Sam Raimi's directorial debut, "The evil dead" (1981) is a commendable effort by a promising director. In the grand tradition of "The Texas chainsaw massacre" (1974), Raimi shows in the first half that good direction can be more powerful than any kind of visual terror, something not always understood when making thrillers (see, or rather don't, "The Amityville horror" (1979)). We follow a group of friends as they accidentally summon some demons and try to survive their attack.
This premise, to which isn't done justice by my blunt description, is excellently brought to life through the well-paced, full of feelings direction by Raimi. With his camera, he managed to create a sense of constant horror, this feeling of continuous chase by the demons so intensely felt by the heroes themselves. The haunting music by Joe Loduca helped the most. While we do see some gore, most of the horror comes from the sense of danger prevalent in the atmosphere, as created by Raimi's directorial skills.
Unfortunately, in the second half, the director has a change of mind and suddenly decided to fill his movie with all the gore imaginable, scenes that, if grouped together, could be - and this could be no exaggeration - be named, "The decay and utter destruction of the human body". The human body reduced but to a pile of entrails that are there for us to see and want to vomit ours.
"Vomit" is the perfect verb that could describe what Raimi wanted us to do in the second half of this movie. As if having lost faith in his direction and thinking it didn't make the film scary enough, the director decided that bloody spectacle is the recipe for a good horror movie, and put in his one everything imaginable, emphasized and reinforced by his direction. To me, this changes the whole movie. The feelings that are now caused are not those of fear and terror, but of disgust and repulsion. The movie becomes hard to see not because it is horrifying, but because it is disgusting, so stinking with bodily fluid and entrails that it pushes you away. It also becomes kitsch, in the sense of the hyperbolic.
In most horror movies, we don't really see the horror, but the reactions of the protagonists, which, if directed well, are terrifying by themselves. Raimi may have thought that this is a sign of cowardice on the part of most directors. But it is, to my mind, a way worse move to show this horror, because this way one only turns to easily-produced feelings of disgust to make their film memorable. Maybe I'm the one whose sensibilities are offended, but I don't think so. I just think that "The evil dead" prefers to show us how repulsive it can be rather than how frightening,even though it happens to be so that through disgust,we become desensitised to horror. It simply leaves our mind.
I believe that good thrillers, be they the ones who haunt us ("Don't look now", "The shining"), or the ones who frighten us ("The Texas chainsaw massacre", "Driller killer"), are the result of good direction. Visual spectacle matters next to nothing (Cinematography is another thing). Too bad that "The evil dead" preferred to use this method at the end. Because it was, indeed, something.
This premise, to which isn't done justice by my blunt description, is excellently brought to life through the well-paced, full of feelings direction by Raimi. With his camera, he managed to create a sense of constant horror, this feeling of continuous chase by the demons so intensely felt by the heroes themselves. The haunting music by Joe Loduca helped the most. While we do see some gore, most of the horror comes from the sense of danger prevalent in the atmosphere, as created by Raimi's directorial skills.
Unfortunately, in the second half, the director has a change of mind and suddenly decided to fill his movie with all the gore imaginable, scenes that, if grouped together, could be - and this could be no exaggeration - be named, "The decay and utter destruction of the human body". The human body reduced but to a pile of entrails that are there for us to see and want to vomit ours.
"Vomit" is the perfect verb that could describe what Raimi wanted us to do in the second half of this movie. As if having lost faith in his direction and thinking it didn't make the film scary enough, the director decided that bloody spectacle is the recipe for a good horror movie, and put in his one everything imaginable, emphasized and reinforced by his direction. To me, this changes the whole movie. The feelings that are now caused are not those of fear and terror, but of disgust and repulsion. The movie becomes hard to see not because it is horrifying, but because it is disgusting, so stinking with bodily fluid and entrails that it pushes you away. It also becomes kitsch, in the sense of the hyperbolic.
In most horror movies, we don't really see the horror, but the reactions of the protagonists, which, if directed well, are terrifying by themselves. Raimi may have thought that this is a sign of cowardice on the part of most directors. But it is, to my mind, a way worse move to show this horror, because this way one only turns to easily-produced feelings of disgust to make their film memorable. Maybe I'm the one whose sensibilities are offended, but I don't think so. I just think that "The evil dead" prefers to show us how repulsive it can be rather than how frightening,even though it happens to be so that through disgust,we become desensitised to horror. It simply leaves our mind.
I believe that good thrillers, be they the ones who haunt us ("Don't look now", "The shining"), or the ones who frighten us ("The Texas chainsaw massacre", "Driller killer"), are the result of good direction. Visual spectacle matters next to nothing (Cinematography is another thing). Too bad that "The evil dead" preferred to use this method at the end. Because it was, indeed, something.