review: THE EVIL DEAD (ULTIMATE EDITION)

Starz/Anchor Bay  //  Buy from Amazon.com More than 25 years ago, a low-budget movie its young producers called 'The Ultimate Experience In Grueling Terror' roared across movie screens and changed the velocity of fear forever. Today, its ferocious ingenuity, relentless shocks and gore-gushing havoc remain an absolute standard of modern horror. Now celebrate the original Sam Raimi masterpiece like never before with two versions of the movie, six new featurettes that revisit the film's cast, crew, biggest fans and undying legacy, plus a jaw-dropping torrent of never- beforeseen production footage, outtakes and deleted scenes, reconstructed and restored for the first time ever. This is truly The Ultimate Edition of THE EVIL DEAD. I distinctly recall my buddies in junior high telling me about this crazy film they'd discovered on videotape called "Evil Dead" - as I was far too absorbed by Pee Wee Herman and Ed Grimley at the time, I paid their passionate pleas to check it out little heed. Fast forward to about 1999 or 2000 and I finally found myself a horror fan or, more specifically, a b-movie fan, so I started exploring the shelves of my local indie/arthouse video store to see what hidden gems I could uncover. "Evil Dead" was one of those discoveries, and while I may have been late to the game, I quickly became a passionate and ardent fan of the film. Now, most seem to prefer the sequel/rehashing, mostly because of its comedic elements, but I vastly prefer the first film, as it seems more "pure" somehow - this is the film that a group of buddies got together and made in the woods, this is the film that introduced the still-gelling character of Ash to the world, where his future wackiness was only hinted & teased to in this first film. This is the film with the wacky tree branch scene, the (more) impressive instantly-decayed body rising from the grave, and so on, and so on. I just like it better, and have actually owned a few copies of the film on DVD (all but one released by Anchor Bay, incidentally.) Here we go again with another DVD release, but this one is absolutely worth picking up, as it's a 3-disc collection that has both a widescreen AND the original fullscreen version, as well as tons of extras to enjoy. This truly is the ultimate edition, and any self-respecting fan of Raimi, Campbell or b-movies will want to pick this up. Video Typically, I like to watch a film as it was originally shot and intended to be presented, which, in the case of "Evil Dead," would be fullscreen. However, now that I have a nice, big, shiny widescreen plasma TV, I didn't want to watch this classic film, released on this Ultimate Edition DVD, and have it be stretched out to fit my 16x9 screen. So, I opted for the (cropped) 16x9 widescreen presentation, to ensure that I saw every pixel as at least Anchor Bay intended (if not Sam Raimi when he originally shot it), and y'know what? I was very impressed. Obviously, it's not like I'm missing that much in terms of picture with the top & bottom chopped off a bit, but to see the super detail with zero stretching made it well worth selecting option #1. Audio Anchor Bay serves up your choice of either Dolby Digital 5.1 EX or DTS 6.1 ES mixes... I opted for the latter (always go DTS) and was amazed - for a 25 year old, low-budget, terror in the woods film, this sounds fantastic - kudos to the sound producers on this remix! Extras 2 audio commentaries: Sam Raimi & producer; Bruce Campbell choice of widescreen or fullscreen versions of film "One by One We Will Take You" retrospective documentary "Treasure from the Cutting Room Floor" deleted footage "Discovering Evil Dead" featurette "The Ladies of Evil Dead" featurette "Bruce Campbell Meets the Ladies of Evil Dead" featurette Q&A session & reunion panel makeup test photo gallery behind the scenes footage trailer & tv spots Closing Thoughts 3 disc truly ultimate edition + BUTTLOADS o' extras! = definitely the definitive version of this defining classic!