Editorials
‘The Evil Dead’: A Meditation on the Five Elements of Horror
The Evil Dead (1981) is an undisputed horror classic. Whether it’s actually scary, however, is another topic. Of course, what makes a movie scary is subjective. Keeping that in mind, I will focus on some basic tenets of successful horror, inspired by Tim Waggoner’s writing craft book Writing in the Dark: Dread, Terror, Horror, Shock, and Disgust. Waggoner likens these emotional states to the primary colors of an artist’s palette in that they all have their place and benefit from being blended together. But what do all these capitalized terms mean?
The Evil Dead (1981) is an undisputed horror classic. Whether it’s actually scary, however, is another topic. Of course, what makes a movie scary is subjective. Keeping that in mind, I will focus on some basic tenets of successful horror, inspired by Tim Waggoner’s writing craft book Writing in the Dark: Dread, Terror, Horror, Shock, and Disgust. Waggoner likens these emotional states to the primary colors of an artist’s palette in that they all have their place and benefit from being blended together. But what do all these capitalized terms mean?
Is The Evil Dead a Horror Movie?
I’ll explain each state very briefly. Dread is the feeling of an unknown threat building and building, getting closer and closer. Terror is “the emotional and intellectual reaction to a threat,” which is a bit more complex than Horror. Horror is the immediate reaction to an awful realization. One can think of Terror as dealing with the future implications of a conflict while Horror is the kneejerk reaction. Shock is a malicious surprise to the characters, and hopefully to the audience as well. Lastly, Disgust is a physical feeling sparked by something gross and usually visceral. Now that we have the five emotional tenets of successful scares laid out, we can move onto their places in The Evil Dead.
Dread: Building Suspense from the Start
The first fifty seconds or so of The Evil Dead is from the point of view of an unseen force racing above a body of water. There are unidentifiable sounds. There is quite a bit of fog. We see something bubbling under the water. Then we cut to a close shot of a car containing five young friends, two of them happily singing. But this view only lasts for a couple seconds before we see a different angle, this one watching the car from the woods. We get another tracking shot of the unseen force, which is now racing through the trees. Before we’re even two minutes into the film, a threat is established. The friends are expecting a fun weekend, we’re expecting a series of malicious scenes.
Dread is built further by the “DANGEROUS BRIDGE” sign, leading to the car barely making it over the wooden beams, and the long tracking shot on the way to the cabin. The score becomes high-pitched and eerie, punctuated by a thudding beat later revealed to be a porch swing banging into the house, as we follow the car to the cabin. Suspense rises. We soon see Cheryl’s hand, apparently possessed, drawing a book with a face, followed by her vision of the hatch to the basement rattling and thumping. Later, when the friends play the mysterious tape and learn that the book brought up from the basement was “bound in human flesh and inked in human blood,” our suspicions that something is wrong with the cabin are escalated.
Terror: Contemplating the Unthinkable in The Evil Dead
Ash seems to have the most perspective of the situation and its potential aftermath, by embodying the state of Terror. When Shelly is possessed and attacks Scott and Ash, Ash is frozen in fear. Scott, meanwhile, shows little hesitance throwing his girlfriend into the fire, slicing her wrist, plunging a knife into her back, and yelling at Ash to “Hit her! Hit her! Hit it!” After Shelly is hacked into pieces, courtesy of Scott, Ash asks, “What are we gonna do?” and his friend deadpan replies “We’ll bury her.” Ash mumbles that “we can’t bury Shelly. She’s-she’ a friend of ours.” He clearly realizes the implications of the situation but doesn’t want to accept them, while Scott barrels onward.
The end of the movie is another example of Terror. The sun rises, Linda is headless, Cheryl and Scott have disintegrated, and Ash is alive. He walks out of the cabin, drenched in blood, to the sounds of a victorious score and birds chirping. The horrific events are in the past, in the night, we think . . . until that unseen force from the beginning reappears. It courses through the cabin and rams into Ash. The Terror is not over.
Horror: Immediate Reactions to Danger
Going back to Scott, the way he takes control of the situation with Shelly is indicative of Horror. He realizes that his girlfriend is dangerous and acts to stop her by whatever means necessary. He doesn’t stop to think of the repercussions of chopping his girlfriend into pieces. He only thinks of his survival in the present. His decision to leave the cabin and brave the woods alone also shows a lack of foresight. Since this is a horror movie, Scott pays for his feelings of Horror with his life.
