching this unbelievably gory demonic possession movie to the most straight-laced people in their community.

[Kelly]: I know, it’s such an amazing image. And honestly, they were basically begging everyone—I mean family, friends, local business owners.

[Ambrose]: And the commitment was just insane. I mean, Bruce Campbell put up his own family’s property as collateral.

[Kelly]: He did, yeah. Which is actually why he got an Executive Producer credit. He had real skin in the game. Literally.

[Ambrose]: So they scraped together... what, an initial ninety grand?

[Kelly]: That was the initial goal, yeah. They ended up finishing the whole thing for around $350,000—which is still nothing. It’s astonishing for a film that went on to become such a massive cult phenomenon.

[Ambrose]: And speaking of cult phenomenon, the title wasn’t always so punchy, was it?

[Kelly]: No, not at all. Sam Raimi was really into H.P. Lovecraft.

[Ambrose]: Naturally. The Necronomicon.

[Kelly]: Right. So his original title was Book of the Dead.

[Ambrose]: Which... sounds a little academic.

[Kelly]: That is exactly what their producer, Irvin Shapiro, thought. He was this veteran B-movie guy, and he said the title was boring.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, basically. He thought it sounded like homework.

[Kelly]: Right! He said it would turn off the teenage drive-in crowd. He wanted something that grabbed you by the throat.

[Ambrose]: So he suggested Evil Dead.

[Kelly]: Exactly. And that was it. I mean, it’s simple, it’s menacing, and it sells the movie perfectly. Just another purely commercial decision that ended up being iconic.

[Ambrose]: So. They get the money, they have the title, and the production starts. And this is where the financial hustle turns into basically a battle for survival.

[Kelly]: It really does. So Raimi, trying to be clever, moves the production from Michigan down to Tennessee.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, because he was trying to avoid the winter, right?

[Kelly]: Exactly. He wanted to save time and money by shooting in a "warmer climate." Of course, they ran straight into one of Tennessee’s coldest winters on record. Just a magnificent irony.

[Ambrose]: Right. So instead of warmth, they basically just got forced isolation in the freezing cold.

[Kelly]: Which, you know... probably helped the movie’s atmosphere, honestly.

[Ambrose]: I’m sure it did. They’re filming in this remote, rundown cabin with no plumbing. I mean like, zero plumbing.  And a crew of thirteen people all crammed into this tiny space, sleeping on...

[Kelly]: Hardwood floors! They were constantly sick, going days without a shower. It sounds like absolute misery.

[Ambrose]: And as the shoot went on, it got worse. It was planned for six weeks...

[Kelly]: But it actually stretched to twelve. Twelve weeks!

[Ambrose]: Man, and in those conditions? They apparently started burning things just to stay warm.

[Kelly]: Oh yeah. Near the end, they were burning furniture, pieces of the cabin itself, just to survive the night shoots.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, I mean, Campbell actually called it a "mirthless exercise in agony."

[Kelly]: And you can see that on screen. That suffering feels real because... well, a lot of it was.

[Ambrose]: And because the shoot dragged on for so long and the pay was like...

[Kelly]: What was it, like thirty bucks a week?

[Ambrose]: Yeah, so the actors started leaving. Once their contracts were up, they were gone.

[Kelly]: Which led to one of the most famous bits of Evil Dead lore: the "Fake Shemp." A term they borrowed from the Three Stooges, their heroes.

[Ambrose]: Right. When Shemp Howard died, the Stooges used a stand-in to finish his scenes. So Raimi and Campbell basically just took that idea and ran with it.

[Kelly]: Yeah, so basically, you just have crew members stepping in to play the Deadites.

[Ambrose]: Oh, literally all of them. I mean, Sam Raimi, his brothers Ted and Ivan, Rob Tapert, even Bruce Campbell himself. They were all Fake Shemps.

[Kelly]: Right. Like, at some point, they’d be in heavy makeup or wigs, or you’d just see their back or their hands. Actually, there’s even a story that Rob Tapert’s sister, Dorothy, came in for a reshoot in a garage months later just to play the Deadite Shelley.

[Ambrose]: Wait, so basically, Bruce Campbell’s hands might be choking Bruce Campbell?

