As a fan of both B-movies and the horror genre, it's pretty much a given that I'm also a fan of the Evil Dead trilogy. I'm not one the super-devoted mega-fans that starts frothing at the mouth at the mere mention of the franchise's name, but I really do love those three movies. That affection is why I'm nervous about the release of the Evil Dead remake. Sure, the franchise's creators are working behind the scenes of the remake as producers, but I'm still afraid that something could possibly go wrong.
But with the remake hitting movie theaters near you today, I thought I'd go back to the beginning of the Evil Dead franchise, back before the original trilogy. I'm specifically referring to the short film called Within the Woods. Made in 1978 on a budget of $1,600, this 30-minute short film actually served as a "proof-of-concept" prototype to show potential investors and generate funding for the first Evil Dead movie.
Never legally released in any home video format and existing today as a bootleg that looks like it was copied from a tenth-generation VHS tape, Within the Woods is an important piece of horror history for no other reason than because it laid the groundwork for one of the genre's most influential trilogies. And while it's essentially a glorified demo reel, Within the Woods isn't that bad either.
The premise is similar, but not quite. As the movie begins, a pair of vacationing couples ― Bruce (Bruce Campbell) and Ellen (Ellen Sandweiss), and Scotty (Scott Spiegel) and Shelly (Mary Valenti) ― are settling into a remote cabin in the woods. While Scotty and Shelly argue over a game of Monopoly, Bruce and Ellen venture out into the woods for a picnic. Bruce actually knows quite a bit about the area, revealing that the cabin is close to an old Native American burial ground. The burial ground is supposedly cursed, and those who disturb it are doomed to suffer the wrath of the angry spirits that watch over the area.
He assures a spooked Shelly that there's nothing to worry about, that it's just some old story. Besides, all they'll be doing is eating hot dogs, not bothering anyone's eternal slumber. But as Bruce digs a fire pit, he accidentally uncovers one of those old graves. And as he is quick to discover, the curse is true and the spirits that he has awakened are hungry for blood.
You have to keep in mind that Within the Woods wasn't made for mass consumption. It was produced for dirt cheap as a means of convincing Michigan businessmen to invest some cash in a feature-length movie whose creators weren't certain would even be completed, let alone successful. Within the Woods isn't Sam Raimi and company saying "here's what we can do," but something more along the lines of "here's what we could do." The movie's really rough around the edges, but as a piece of horror movie history, it's worth seeing just to experience where the Evil Dead movies got off the ground.
And really, you can most certainly see Raimi laying the groundwork for the Evil Dead movies. The cinematography, the editing, and many of the gags and scares would end up being recycled to better effect in The Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2. It's basically an Evil Dead movie made for the change Raimi found underneath his couch cushions. You can see that he had a ton of untapped potential at the time, and as a result, he gives us what would essentially be a "greatest hits" reel of the first two Evil Dead movies before they'd even been made.
As far as the acting goes, there honestly isn't much to say about it. Mary Valenti and Scott Spiegel don't really have much to do, but then again they don't really need to do anything either. Our two leads, though, are really good. Bruce Campbell is charming and charismatic as always, even if he wasn't quite ready for prime time yet. But I will say his performance as the possessed monster was awesome, so he had that going for him. And of all four actors, Ellen Sandweiss makes a great go of it. While she'd up her "beleaguered victim" game in The Evil Dead (before her character becomes a monster, anyway) her performance here is still really good. She's believable in the part and sells the distress well.
The worst part of the whole thing is that the version of the movie I saw came from an old VHS tape that looked so worn and degraded that it made everything murky and practically unwatchable. It wasn't hard to follow the basic gist of the movie, but a lot of details are lost. The really sad thing is that this is probably the best Within the Woods will ever look unless Raimi decides to give some DVD distributor the film negatives or a pristine copy of the movie so they can put together an official, legal release. I can't see that happening due to potential legal hang-ups (the music is all copyrighted and nobody ever paid to use it), so it probably goes without saying that Within the Woods isn't getting any prettier and it probably never will.
Judging Within the Woods on its own merits, then it's okay, I guess. It's not great, but it was never supposed to be. It's just a rough draft its authors would soon be working the kinks out of. But the movie's still really effective. If Raimi, Campbell, and Rob Tapert had shown me Within the Woods back then, I would have totally invested some money in their project. It's a damn fine short movie. I'm sure all the truly devoted Evil Dead fans have seen it by now, but if you have yet to check out Within the Woods, go to YouTube and hunt it down. Then go watch the Evil Dead movies, okay?
Final Rating: **½
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