Shock: Jump Scares and Disturbing Surprises
Shock is easy to detect in film, usually in the form of jump scares. An excellent jump scare in The Evil Dead is seen when Linda and Cheryl seem to recover from their possessed states and Ash goes to let Cheryl out of the basement. The background music stops, leaving only the sound of crickets. Ash leans down, key in hand, slowly reaching to unlock the hatch, when Cheryl’s hands burst through the floorboards to seize his neck. Just when we think the danger has abated, it comes back in full force. Another scene that elicits Shock comes much earlier in the film. This scene is notorious, and many members of the cast and crew have expressed remorse for keeping it in the final cut. I am speaking, of course, about the tree rape. We could very well understand that the woods harmed her without seeing branches forcing her into a helpless position and entering her. “It was the woods themselves,” Cheryl cries. “They’re alive, Ashley!” Thank goodness for shadows is all I have to say.
Disgust: Gore and Visceral Repulsion
Perhaps the most easily recognizable state in The Evil Dead is Disgust. The plentiful gore did lead to an X rating in the US and the film’s status as a “video nasty” in the UK, after all. Cheryl stabs Linda’s ankle with a pencil, Shelly chews off her hand, Ash decapitates Linda with a shovel, Ash gouges Scott’s eyes, cockroaches feast on the decaying bodies, etc. I’d say that tree rape also qualifies for Disgust. Think of the splinters!
Of course, as an artist may use all the colors on their palette but still produce a less than mediocre painting, we must ask if The Evil Dead is successful in its goal of scaring the viewer. The dialogue of the movie is less than stellar. Just look at the opening scene in the car:
CHERYL: You mean nobody’s seen this place yet?
SCOTT: Well, not yet.
ASHLEY: Well, it might not be that bad.
LINDA: No.
ASHLEY: Actually, it might be kind of nice.
LINDA: Yeah.
Not only is this snippet poorly written, but it also sounds stilted when performed.
The Evil Dead: A Horror Classic with Comedic Undertones
The Evil Dead has a fair share of both traditional horror aspects and those belonging to traditional comedy. The five emotional states of horror laid out by Tim Waggoner are certainly evident in the film, and although I’d say that the film leans toward horror, I do understand why some people put it firmly in the horror-comedy class. When I first watched it, I was unsettled and scared. With multiple viewings, I saw more of the comedic traits. There’s a great balance of the two, even though the team was most likely going for straight horror. With Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn, it is clear that they embraced the comedic aspects of the first attempt and strove for a true horror-comedy.
The United States spent most of this year celebrating its 250th anniversary. There have been parades, fireworks, and endless reminders of what the nation wants us to think are its founding ideals. Yet anniversaries are as much about what we choose to remember as they are about what we choose to forget. There is another anniversary this year. Five years ago this month, Candyman was released. The fact that both that film and America are sharing an anniversary this year may have been an accident, but that makes it no less significant.
Released amid another national reckoning over race, Nia DaCosta’s film asks a question that every celebration of America ought to confront: Is it possible to commemorate this nation without fully reckoning with the violence woven into its history? More than a sequel to a horror classic, Candyman is a meditation on the ghosts that haunt America because it has never fully reckoned with the past that created them.
How the Original Candyman Confronted America’s Racial History
The original Candyman understood this. Released in 1992 and set in the almost post-apocalyptic urban decay that was Chicago’s Cabrini-Green housing projects, Bernard Rose’s film arrived only months after the L.A. Race Riots, a moment when this country was coming to terms with the way the country’s relationship with Black folks was shaped by decades of segregation and racism.
Most audiences saw a supernatural slasher about a hook-handed killer summoned by saying his name five times into a mirror. But beneath the horror was a far more unsettling story. Candyman was about the lingering consequences of America’s racial history and the way white America has sometimes turned Black suffering into myth instead of confronting the systems that produced it.
The film’s true horror was never simply Candyman. It was the realization that monsters can be born from histories a nation refuses to face. That is exactly where the 2021 film expands the original’s vision.
Nia DaCosta’s Candyman Turns One Ghost Into Many
Bernard Rose’s Candyman explored the legacy of a single act of racist terror. Nia DaCosta’s film argues that the tragedy wasn’t confined to Daniel Robitaille, the man who became the monster. The 2021 film posits that Candyman is not one man but many.
