Classic and Modern Evil Dead Films Screenings Thread

Hurley

Hurley

Spinach Chin
Staff member
Joined
Jul 9, 2015
Location
Brno, Czech Republic
So a small cinema in my home town is planning an Evil Dead Marathon for November 8 of this year, so I thought it could be fun to have a thread here for when local cinemas screen the old movies in the franchise.

This marathon will go from 5:40 PM to almost midnight and they will screen the original trilogy plus Within the Woods at the end. I definitely want to see ED 1 and 2 and I can take or leave AoD, so we'll see how the night will progress. It would be better if they'd screen Within the Woods at the start, but that's just a nitpick.

Anyway: has anybody here ever seen the first movie in theatres? I'm asking because although I'm fully on board with a loud audience for ED 2 and AoD, I'm kinda worried about the same thing happening with the OG movie. The first Evil Dead can be pretty scary if you meet it at its own terms,, but lots of people like to laugh at it just because of the micro budget and bad acting. So I'm kinda worried that's what's gonna happen here.
 
Hurley said:
So a small cinema in my home town is planning an Evil Dead Marathon for November 8 of this year, so I thought it could be fun to have a thread here for when local cinemas screen the old movies in the franchise.

This marathon will go from 5:40 PM to almost midnight and they will screen the original trilogy plus Within the Woods at the end. I definitely want to see ED 1 and 2 and I can take or leave AoD, so we'll see how the night will progress. It would be better if they'd screen Within the Woods at the start, but that's just a nitpick.

Anyway: has anybody here ever seen the first movie in theatres? I'm asking because although I'm fully on board with a loud audience for ED 2 and AoD, I'm kinda worried about the same thing happening with the OG movie. The first Evil Dead can be pretty scary if you meet it at its own terms,, but lots of people like to laugh at it just because of the micro budget and bad acting. So I'm kinda worried that's what's gonna happen here.
Click to expand...
I saw a Bruce Campbell double feature at my local cinema around 2005: The Evil Dead and Man With The Screaming Brain.

I was really impressed with The Evil Dead's presentation, especially the sound. That cinema has a THX system, so it was perfection. Audience was great. They were Bruce Campbell fans. It was like a late 10 or 11pm showing. Audience laughed at the 'We can't bury Shelly. She's our friend.' line. If they laughed at other things, it wasn't disruptive. The presentation was so loud, it really drowned out any chatter or disruption anyway. I just remember the sound of the Evil moving through the woods as enveloping, making it sound like it was right behind me, and all around me.
 
Hurley said:
So a small cinema in my home town is planning an Evil Dead Marathon for November 8 of this year, so I thought it could be fun to have a thread here for when local cinemas screen the old movies in the franchise.

This marathon will go from 5:40 PM to almost midnight and they will screen the original trilogy plus Within the Woods at the end. I definitely want to see ED 1 and 2 and I can take or leave AoD, so we'll see how the night will progress. It would be better if they'd screen Within the Woods at the start, but that's just a nitpick.

Anyway: has anybody here ever seen the first movie in theatres? I'm asking because although I'm fully on board with a loud audience for ED 2 and AoD, I'm kinda worried about the same thing happening with the OG movie. The first Evil Dead can be pretty scary if you meet it at its own terms,, but lots of people like to laugh at it just because of the micro budget and bad acting. So I'm kinda worried that's what's gonna happen here.
Click to expand...
I saw the first film at The Scala in London in the early 80's but I won't bore everyone with "Hey! check me out!. I saw Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock!" stuff .. it was mostly punk rockers going there then.

I saw 1 and 2 at a double bill (I've still got some flyers from that night) again in England in about 1991 .. again, it was mostly punk rockers.

I've never seen AOD on the big screen. We didn't really embrace that film as hard although I did rent out a VHS copy then deliberately didn't return it then went back into the rental store and stole the case for it so I've still got that.

We didn't have the internet back then so I had to be shady to be an Evil Dead collector. I still am.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: DyD
Hurley said:
The first Evil Dead can be pretty scary if you meet it at its own terms,, but lots of people like to laugh at it just because of the micro budget and bad acting. So I'm kinda worried that's what's gonna happen here.
Click to expand...
I 100% understand and agree with you on this Hurley.

It was a scary film when it first came out with a few drunks in the audience laughing at it and I think that partly influenced Bruce (especially) and Sam to turn up the comedy aspect. That's not a criticism of their choice. They've always been excellent at that and that made the later two films great fun to watch.

Back then though, the rest of us were comparing The Evil Dead to The Exorcist.

We took this pic before Army Of Darkness was made. Me and my friend would have also been in this pic if we'd remembered to put the flash on on the camera at the time.

acinema001.jpg
 
Last edited:
My local theater had a screening of The Evil Dead in October of 2021 when seating was still limited due to the pandemic, and it sold out almost instantly when the theater made their own tickets available after Fathom Events... or whoever else was involved in the movie being shown. I was ready to risk it all to help celebrate the 40th anniversary, but sadly missed out.
 
I'm going to go see Evil Dead in Concert when it comes through town at the end of the month!
 
So the Evil Dead Marathon in my home town was pretty neat, with the theater pretty much full for the event. There were even some decoration and a "bloody" G&T on tap. There were some Evil Dead t-shirts in the attendance (including mine) and one lady even had an Ashy Slashy puppet, which was very nice. One guy was even in a pretty good Ash cosplay, but I didn't get to take a pic of him. There was however a professional photographer on site so when the theater releases the official photos of the event, I can link them here.

Even though the guy who introduced the marathon did the thing I really don't like, saying the whole trilogy is a horror comedy, including the first movie, I think the vibes in the audience were pretty good. There were some laughs during the first film, but I would probably describe them as… "understandable" considering what that movie is and that it's over 40 years old at this point. What also surprised me was how kind of weird it was for me to see this with a large audience. The first Evil Dead is still a very personal film for me so it felt somewhat strange to share it with like 150 other people – though also like 10% of them raised their hands when asked if there is anybody there that has never seen an Evil Dead movie before, which I think was kinda interesting.

If I would nitpick one thing, it would be that they screened the 16:9 crop of the movie. I heard that some of the new Blu-ray releases let you choose between the fullscreen and the original aspect ratio, so I should probably track that down and upgrade my collection.

If it was a little weird for me to see the first Evil Dead with an audience, Evil Dead II was the opposite. It's the perfect movie to watch in a packed theater. People were really into it, laughing and even cheering and clapping on three occasions (the "groovy scene", when Ash gets out of the cellar to fight Henrietta, and at the very end). The time also flew by very quickly during ED II since I really know that movie by heart and since it's just a fun romp from beginning to end. They also screened Army of Darkness and Within the Woods at the very end, but I went home after Evil Dead II. I was a bit tired at that point and to be perfectly honest, I don't really feel the need to see AoD in theater, though I might catch it on streaming one of these days to complete the experience.

Over all a good event with a solid fan base (when chatting in between of the films, some groups were talking about how they prefer the second movie, while others preferred the first one, which I find really interesting). But more than anything, this marathon reminded my of just how much I love the first Evil Dead, because it's been a couple of years since I last watched it. It's truly a magical film that effects me in ways I can't truly explain and it really is one of my favorite movies of all time.
 
Kain said:
Hmmm. I'm not sure we need a thread for this, but not sure where else it would go.
Click to expand...
Hah, that was my thought when I made it but I figured that someone might want to see it when they can next month.
 
Works for me!
 
Yay, thanks Kain!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom