There is a world of movies continuing Evil Dead’s splattery legacy
Evil Dead Rise’s promise of demonic carnage in an apartment building and a very Deadite’d Alyssa Sutherland sent a jolt of recognition swept through a particular subset of horror fans. For five movies, one TV show, multiple video games and comics, and 42 years Sam Raimi’s iconic franchise has reigned as the king of cursed cabin bloodbaths. Yet more than the franchise’s multimedia reach, that legacy shines brighter via the series’ DNA coursing through the genre.
From a Brazilian tome of the dead, to Indonesian black-magic fiends, and myriad indie directors making their own over-the-top demonic sieges, Raimi’s flavor of gags and guts have been filtered through the prism of creatives across the decades and the globe, honoring The Evil Dead with their own loving (and often gore-gushing) twists, tweaks, nods, and homages to his classics.
Before delving into the influence of the Evil Dead movies on horror, it’s important to look back. Konstantin Yershov and Georgi Kropachyov’s 1967 Soviet folk tale Viy might be seen as a fitting predecessor to Evil Dead, but it’s a bigger deal than that. The direction, creature designs, and dark supernatural whimsy come across as a Rosetta Stone for Raimi, Tim Burton, Hausu’s Nobuhiko Obayashi, and entire strands of Italian and Japanese horror. The misfortune of foolish seminary student Khoma (Leonid Kuravlyov) leads the man to endure three nights of vigil and prayer for a village merchant’s deceased daughter… who also happened to be a vengeful witch seeking to drive him insane. Each night erupts into a onslaught of dizzying camerawork and gleeful torment within claustrophobic chapel confines; the escalation from flying coffin to stunning array of hellish beasts — realized through camera
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