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The founding (and only) members of Last Pint Productions had the good fortune to attend what was billed as a 35MM print of the original, 1979 The Evil Dead, on the big screen, complete with a Q&A by the chin himself, Bruce Campbell.  The fact that this screening happened on April 1st should have tipped us off that something was awry.  The fine folks at Aint It Cool News, specifically Billy The Kidd, had the crowd lured there under the false pretenses of legal battles with the studio.  AICN wanted to show the NEW Evil Dead.  They got it.  Then it was taken away.  Then they got the original + Bruce Campbell and that was the event we were all there for.

Campbell took to the front of the theater to introduce the movie and engage in some light Q&A.  The man is, in a word, hysterical.  Lightning sharp, dirty and every bit as engaging as you’d hope he would be.  However, what made it the most fun was his treatment of the crowd.  It was like being at a Don Rickles show.  He skewered each person who asked a question, but in the funniest and most welcome of ways. He would immediately start repeating the question as soon as someone asked it, and you could tell how much each person brave enough to speak up, was loving being ribbed by Campbell. If he wasn’t busy starring in a tv series or showing up in Sam Raimi blockbusters, he could easily make a living making appearances and charging. I’d gladly pay to see him speak again.

After about 15 minutes, Campbell introduced the film “This movie wasn’t released, it escaped.”. The lights dimmed and the original The Evil Dead popped up on screen…but only for a minute.  At that point, the screen flickered and went to black.  Campbell came back out, and you could feel the entire crowd “getting it”.  He announced that we wouldn’t be watching “that crap”, but the NEW remake instead.  The funny part is that one of my co-workers was along for the ride and we’d been discussing for days (as had my brother and I), how we weren’t big horror movie fans in the theater.  But that made it all the better.

I won’t go into a super in depth review other than to say that the flick is a mostly practical celebration of blood, guts and gore.  You wanna see someone lose a limb? Don’t worry, you’ll get 3 chances.  Needles in eyeballs disturb you? You might want to look away during the bathroom scene.  I know by the end of the movie I had counted all the ceiling tiles in the theater and memorized the patterns of dirt on my shoes.  It’s an intense flick to say the least.  Unfortunately, the cast is fairly weak, especially in the first 20 minutes or so of exposition. And, for me, last year’s Cabin in the Woods raised the bar with acting.  In fact, there are going to be a lot of comparisons to Cabin, which is ironic since The Evil Dead was one of the primary inspirations for Cabin.  It’s the Chicken, creating an egg, that hatches a chicken. The crowd ate up the movie though, and I can say I don’t at all regret the time I spent in the theater watching it.

Campbell came back out after the flick and did more of his thing, and only got better at it.  After everything, to make sure they didn’t make a false promise, AICN put on the original flick as they had promised.  I was a little saddened that I wasn’t a few years younger, didn’t have an hour drive home, and didn’t have to go to work in the morning.  I’d have liked nothing more than to have watched the flick and then geeked out with some of the other attendees afterward.  AICN is doing a great job bringing screenings like this to South FL, and if you live in the Palm Beach County/Broward/Miami areas, I highly recommend you visit their site and watch for the next of Billy’s screenings.

UPDATE: Aint It Cool just added VIDEO!