The Evil Dead (Raimi, 1981): BFI Southbank, NFT1, 8.45pm
This film is part of the 'Scala: Sex, drugs and rock and roll cinema' season at BFI Southbank. The movie also screens on January 30th. Full details here.
Chicago Reader review:
Sam Raimi directed this 1981 horror feature fresh out of film school,
and his anything-for-an-effect enthusiasm pays off in lots of formally
inventive bits. The film is ferociously kinetic and full of visual
surprises, though its gut-churning reputation doesn’t seem fully
deserved: if anything the gore is too picturesque and studied, an
abstract decorator’s mix of oozing, slimy color, like some exotic
species of new-wave interior design. There’s a weird comic energy in the
frenetic physical playing—hysterical actors running in and out of
rooms, zombies popping up from the floorboards and out of wall cabinets
like jack-in-the-boxes—and the mad Punch-and-Judy orchestration takes on
an almost choreographic quality at times (this may be the first
commedia dell’arte horror film). There are lots of clever turns on
standard horror movie formulas, and one image especially lingers in the
mind: a woman splintering into an infinity of hairline cracks, like the
suddenly shattered surface of a ceramic vase.
Pat Graham
Here (and above) is the trailer.
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