[Kelly]: Pretty much. The core group had to literally become every character to finish the movie.

[Ambrose]: Which is just insane. But that whole DIY spirit? It extended to everything. Especially the camera work, which is really the film’s signature, isn't it? That relentless, kinetic style.

[Kelly]: Oh, absolutely. But again, it was really born out of necessity. I mean, they couldn’t afford a dolly or a Steadicam.

[Ambrose]: So they invented their own for that famous shot of the evil force rushing through the woods.

[Kelly]: Ah, yes. The Shaky Cam.

[Ambrose]: The Shaky Cam. Which was just the camera bolted to a 2x4 piece of wood.

[Kelly]: Real high-tech stuff. And then they basically just had two people run with it.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, sprinting through the woods, tripping over roots.

[Kelly]: But it creates that sickening, aggressive point-of-view shot. It’s genius from necessity. And then for the smooth shots? The "Vas-o-cam."

[Ambrose]: Which is literally just Vaseline on a plank of wood.

[Kelly]: You got it. Just slide the camera over it. It’s so brilliantly simple.

[Ambrose]: Even the final shot was torture. The one where the entity crashes through the cabin into Ash?

[Kelly]: Right. They mounted the camera on a bike or a motorcycle and just flew it right at Bruce Campbell.

[Ambrose]: He said he broke a couple of ribs doing that stunt.

[Kelly]: Oh man, that’s got to suck. But I guess the physical toll was just part of the deal. You know, the price you paid for the shot.

[Ambrose]: And speaking of that extreme physical commitment, you just can’t talk about The Evil Dead without talking about the special effects. Especially the blood.

[Kelly]: Oh, the blood. So. Much. Blood. And the recipe was famously simple.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, it was basically just Karo syrup.

[Kelly]: Yep. Corn syrup, red food coloring... and sometimes they’d add coffee grounds for texture.

[Ambrose]: Right, just to make it look a little chunkier. You know, a little more gruesome.

[Kelly]: Exactly. And they used gallons of it. Bruce had this story about his shirt getting so soaked in the stuff...

[Ambrose]: Wait, didn't it actually freeze solid overnight?

[Kelly]: It didn't just freeze. It crystallized. Yeah. He said when he put it on the next morning, it cracked like a plate of glass.

[Ambrose]: Man, wow. I mean, now that is commitment.

[Kelly]: And the makeup wasn't any better. The contact lenses they used for the Deadites? I’ve heard they were awful.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, I think they were actually described as being "thick as glass.”

[Kelly]: Oh really. So, they were rigid, painful. And I also heard the actors could only wear them for about fifteen minutes at a time before they had to rip them out.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, and it didn’t stop there, because taking the rest of that makeup off was a nightmare, too.

[Kelly]: Betsy Baker, who played Linda, said she lost her real eyelashes when they removed one of the facial molds.

[Ambrose]: So the line between acting and actual physical harm was just... nonexistent.

[Kelly]: Pretty much. But there’s a really interesting detail about Raimi trying to be strategic with the gore.

[Ambrose]: Oh? What’s that?

[Kelly]: He deliberately used a white liquid for some of the Deadite fluids when they were stabbed or whatever.

[Ambrose]: What, like milk?

[Kelly]: Exactly. 2% milk, apparently.

[Ambrose]: Why?

[Kelly]: He was trying to get ahead of the censors! He thought if he limited the amount of red blood on screen, they might go easier on him and he could avoid an X rating.

[Ambrose]: That’s actually pretty clever. Did it work?

[Kelly]: Not really, no. But it just shows you how they were constantly thinking about how to make this thing commercially viable, even down to the color of the monster goo.

[Ambrose]: Okay, so let’s shift from the how it was made to the why it works. Why is this film so terrifying?

[Kelly]: Well, we can actually break it down using a pretty useful framework. There are these five emotional states of horror.

[Ambrose]: Okay, lay them on me.

[Kelly]: Dread, Terror, Horror, Shock, and Disgust.

[Ambrose]: And those are all distinct things?

[Kelly]: They are, yeah. So "Dread" is that slow-building anxiety. The feeling that something is wrong, but you don't know what yet. Then "Terror" is when you know what the threat is... and you’re afraid of what it’s going to do. And then you have “Horror” which is the immediate visceral reaction to seeing something awful. And then you have the “Shock” which is the jump scare. And finally you have “Disgust” that is the physical repulsion to gore.

[Ambrose]: Man. And honestly? Evil Dead just nails all five.

[Kelly]: It really does. It starts with Dread immediately. I mean, the first thing you see is from the POV of the entity rushing through the woods...

[Ambrose]: And right before you even meet the characters. You know the evil is already there.

[Kelly]: Exactly. And then you have that dangerous bridge sign, and that creepy porch swing banging against the house... It’s just all atmosphere. All dread.

[Ambrose]: Right. But then that quickly escalates into Terror when they find the book and play the tape.

[Kelly]: Right. Professor Knowby’s recording. Suddenly, the vague threat has a name. The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis.

[Ambrose]: Which is bound in human flesh, inked in human blood.

[Kelly]: Yeah. Now they understand the stakes. They know they’re in mortal danger. That’s pure Terror. The "what if we can’t get out of here" feeling.

[Ambrose]: And then there’s Shock. The film has some great jump scares.

[Kelly]: It does. A perfect example is when Ash thinks everything has finally calmed down. He goes to the basement door and...

[Ambrose]: Cheryl’s hands burst through the floorboards and grab him!

[Kelly]: Exactly. It’s a total malicious surprise. It shatters any sense of safety you or he might have felt.

[Ambrose]: But the most infamous moment of Shock is, of course, the tree scene.

[Kelly]: Right. You mean the tree assault scene.

[Ambrose]: Yeah.

[Kelly]: Which is still incredibly controversial.

[Ambrose]: And it’s important to say—Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell have both said they deeply regret keeping it in the film.

[Kelly]: Oh, they have. Many times. And honestly? It was basically the main reason the film got targeted as a "Video Nasty."

[Ambrose]: Yeah, no, absolutely.

[Kelly]: I think it was just a step too far for a lot of people. I remember the first time I saw it, I just sat there like, “What the hell did I just watch?”

[Ambrose]: Oh, yeah. But definitely, which makes it really interesting to see how the 2013 remake actually handled it.

[Kelly]: Right? Because they made a really conscious choice to change it. In that version, Mia is still attacked, sure, but it’s portrayed as pure physical violence and terror. Not... something else.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, which feels like a clear attempt to correct the original’s most uncomfortable moment, for sure.

[Kelly]: Oh, totally. But okay, finally? You have Disgust. Which is honestly what the film is probably most famous for. I mean, the gore—it’s just buckets of it. It’s relentless. Like Cheryl stabbing Linda’s ankle with the pencil...

[Ambrose]: Or, how about Shelly chewing off her own hand?

[Kelly]: Yeah. And then you’ve got Ash having to decapitate his possessed girlfriend with a shovel. It’s basically just one visceral, repulsive image after another.

[Ambrose]: And that right there is exactly what got the X rating. Just pure, unadulterated Disgust.

[Kelly]: For sure. But you know, beyond just the gross-out factor, it’s actually really fascinating to look at the film psychologically. Especially Ash’s character, because he’s so different here from the guy he becomes later.

[Ambrose]: Oh, completely different.

[Kelly]: In this film, he is not a hero. He’s passive, he’s terrified, he’s constantly screaming. He’s really an anti-hero.

[Ambrose]: And one way to read the film is to see the whole cabin as a metaphor for the mind.

[Kelly]: Exactly. The cabin is the conscious mind. And the basement?

[Ambrose]: That’s the unconscious, where all the scary stuff is buried.

[Kelly]: Right. And the Necronomicon and the tape recorder? They’re like the language of the unconscious. They unleash this raw, traumatic data that the mind can’t process.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, I think critics actually sometimes call that "beta elements," right?

[Kelly]: Yeah, that’s one term for it. Think of it as pure, unfiltered trauma. And the cabin walls act as a kind of "beta screen," trying to protect the mind from it.

[Ambrose]: But it fails.

