The Evil Dead [Paperback]

Two couples, all friends, decide to get away from everything by renting a remote cabin and situating themselves in the middle of nothing. Scotty, the alpha male of the group, decided on the cabin just because of cost and location, so the group heads up to rural Tennessee and begins to move in. right away things start to go awry, too, when they discover things about the former occupants that they just didn't need to know. for one thing, they had left a book that was bound in human flesh and inked in human bloood. For another, they had left a recording of what the book says. And when the audio book starts to play, something goes crawling through the woods and makes sure that the couples will be "dead by dawn."

I've seen many remakes of the original movvie, but I have to say that this 4 part series is one of the best out there. Not only does it give you the actors script but it also adds in some interesting elements that wer enot in the movie. One of those are the thoughts of Ash (Bruce campbell) as he is introduced to this demon-filled playpen of horrors, and another are certain angles that were not in the movie. Take, for example, some parts we see in the second book. When Scotty decides to bolt from the cain, we never see what happened to him. Here, we do. When Cheryll goes into the basement, we don't know what was down there with her. In this, we do. We also have a little bit of retrospect on the matter, and i liked that as well. Having Ash tell us that a bit on chain and some nails wouldn't hold a Deadite in the basement. He also mentions how they were toying with him the whole time - something we all knew when we watched the movie, but something that Ash didn't understad when he was fighting for what seemed like his life. Over and over again we see things we knew were there but that we didn't know about when the chips were in play, and those things were scary little beasts with bites that answered questions. I appreciated that, too, because I like the little things that turn out to be big things when stories are being told. This, plus the style of the comic that turn it into a frightfest, are appreciated.

As far as the art is concerned, it took some of the major plot points and it showed them in a fashion that took depravity and made it a plaything. When the pencil scene comes into play, for example, it still looks terrible and it still has its shock value. The one thing it didn't have was the comedy backing it up; there was no selection of a pencil by a rotting hand that drove the point - no pun intended - home. The same can be said for the way that certain people die. When the shovel scene comes into play, it has a bloody connotation that makes it less comedic than the movie. It also takes out the cheapness of the movie, making it terrible, and that is beautiful in my mind.

The collected editions of the comics makes for a good read and tells the story of Ash more than it does anything else. That makes everything interesting because we still have Evil Dead, but it is all horror and added onto in a ghastly way. If you are fans of the movie, of horror, or of the new way in which an old tale can have new blood, then you need to check this out. i personally feel like the new ways capture a lot of the dead story, and of how Ash felt as he tried to get away. I think others will like that as well, and they will appreciate the dialog in its paraphrased contexted, seeing how Ash is telling us everything (and including flashbacks of people like his girlfriend) to the audience that already knows the story a bit too well.

If you're a fan of John Bolton's beautiful painting or Raimi's Evil Dead serious this is a must read.

› Go to Amazon U.S. to see both reviews  4.5 out of 5 stars