Daniel Robitaille was lynched for loving a white woman. Sherman Fields takes on the mantle of the supernatural slasher because he was beaten to death by police after being falsely accused of harming a child. Anthony McCoy ultimately becomes part of the same legend. Their stories span generations, but they are connected by a nation that repeatedly produces the same injustice under different names at different points in history. The genius of the sequel is that it transforms Candyman from an individual ghost into a symbol of America’s recurring racial violence.
Candyman Shows How History Repeats Itself
History, the film suggests, is not something that happened once. It is something that keeps happening. That is why Candyman is one of my favorite films to teach in my Film and Philosophy course.
Students walk into class expecting a horror movie. They leave wrestling with questions about history, memory, and justice. We spend little time talking about jump scares or gore. (Because, let’s be honest, there is not much of that in the film.) Instead, we ask why some histories become legends while others are forgotten, what societies owe their victims, and whether a nation can ever move forward without honestly confronting the violence that shaped it.
The Horror of Remembering What America Wants to Forget
A good horror film reveals what we fear. What makes Candyman great is how it reveals what we would rather not remember. That is what haunted me the first time I saw it, long after the credits had rolled.
Five years after its release, Candyman remains one of the most unsettling movies in recent years because the history it confronts is not safely behind us. The original film understood that America’s racial violence could not simply be buried, while the 2021 film showed how easily that violence can be reproduced across generations.
Its Unquestionable Legacy in Horror
As America celebrates 250 years, Candyman reminds us that commemorating the nation’s founding requires remembering all this country’s history, including the parts that make the celebration uncomfortable.
We cannot exorcise a ghost by refusing to acknowledge why it exists. Perhaps that is the film’s most important lesson. The past does not haunt us because we remember it. It haunts us because we don’t.
Sometimes it feels borderline ridiculous to gush about John Carpenter’s The Thing as much as I do. It’s gotten to the point where when I’m asked about my favorite horror film by both friends and strangers, a little bit of embarrassment tinges my expression as I answer; it feels so obvious and rarely surprises anyone. Saying I love The Thing when people expect me to bust out an obscure foreign horror film or a cerebral thriller makes me feel like a rosy cheeked child with a propeller hat and a giant lollipop. “Wow, you love one of the most popular horror films of all time, congrats!”
But it’s just the truth. The first film of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”, all three of its films are among my favorites. But The Thing has a special place in my heart. It shaped my taste in horror, my taste in most media in general, to be honest. It’s become the gold standard, 10/10 baseline test for the vast majority of my reviews; it is a perfect film, so I judge other films against it. And it’s one of the few movies I have to run back to and watch yearly like clockwork (usually when I’m spending a part of winter tied to the couch). It is, in all regards, the perfect film. If it isn’t the perfect film, then it is at the very least the perfect sci-fi horror film.
So, what exactly qualifies The Thing for literal perfection? It’s a high bar to clear. This article, as informal as it is compared to most of my editorials, is an attempt to explain it.
Even if Carpenter Isn’t the Goat, His Team for The Thing Was
As far as crews go, John Carpenter’s The Thing had the cinematic equivalent of the ’96 Chicago Bulls behind it. We’re talking about an amalgam of some of the most talented people to ever grace the silver screens with their work, boasting alongside John Carpenter two of the heaviest hitters in all of cinematic history: Dean Cundey, and Rob Bottin. Now, we can debate all day about whether John Carpenter is the greatest of all time when it comes to horror directors. Personally, I’m just as liable to say Cronenberg, Del Toro, or Hooper as I am to say Carpenter.
But the key factor to remember here is that Carpenter is the coach, not the star player; the Phil Jackson, if you will. Yes, he is the visionary who directed a near perfect cast of players and composed a tale of pure, apocalyptic paranoia. More importantly, he put together and coordinated the team that would make his vision manifest as reality. And if Carpenter is Phil Jackson, Rob Bottin is the team’s Michael Jordan here, the greatest of all time.
(And to all my Lebron fans, I love you, but you have to sit down for this analogy.)
The Legend of Rob Bottin
Bottin’s story is borderline unbelievable, but it’s the best way to explain how abnormally skilled he is and what he brought to the table for Carpenter. At age 14, Bottin became an apprentice to the at-the-time GOAT Rick Baker after sending him a letter seeking an autograph while sharing his creature designs. He was a quick study under Baker, joining him on the ’76 King Kong and Star Wars, before bouncing to Carpenter’s The Fog and then iconic werewolf picture The Howling.
