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The Evil Dead is a 1981 horror film directed by Sam Raimi, starring Bruce Campbell.
The story is simple: Five college students venture into the wooded mountains of Tennessee to spend a weekend of fun in an isolated cabin. Instead, the teenagers find the "Book of the Dead" (also referred to as the "Necronomicon Ex Mortis" in the two sequels, although it is not actually related to the book of that name from the Cthulhu Mythos), play a tape recording of demonic incantations from the Book, and unknowingly open a portal to the netherworld. The characters are then killed off in a somewhat disjointed sequence of scenes of extremely intense, bloody and realistic-looking violence, and the film ends with the apparently invisible evil spirit bearing down on the last survivor.
Two sequels were made, Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, although Army of Darkness was not a horror film. Many consider Evil Dead II to be a remake of the origninal. This controversy stems from the beginning of the film, where the story of the first movie is summarized, though done so with some changes to the script.
Army of Darkness did not earn a lot of money at the box-office, and Raimi has been unable to find funding for a new Evil Dead movie. There have been rumors of a movie staring Ash, Bruce Campbell's character in the Evil Dead films, in a sequel to Freddy Vs. Jason, referred to as Freddy Vs. Jason Vs. Ash. Both Raimi and Campbell have expressed interest in another Evil Dead film.
The series is regarded as a cult classic, and a book, The Evil Dead Companion (Bill Warren, ISBN 0312275013) has been written about it.
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