[Kelly]: Right, and it specifically fails for Cheryl first. I mean, she hears the tape and her immediate reaction is just to scream, "Shut it off!" She basically refuses to process the information.

[Ambrose]: And that refusal—that break from reality—is symbolized by the tree assault. Her mind is overwhelmed by trauma.

[Kelly]: Precisely. And Ash is the one left to deal with the fallout. The trauma is literally projected onto him.

[Ambrose]: And his heroism, such as it is, is just desperation.

[Kelly]: Yeah, exactly. It’s basically just a primal scream for survival. He’s fighting for his sanity. Like, remember how he clutches that necklace he gave Linda...

[Ambrose]: Yeah, like he’s just trying to hold onto something real. You know, something symbolic of love and normalcy.

[Kelly]: Exactly. He’s trying to use that to fight off this chaotic, demonic force that’s been unleashed. His transformation in this film isn’t about becoming a badass. It’s about a complete psychological breakdown.

[Ambrose]: Yeah. And honestly, given everything we’ve talked about—the gore, the low budget, the brutal production—it’s really not a surprise the film had a rough time getting seen at first.

[Kelly]: No, not at all. The initial reaction was pretty harsh. Major distributor's rejected it flat out. They thought it was too gruesome. Too amateurish.

[Ambrose]: Right. They basically just saw flaws, not a unique style.

[Kelly]: Yeah. The term one critic used was "unremitting violence." They pointed to the choppy acting, the cheap effects... like the matted moon.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, exactly. They just saw the flaws in the movie.

[Kelly]: Exactly. Which is why one person’s opinion completely changed everything.

[Ambrose]: Ah, yes. The Kingmaker.

[Kelly]: We’re talking, of course, about Stephen King. Who, you know, by 1982 was basically the most important voice in horror, period.

[Ambrose]: He saw the movie at the Cannes Film Festival, right? At a point when Raimi and company were basically at the end of their rope.

[Kelly]: Yeah, exactly. And King didn’t just like it... he actually championed it.

[Ambrose]: I remember that. He even wrote that legendary review calling it...

[Kelly]: "The most ferociously original horror film of 1982."

[Ambrose]: Man. I mean, that quote was basically a godsend.

[Kelly]: It was everything. They slapped it on every poster, every ad. It gave the movie instant credibility. It arguably saved the entire film.

[Ambrose]: And King even helped get funding for Evil Dead 2.

[Kelly]: He did! He was a true believer.

[Ambrose]: But even with King’s endorsement, they ran straight into the censors.

[Kelly]: Oh, yeah. The MPAA slapped it with an X rating.

[Ambrose]: And that was purely for violence. Which was basically commercial death back then.

[Kelly]: Absolutely. So New Line Cinema released it unrated, but that meant most newspapers wouldn’t run ads for it. So it was forced underground.

[Ambrose]: And in the UK, it was a whole other level of panic.

[Kelly]: Oh, right. You mean the "Video Nasty" controversy. Which was basically this huge moral crusade against horror movies on home video.

[Ambrose]: And Evil Dead was their main target.

[Kelly]: Oh, literally. It was Video Nasty Number One. You had this campaigner named Mary Whitehouse who basically made it her mission to get the film banned.

[Ambrose]: And she actually succeeded. I mean, for a while, it was even prosecuted under obscenity laws.

[Kelly]: Yeah. So for years, you basically couldn’t get an uncut version legally in the UK.

[Ambrose]: Which, of course, only made more people want to see it.

[Kelly]: Exactly. Made it forbidden fruit. The controversy cemented its cult status forever.

[Ambrose]: And that cult status influenced so many other filmmakers. Raimi even put in a little nod to one of his own heroes.

[Kelly]: Oh, right. Down in the basement, you can actually see a ripped poster for Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes.

[Ambrose]: And I heard Craven returned the favor, right?

[Kelly]: He did! In A Nightmare on Elm Street, Nancy is watching The Evil Dead on TV to stay awake. It’s this wonderful little conversation between horror masters.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, and then Raimi actually put Freddy’s glove in the toolshed in Evil Dead 2. It’s just a great little back-and-forth.

[Kelly]: And you can see its DNA in Peter Jackson’s early splatter films and Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead.

