Review by Andy Williams
A group of young people, two men and three women, take a trip to an isolated cabin in the woods. Within the rundown shack they come across an ancient book and a tape recorder. Then before you can say “The previous occupants used the book to summon evil demons… and they’re still here!” all hell breaks loose. Four decades on and Sam Raimi’s 1981 low budget horror classic is still at the forefront of popular culture, with many sequels and spin-offs.
Writer Mark Verheiden has had a long career in film and TV work including The Mask, Smallville, Battlestar Galactica and Heroes, and this adaptation was among his final comics work. It hits the main beats of the movie’s narrative, even throwing in a small amount of back-story for the characters. There’s a slight twist at the end that successfully addresses the discrepancies between the first film and its sequel, Evil Dead II. Unfortunately, Verheiden fails to deliver a convincing voice for main protagonist Ash, even allowing for him being one-note in this initial outing, yet to evolve into the hard-headed, fast-quipping idiot with a chainsaw encountered in later instalments.
An obvious limitations of such a project is translating a moving medium to a static one and here the creators fail to match Raimi’s kinetic film making style. Artist John Bolton uses a lot of photographic reference for his lifelike painting, which results in fairly stagnant compositions. He manages to capture a good likeness of the young Bruce Campbell as the franchise’s lead and excels in some of the scarier scenes, piling on the gore where necessary. However, the smooth style Bolton uses here comes across as a bit Photoshoppy; a scratchy/splatter approach with a bit more bite may have worked better.
The Evil Dead in comics format is gruesome and definitely not fun for the whole family, but a worthy comics adaptation of a seminal video nasty masterpiece. While it doesn’t scale the heights of Raimi’s inventiveness, it wouldn’t look out of place on any movie buff’s bookshelf.
