Evil Dead the musical!

I unearthed a forum post I had written 6 years ago about Evil Dead the musical. I had really hallucinated upon learning the existence of such a project!  I slightly modified the post, since the musical is still played occasionally:

I bought the CD of the “Evil Dead” musical, officially approved by Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell, created in 2004, and who is always played currently. Amalgam of the three films, more particularly of the first two, the whole show is filled with enthusiasm, funny and dynamic. The Evil Dead lover will find along the cues and the spoken bits the most cult lines of dialogue featured in the movies. Appreciable detail, the dialogues are clearly separated from the songs on the disc. It should be noted that the interpreter of the hero, Ash, was the same one since the beginning at that time: Ryan Ward. The recording was made in December of 2006.

The first song, “Cabin in the woods”, is an ode to idleness, and the various more or less decent activities to which five young people of the history are ready to devote themselves during this stay in a hut lost to the bottom of the woods.

“Housewares employee” describes the meeting between the hero of the story, Ash, and his girlfriend Linda, both employees of the S-Mart mini-market, the place where they fell madly in love. But the gods, to which they address the question to know what they did to deserve such a perfect love, plan a disappointment for them very soon.

“It won' t let us live” is the short dark observation of the only single girl in the group, Cheryl, when she realizes that the bridge which brought them in this place was destroyed by a mysterious force.

“Look who' s evil now” marks the beginning of hostilities, Cheryl becomes an undead demon, sings it loud and strong, and starts to recruit for the Army of Darkness among her former comrades.

“What the fuck was that?” wonder Ash and Scott afterwards, Ash would prefer to help his friends, and Scott is rather pleading for a quick escape. One couldn’t disagree with him! Ash soon becomes the only survivor, and his former friends try to persuade him to join them in the afterlife, with the help of a moose’s head fixed to the wall, which suddenly comes back to life, in “Join us”. Seeing his refusal, the demons take possession of Ash’s hand, which he is forced to separate from his own body with a chainsaw.

During this time, Annie, the daughter of the professor to whom belongs the cabin in the woods, is not far from there, accompanied by her fiancé Ed. Lost, they meet one of the local inhabitants, a “Good old reliable Jake”, albeit self proclaimed with that title, who reveals during his introduction song certain delusions of grandeur! 

During this time poor Ash is persecuted by his former companions, and in particular by his girlfriend Linda, who goes back and forth between her demonic condition and her old personality, which brings us to a short and poignant reprise of “Housewares employee”.

But anyway, all good things must come to an end, she nevertheless tried to kill him on several occasions, and even if assassinating a colleague is not part of the company’s policy, it’s to the sound of the chainsaw and by singing “I' m not a killer” that Ash decides to concretize his separation from Linda in a more physical way! Just at the moment when Annie and her small troop arrive. And it’s time for Ash to declare not very convincingly that: “it’s not as bad as it looks!”.

There ends the first act. Before the second one starts, the viewers of the first three rows are advised to wear ponchos in what is known as the “splatter zone”. They were warned before that it would be better for them not to put on clothes they loved! Some come with white tee-shirts which they will keep as souvenirs, suitably stained. That has not escaped the marketing people, who sell “I survived the splatter zone” tee-shirts at the entrance.

The second act opens with a reprise of “I' m not a killer” missing from disc, to put things back in perspective.

Of course the carnage begins anew, this time with Ed, Annie’s fiancé, who passes in the camp of the demons. But a recalcitrant demon, in “bit part demon” Ed depressingly tells he’s this kind of actor of horror films you sees only half a second and whose character is not a threat for anybody. When Annie points out to him that he has just sung a lot of time without being interrupted, Ed realizes that he became someone important, a few seconds before Ash blows him away for good! 

It is too much for poor Annie, in “All the men in my life keep getting killed by candarian demons”, she describes to us her miserable life, where any man who approaches her ends up pulverized by demons, whatever the odds.

Ash is finally possessed, albeit briefly. Believing he’s coming after her, Annie launches of all her strengths in one blow of a sacrificial knife which lands in the belly of poor Jake, who had not even become a zombie himself. Then ensues an “Ode to accidental stabbing”, which is completed when Jake also dies and joins the troop of the Army of Darkness.

Following the example of “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and of his famous “Time Warp”, quoted in the song, the undead demons of “Evil Dead” also have their signature dance, “Do the Necronomicon”, which combines notably lasso movements, and an imitation of Henry Winkler (Fonzie in “Happy Days”).

“It's time”, indeed, for Ash, to achieve his destiny, namely to kick the butts of all demons around the corner, with balls the size of a bull, or of any other large mammal!
 
But the battle is far from being won, the demons reappear, to the great surprise of Ash, to sing “We will never die”. Some work in progress for our S-Mart employee! 

Finally all is revealed to be a flashback, an story Ash tells to astounded customers of S-Mart, who take him for insane before he disposes of a demon just in front of them, in “Blew that bitch away”. They therefore acknowledge his status of iconic hero, even, let’s not be afraid of the words, cosmic demigod. But where is the “Hail to the king baby” quote?

The disc ends with an instrumental piece, opportunely called “Groovy”.

Here is a CD which filled me with enthusiasm, I hope that there will be one day a recording of the show, so I can see what it really looks like. As a fan of the movie series, I was particularly happy to lay hands on this disc, worthy heir to the cinematographic trilogy. Source for the details on the show:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_Dead:_The_Musical

Otherwise, you can listen to extracts on the Amazon site.