[Ambrose]: But the best Easter egg... the one that runs through almost all of Raimi’s work... is his car.

[Kelly]: Ah, the classic. You mean the 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, that’s his actual car from when he was a kid?

[Kelly]: It actually is! And the crazy thing is, it has shown up in basically almost every movie he’s ever directed.

[Ambrose]: Oh yeah. I mean, it’s in Darkman... it’s in the Spider-Man movies...

[Kelly]: It’s even in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. It’s his good luck charm. A little piece of those miserable days in Tennessee that he carries with him everywhere.

[Ambrose]: Right. But you know, the franchise itself didn’t actually stay in that grim, serious place forever.

[Kelly]: No. After the first film, they realized that some of the over-the-top gore was actually making audiences laugh.

[Ambrose]: Right, and so they decided to just lean into it completely.

[Kelly]: Yeah. And Evil Dead 2 is basically where they invent "Splatstick."

[Ambrose]: Which is just splatter plus slapstick. Like, it’s horror and physical comedy all at once.

[Kelly]: Oh, totally. And it works beautifully. But then you get to Army of Darkness in 1992, and Ash is basically a completely different person.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, literally. I mean, he’s gone from the screaming guy in the cabin to this, like, narcissistic action hero with a bunch of one-liners.

[Kelly]: And you can even read that psychologically, if you want.

[Ambrose]: Oh, really? Okay, how so?

[Kelly]: Well, basically, it’s his mind creating this grandiose, competent persona just to cope with all the trauma he’s built up. It’s like these extreme defense mechanisms kicking in.

[Ambrose]: "Hail to the king, baby."

[Kelly]: Exactly. So the genre shifts to comedy-fantasy because that’s basically just what Ash’s mind has done to protect itself. He’s had to become a cartoon of a hero just to survive.

[Ambrose]: Right. But then, decades later, the franchise actually goes straight back to its roots.

[Kelly]: Yeah, with the 2013 Evil Dead. Which made a very conscious choice to be serious and brutal again. Like, no slapstick at all.

[Ambrose]: Yeah, it felt like they just wanted to make something relentlessly grim.

[Kelly]: Oh, for sure. Plus, they gave it a modern thematic twist. The main character, Mia, isn’t just on vacation—she’s actually there to detox.

[Ambrose]: Right. So her drug addiction and withdrawal becomes this powerful allegory for demon possession.

[Kelly]: Exactly. Because her friends think her screaming and vomiting are just withdrawal symptoms. Which is what makes it so tragic, because they don’t realize what’s really happening until it’s way too late. It just adds this whole other layer to it.

[Ambrose]: And just like the original, they did it with practical effects almost entirely.

[Kelly]: Oh, completely. Which means the lead actress, Jane Levy, basically went through absolute hell. I mean, she was buried alive for a scene, had tubes pumping fake vomit into her mouth...

[Ambrose]: So, in a way, they really honored the spirit of the original’s production. Like, the agony was just part of the process again.

[Kelly]: True. But they didn't just honor the spirit—they actually connected it to the original universe.

[Ambrose]: Oh right. You can see Ash’s old rusty Delta 88 outside the cabin in the remake.

[Kelly]: Which implies that the events of the first film happened there years ago. It suggests it’s all one big timeline.

[Ambrose]: And that the Books of the Dead are still out there, waiting for the next group of kids.

[Kelly]: Exactly. It shows how durable this core idea is. Whether it’s brutal horror, slapstick comedy, or a trauma allegory... the evil is always there. It just keeps coming back.

[Ambrose]: Well, on that note... I think the batteries in this tape recorder are officially dead. And honestly? That moon outside is definitely looking a little matted down.

[Kelly]: It really is. I’m just gonna go ahead and chain the trapdoor shut, just in case.

[Ambrose]: Probably a good call. But you better grab your flashlight anyway, because we’re heading straight down into the basement. You know, deep into the fruit cellar where the real horrors are waiting... otherwise known as the critics' crypt.

[Kelly]: Ugh, fine. I’ll meet you down there. Just... seriously, watch your step. I really don't want you getting swallowed by the floorboards.

