DVD DEMENTIA:
THE EVIL LORELY’S EVIL DEAD GRASP.

David Bujak survives Anchor Bay Entertainment’s new EVIL DEAD: ULTIMATE EDITION and De Ossorio’s THE LORELY’S GRASP.

---

 

Beautiful fake moons, an old abandoned shack, your friends threatening to swallow your soul, and of course, foliage making sexual advances at you—all that can only mean it is time for another release of the classic horror film EVIL DEAD. This time though Anchor Bay seems to be trying to throw everything you could want and more into what they are aptly calling EVIL DEAD ULTIMATE EDITION. This edition includes three discs, including two for two different formats of the film (widescreen and, for some reason, full frame) and one full of extras, mostly those that have to do with the lovely “ladies of the EVIL DEAD.” Each of the feature discs also includes one extra and audio commentary, although the audio commentary is the same as in previous versions. One disc features Producer Rob Tapert and Writer/Director Sam Raimi and the other Bruce Campbell. Both are enjoyable and add a little more to the film at times, but as I said before, that is the old news.

Should I first speak a little of the movie? Okay, for those of you who don’t know, EVIL DEAD is a story about a group of five teenagers who are taking a short break from school in a very isolated cabin. Things start getting a little strange when their explorations take them to the basement of the house where they find a book that just happens to be H.P. Lovecraft’s legendary dark arts tome NECRONOMICON. With the book they find some old reel-to-reel audio tapes that they decide to listen to and discover are from a scientist who is studying the book along with the “magic” it is thought to contain. While listening to the audio, the scientist says a phrase probably better left unsaid. Upon the repeating of the words something awakens in the woods. Each of the group have their own encounters with the demonic presence which leads to a lot of blood, black contact lenses and nursery rhymes. Fun stuff.

Now that that is out of the way, let’s talk about extras. As I mentioned earlier, this set is filled with special features. Disc One, the widescreen feature, includes “One By One We Will Take You: The Untold Saga of The Evil Dead”—54 minutes of interviews with most of the crew and cast of the film on all of the behind-the-scenes stuff that actually went into the making of the movie, how it was received and how they look back on it now. They even add in a few other fans of the movie and what they thought when they first saw the movie, such as Edgar Wright, Eli Roth and Joe Bob Briggs, just to name a few. The documentary is a very insightful take on what this movie came from and what it accomplished.

Disc Two, the full-frame feature, includes “The Evil Dead: Treasures from the Cutting Room Floor.” This is just what it sounds like, only thing with this version of “cutting room floor” extras is its runtime, a full 59 minutes of outtakes from a film that only runs 83 minutes itself. As you can imagine, you are getting a lot of the alternate takes and set-ups of most of the film. They did say Sam continuously re-shot scenes, and I can only imagine how many they actually had to go through just from seeing these extras. The crew are always talking about how grueling the shoot was, and you can actually see that here.

Disc Three is simply titled “Ladies of the EVIL DEAD.” Most of the extras on this disc deal with the three women of the film—Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker and Theresa Tilly (credited as Sarah York). It begins with a small documentary about the three women and their current lives and how they became aware of the following this film has amassed. They each tell their own reaction to the response it has gotten and how they have come together to start going out and embracing this film that they never expected to do much of anything, but are grateful for what it has achieved. The feature includes clips from some of their convention appearances, as well as what they seemed to be most thankful for, a chance to meet Alice Cooper. The disc continues this trend by including a meeting with Bruce Campbell, which was the first time they’ve all been together since the film. They speak again about their experiences, only with Bruce adding the colorful commentary. After that, they meet up with more of the cast including Ted Raimi, Hal Delrich and Rob Tapert. They once again reminisce about the film and hard times making it. It starts to get a bit repetitive since some of the cast wasn’t there before and didn’t realize the story had already been told. If you listen to both commentaries, these stories even start losing more muster because it becomes the third or fourth time you’ve revisited this memory.

The disc does include a couple of the extras found on Anchor Bay’s THX release of the film such as the TV spots, still gallery and trailer, but it also adds one other little nugget about how “The Palace Boys” were able to obtain video rights for the film. It goes into the story of how they actually had the video out and were screening the film at the cinema at the same time and got into a little hot water over it. Although only 13 minutes, it does show part of the business side of things this movie had to deal with.

Anchor Bay advertises this as the ULTIMATE EDITION, and with all of the footage in this three-disc set, one actually has a hard time arguing that fact. From time to time a story does get repeated, but with this many people telling their versions of the story, that should be expected. What else can one really say about EVIL DEAD that hasn’t already been said? It has become such a big cult hit that it has spawned everything from sequels to video games, and even a musical. I truly believe this to be a scary and eerie movie that will stand out for years to come. Makes one wonder if there will be future editions released. Only improvement I could see would be to hear more from Sam Raimi on what he actually thinks of the film today and maybe they could add the short that got them financed “Into the Woods,” but according to Bruce, that will never happen.  

---

The Loreley’s Grasp

Some movies have a way of transcending time just on how well made they are and others come across by actually being dated. Amando de Ossorio’s THE LORELEY’S GRASP would fall under the latter category. From the ‘70s-style wardrobe to the latex-laden effects, it is easy to tell when this movie was made. For entertainment value though, it isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

De Ossorio, probably more known for the devil worshipping templar BLIND DEAD movies, offers us another story of local legend becoming reality. This certain legend involves a siren-like creature called Loreley, who shape-shifts into a hideous heart-removing creature in the moonlight, but is a beautiful red-headed princess during the day—a princess who lives in an underwater cave, but royalty none the less. It all begins when a bride-to-be is killed the night before her wedding by the creature. People in town just consider it to be a wild animal attack, but a local blind minstrel reminds people of the Loreley legend. A teacher from a nearby women’s boarding school comes to the mayor of the town asking for protection for her students. He says he has just the person and sends a hunter named Sigurd to guard them. Sigurd is played by actor Tony Kendall and is this younger-than-expected cool character who has been a hunter since he was 11 years old. The story continues with encounters of a mad scientist who finds a way of breaking down the molecular structure of the creature by using a radioactive knife. Of course, our hero Sigurd gets his hand on the weapon and that sets up the inevitable conclusion.

As I mentioned earlier, this film is easily dated, but I like that. It put me in mind of a lot of the old horror movies I grew up on while watching Dr. Shock Theater. Those films had no nudity, but apart from the opening scene of a topless woman getting dressed, it was fairly absent from this movie, too. The murder scenes were enjoyable due to the fact of having a huge rubber hand causing many deep wounds which were quickly covered with blood. I think they even looped a couple of the murders where the skin was being torn apart to get to the heart. The acting was on par with everything else. I found this to be a movie I would like to put in again when I have some guests over just so we could enjoy it all together. It may not be the same enjoyment de Ossorio intended us to get from the film when he made it, but it would be fun all the same.

---