When he reunited with Carpenter in 1982, he now had 6 classic films under his belt and was moving like an FX bullet train. From ages 22 to 23, he worked on The Thing for 57 weeks in both pre-production and on set. Nearly 24/7 for 400 days, Bottin’s all-gas no-brakes work ethic made The Thing at the cost of his own health, and it resulted in him being hospitalized with pneumonia. He survived and went on to make Robocop. And at least one of your favorite films.
Because no conventional disease or weaponry can kill Rob Bottin.
The Thing Still Features Horror’s Best Practical Effects
Okay, that last bit might be hyperbolic, but the man sincerely put his life on the line to make special effects that haven’t been topped since. Not the best effects in just horror history, or science fiction history, but effects that haven’t been topped in any genre for over 44 years. Not by his mentor Rick Baker, not by Screaming Mad George, not by Alec Gillis (though shoutout to him for his criminally scrapped work on The Thing (2011), and even more criminally ignored work on Harbinger Down). I love Dawn of the Dead, believe me, I do, but he certainly isn’t being beaten out by Tom Savini’s body of work. And that isn’t to disrespect and say that all of the artists that I just mentioned are bad, they’re the best in the game! But Rob Bottin was just that much better.
This inevitably invites the counterpoint: “But it wasn’t just Bottin! Stan Winston and his people were the ones who worked on the Dog Thing to give Bottin’s crew a break, and that’s the best monster in the movie!”. To which I say: look me in the eye and tell me the Dog Thing sequence is better than the Palmer Thing sequence. That’s not even counting the Norwegian Thing, both Norris Things, and the absolutely masterful final creature work that was the Blair Thing. The only reason Bottin and his people didn’t win Academy Awards for their work was because they got jumped by E.T., The Dark Crystal, Conan the Barbarian, and Blade Runner all at the same time at the Oscars. It’s just a consequence of being released during the best year for movies ever.
Okay, Now We Can Talk About Dean Cundey
But of course, these effects are then supported by another true legend: Dean Cundey. Selling people on Rob Bottin being the greatest effects artist of all time, isn’t nearly as difficult as advocating for Cundey, who despite an impressive catalog of filmography, slowed down in the back half of his career. He’s often overshadowed in conversations when it comes to The Thing; it’s always talk of Carpenter’s directing, Bottin’s effects, and Ennio Morricone’s incredible soundtrack up front, and rarely any of Cundey’s work. He isn’t spoken about in the same breath as John Alcott or Michael Ballhaus, cinematographers whose work is associated with prestigious cinema because of their proximity to great directors.
Cundey might not be the director of photography your Martin Scorsese’s or Paul Thomas Anderson’s went running to, but I would be lying if I said I didn’t think he was the most important cinematographer in horror history, just for his work with Carpenter and Spielberg. He helmed three of the most influential films in all of horror with his lighting and camera operating: The Thing, Halloween, and Jurassic Park. The man’s fingerprints are automatically on the cultural DNA of all slashers, most practical effects-driven horror films, and the biggest gateway horror franchise in film history.
The Dream Team That Made The Thing Perfection
Cundey has gone on record saying that despite Carpenter’s input, he was effectively given free rein to light and frame The Thing. The man didn’t just know how to shoot effects to make them evoke true disgust from the audience, he was able to manipulate every aspect of the shot to terrify. His sixth sense cinematography wasn’t just for lighting and playing with shadows, but for the speed of camera movement, the power of his blocking, and for having a complete grasp of communicating texture and temperature.
And temperature is the soul of The Thing. John J. Lloyd’s production design of the research station and the great white expanse around it feels just as bone chilling as the film’s antagonist, thanks to Cundey. There isn’t a single flat shot in the thing, not a moment that doesn’t feel dynamic, and it’s because of Dean Cundey.
Now, all this being said about Bottin and Cundey, they are far from the only ones who synthesized this structurally perfect organism of a movie. Every bit of Todd C. Ramsay’s editing splices the film’s scenes together to move perfectly in-time. David Lewis Yewdall’s sound design and how it gave a voice to the horrors on screen will be etched into people’s brains forever. The point is that everyone, every single person who had a hand in making the film, helped make the movie flawless.
Like the cells of the thing from another world, each crew member on John Carpenter’s The Thing moved in concert with the next, in unison, to create the greatest sci-fi horror of all time. So, is it any wonder why 40 some years later, the film still has us all captured?