[Ambrose:] If the floorboards swallow me, I’m haunting the snack cabinet first.

[Kelly:] That’s fine. Just don’t start whispering from the vents like, “Join us.”

[Ambrose:] You know this whole staircase already feels like the Evil Dead cabin, right? Creaky wood, weird air, bad choices.

[Kelly:] Yeah, and we still keep going down anyway, because we learned nothing from those kids.

[Ambrose:] At least our basement door isn’t chained shut. Yet.

[Kelly:] Give it time. If it starts banging like the fruit cellar, I’m kicking you toward it and running.

[Ambrose:] See, that’s love. Conditional love, but still love.

[Kelly:] It’s on-theme love. Okay, we’re in. Candles, check. Shadows, check. Smell of old VHS boxes, sadly, also check.

[Ambrose:] This really is the perfect place to talk Evil Dead though, because it feels like the cabin’s cheaper cousin.

[Kelly:] Yeah, just with fewer demons and slightly less blood on the walls…Slightly.

[Ambrose:] Alright, so, while the pipes are still quiet, what grabs you first with this movie?

[Kelly:] The energy. It never sits still. The camera runs, tilts, and shoves you into everything.

[Ambrose:] Yeah, I really love that rushing “demon cam” through the woods. It’s just a camera on some boards, but it feels alive.

[Kelly:] And because it’s so fast and low to the ground, you feel like the woods are chasing you.

[Ambrose:] Plus, it proves that even when you don’t have money, you can still make smart choices. The camera becomes the monster instead of some rubber suit.

[Kelly:] Yeah, and the gore is gross in the best way. It’s thick, the colors are weird, and everything looks like it’d stay sticky forever.

[Ambrose:] And the blood looks like paint sometimes, but somehow that makes it nastier, not weaker.

[Kelly:] Right, and the sound sells it. The pencil in the ankle, that squishy chewing, the bones cracking. My brain hates it, but my horror heart loves it.

[Ambrose:] Yeah, that pencil moment is tiny, but it hits harder than some big kills.

[Kelly:] Another thing I like, though, is Ash. He starts as this regular, kind of soft guy. He’s not the classic cool hero.

[Ambrose:] Right, and because he’s awkward and scared, it’s fun to watch him break down and still keep going.

[Kelly:] Yeah, and even though this one is more serious, you can already see a little of that wild Ash he becomes later.

[Ambrose:] I also like how trapped it feels. It’s basically one cabin, some trees, and that nasty cellar, yet it never feels empty.

[Kelly:] Yeah, because even though it’s tiny, it still feels like a maze. Every room’s a trap, and every window somehow looks like an even worse idea.

[Ambrose:] Right, and when every option looks that bad, it keeps you on edge the whole time. But since we’ve been talking about what it does well, we should probably admit where it trips up too.

[Kelly:] Yeah, that’s fair, because even though it hits hard, there are a few spots where it stumbles a bit.

[Ambrose:] Exactly. So, first con for me is the pacing once the chaos starts. After a while, it’s just screaming, more goo, more screaming.

[Kelly:] I agree. It’s intense, and that’s great, but it doesn’t always build in new ways. It can feel like the same type of loud over and over.

[Ambrose:] Yeah, and because of that, some of the middle starts to blur together. You remember the big moments, but everything in between can feel like one long stretch of panic.

[Kelly:] And while we’re there, the characters are super thin. They’re basically “friend,” “other friend,” “girlfriend,” “sister.”

[Ambrose:] Yeah. You feel bad for them, but you don’t really know them, so you’re reacting more to the horror than to their lives.

[Kelly:] Yeah, I still care a bit, because they’re stuck in this total nightmare, but we don’t really know who they are. We just know they picked the worst cabin on planet Earth for a vacation.

[Ambrose:] Right, and since we don’t know much about them, the acting has to do a lot of the work, but it doesn’t always get there. Sometimes it feels like they’re cold, tired, and just trying to survive the shoot as much as the demons.

[Kelly:] Which they were. And that’s kind of funny later, yet it can pull new viewers out, especially if they’re used to slick horror.

[Ambrose:] And then there’s the tree assault scene. It’s shocking, sure, but it feels cruel in a way that doesn’t add much.

