10. The Evil Dead I and II (1982, 1987)

The Naturon Demonto (renamed the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis in Evil Dead II) leads yet another group of plucky, young college students to be possessed and subsequently savagely killed by demons.

These two films, along with Army of Darkness, were written and directed by Sam Raimi (who would later direct the Spider Man movies).

Since The Evil Dead is about demon spirits, what is it doing here?

Context, of course.

This movie follows a lot of the classic tenants of the Zombie-genre but expands upon them. The undead creatures (deadites) in this film are not only intelligent and magical, but they also have a sense of humor which is surprisingly lacking in most of the recently dead.

Beyond being a fantastically well executed and hilarious pair of movies, the first two Evil Dead films introduce us to the character Ash (Bruce Campbell) who has achieved cult status among horror movie enthusiast for his tolerance for pain, witty one-liners and chainsaw arm.

The reason I combine the two movies is because there is some question as to whether Evil Dead II is a remake rather than a sequel to Evil Dead. In the first 10 minutes of Evil Dead II, they recap the first movie, editing out a large number of characters and changing around some of the story. Sam Raimi has said that this was done due to rights issues concerning the original Evil Dead, but fans are still split.

Lesson for would-be demon survivors out there. While I said that hanging out in the middle of major metropolitan areas was a bad idea, a significantly worse one is going out into the middle of the woods with a group of attractive college students.

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