Some time last year I reviewed the remake of this film. One of the things I lamented was the lack of scares, whilst the gore was right where it needed to be, in your face, it wasnt exactly a jump inducing experience. Well it seems that I kind of forgot that the original is about as scary as a kitten in a teacup too, so my criticism seems a little unfair now. Its a film classic though, made with no budget, it launched Raimis career etc etc. Beyond this though its just a brilliant gore pic which is clearly made by some horror fan boys – even a poster for the Hills Have Eyes shows up rather incongrously in the basement of the cabin where the action (almost inevitably) takes place, next to the book which raises the dead, the one bound in human skin. The special effects match the budget, at one point what is definitely porridge comes into play for no real reason at all, and a lot of it consists of just throwing stuff in Bruce Campbells face. This is what makes it so much fun. The fact that half the film is spent watching guys beat the crap out of women with various weapons is problematic, but you kind of get the sense that the people in the film are there because they happened to be the friends who were about at the time, a couple of relatives pop up in the credits too – if Raimi had happened to have a few more guy friends to take out to his cabin location I am sure they would have got the same treatment. Anyway everyone ends up covered in blood. The plot hardly requires top flight acting skills because it is fairly obvious that more time and effort went into thinking up brilliant ways to make the undead look… well…undead. I think when it comes down to it I like this film so much because if I was going to make a horror film I would probably want it to look something like this, except mine would have an Evil Dead poster in the basement.