[Kelly:] Yeah, it crosses a line for me. It’s still powerful, but not in a way I enjoy. Instead of adding depth, it just makes me uncomfortable.

[Ambrose:] I get that they wanted to push things, but honestly, the movie wouldn’t lose anything big if that moment were toned down.

[Kelly:] Also, the clay and stop motion at the end are fun, but they look kind of goofy now. The meltdown is wild, but it sometimes plays more silly than scary.

[Ambrose:] It’s like someone dumped a haunted art project on the floor. Now don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed it, though it shifts the mood.

[Kelly:] Yeah, same here, because even though there’s a lot I really like, little things like that keep it from feeling like a totally perfect watch for me.

[Ambrose:] I feel that, and even with those little bumps, when you stack all the good and the rough together, it still lands pretty hard.

[Kelly:] Yeah, it really does, so since we’ve dragged it through the woods and back, where do you land on the Coffin rating?

[Ambrose:] Well, for me. Evil Dead gets 4 out of 5 Coffins. I love the wild camera work, the nasty effects, and Ash’s slow meltdown. But the thin characters, the shouting wall in the middle, and that tree scene keep it from a perfect score.

[Kelly:] That makes sense. I’m a bit lower, even though I respect it a lot. I’m giving it 3 out of 5 Coffins.

[Ambrose:] That’s still solid.

[Kelly:] Yeah, because it’s creative, loud, and brave for what it had. However, the pacing wears me out, the characters are flat, and that one scene really hurts my rewatch mood.

[Ambrose:] So it’s like a cursed tape. Important to listen to once, but you might not want it on repeat every weekend.

[Kelly:] Exactly. Although, if you love bloody, messy, old-school horror, you should absolutely visit this cabin at least once.

[Ambrose:] Just don’t read weird books out loud in a basement like this while you do it.

[Kelly:] Speaking of that, did you leave that dusty book on the table?

[Ambrose:] No. I thought you did.

[Kelly:] Uh yeah, it just went ahead and opened all by itself.

[Ambrose:] Ah yeah, I’m done. Quick blow out the candles, and grab the coffin chart, and uh yeah let’s run.

[Kelly:] Uh yeah, I’m right behind you, but if that trap door pops open, I’m letting you know I’m going to use you as a human shield.

[Ambrose:] Ok that’s fair. But just tell my story with good lighting and practical effects ok.

[Kelly:] Sure  . Now stop talking, because something in that corner just moved too and I really don’t want to know wh—

[Ambrose:] Okay, cool, so, reminder for future us: if the corner starts moving, or a book opens up by itself. We’re done.

[Kelly:] Yeah, and if the shadows wave back at you, Well, you don’t wave first, you leave.

[Ambrose:] I was trying to! But those stairs are, like, ninety percent dust and one percent ghosts pulling on my ankles.

[Kelly:] The other percent is you, tripping over absolutely nothing. I thought I’d have to roll you up the last step.

[Ambrose:] Well, if I broke my neck on those stairs, you’d still blame the Book.

[Kelly:] Of course. I’d say “Cause of death: read the Latin out loud and then forgot leg day.”

[Ambrose:] To be fair, that cellar did sound like the fruit cellar from Evil Dead, only with worse ventilation.

[Kelly:] Yeah, and the banging? I swear it got louder every time you said, “It’s probably nothing.”

[Ambrose:] It usually is nothing.

[Kelly:] It’s never nothing in a basement. If the floor has a door, the answer is no.

[Ambrose:] So we agree. Next time we watch a horror movie, we stay on the couch and not in the basement.

[Kelly:] We can, but if you even think about pausing to “look closer” at some creepy corner, I’m leaving you like a broken projector.

[Ambrose:] Wow, that’s rude. But I get it.

[Kelly:] Look, either we both survive, or you trip once, distract the demon, and I tell your story with great lighting…Deal.

[Ambrose:] Oh and don’t forget the practical effects too, right?

[Kelly:] Obviously, I’m not cheap.

[Ambrose:] Alright we have a deal. But just a thought who just opened the basement door again? I could of sworn I Clo—