Several Hot Takes About The Evil Dead
1. Evil Dead is scary. Like, actually scary. It’s all but scientifically proven; horror movies get me worst (best?) when I think they can’t hurt me. An infamously scary film is watched with lights on, volume down, emotional barrier and snarky attitude up, and, most fatally of all, expectations high. Nothing is ever as scary as it is in my wildest imagination, and the movie is doomed to be “not as scary as I expected.” Alas, I’d first seen Evil Dead 2 , double-featured with the tonally similar Reanimator on the very night I turned in my application to Yale. ED2 is a combination sequel and parody, Sam Raimi’s more raucous riff on the original film, too slapstick to be scary. But, horror completist that I am, I knew I had to watch the infamous original. Since its sequel didn’t scare me, the first one didn’t stand a chance. Naturally, I decided to watch Evil Dead after returning from a jaunt in the woods. My family lives in Appalachian Virginia, no...