Way back in the days of 1978, the days of the '80s slashers were still a few years off and a certain Death God with the head of a Doberman was... well... also a few years off. But, young college drop-outs Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Robert Tapert weren't in the mood to wait for the horror films the decade of excess would cough up, so they decided it was their time to take a stab at horror movies. Of the many things that stood in their path to this goal was the always present obstacle of funding. To help drum up some monetary interest in their project, the trio concocted a 32 minute short promotional feature to force potential investors to sit through. This short came to be called Within The Woods and would be used as a template for their first "big" (as in, "exceeding $2000") budget horror flick to follow, that of course being Evil Dead and it's subsequent sequels. Made with the minor pocket change of $1600, an 8mm camera and a house owned by Tapert's family, it's 32 minutes that hardcore fans are likely to giggle over, but will seem like a waste of perfectly good screw time for those not-so-interested. Me? I cracked me a 6-pack of Mike's Hard Lemonade (the only product ever to actually win me over simply on the basis of it's advertising) and had one of the most content half hours of the past year. Smooth baby, smoooooooth like a Barry White album. Oh yeeeeeeeah.

So, now that we all know the movie's origins, let's crack this shell and sample the spongy meat within. From the opening sequence you can start picking out the moments that would be repeated later on in Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, as the camera floats over a murky swamp with a gator's eye view. A quartet of college kids are having their own little getaway at an old farmhouse for the weekend, and if they'd watched shit like Night Of The Living Dead or even Rock 'N' Roll Nightmare, they'd know that's not a good place to be. Two of the kids, a dorky young lad named Bruce (yep, Bruce Campbell as the king of wieners with his thick rimmed glasses and yellow sleeved t-shirt) and his Helen Hunt lookin' girlfriend Cheryl (and yes, that's Ellen Sandweiss) decide to go out for a quaint picnic in the forest while their friend Scott and Shelly stay behind to finish an intense and VERY personal game of Monopoly... don't even get me started on Monopoly kids, bad history that includes jail time... they know exactly what they're sayin' when they say "Do not collect $200".

Well, being a horror flick it's no surprise when Bruce mentions that he and Cheryl are actually picnicking on the remnants of an Indian burial ground, which is rather picturesque and covered in foliage for being a grave site. Too bad they couldn't have waited a few years, or they might've been able to do a little research and watched a flick called Poltergeist, where they'd learn that fucking with Indian grave sites are a bad thing. Before you can say, "these guys a screwed", Bruce uncovers some remnants of Indian arts & crafts classes while digging a pit for the fire. He also exhumes a knife which, being the amateur archaeologist he so obviously tries to be, he declares to have belonged to an Indian medicine man over 2 centuries old and with whom it was buried after his death... and it even comes with it's own ominous sounds of frantic baby rattles and clunking buckets noises! Though she has misgivings about her boyfriend's poking around with dead folks' belongings, Cheryl isn't so disturbed that she can't fall asleep on their picnic spread, awakening later to find her big, strong feeb nowhere in sight. She takes to searching for Brucie in the nearby woods, where she's harassed by the local Flaura before stumbling upon the remains of her loved one, his face sliced up and a bloody mess! Well, I guess it's Bruce's body, after all, the picture quality's so bad at this point that it's hard to distinguish a mauled face from a pile of leaves, but I digress, because something's better than nothing... which is what you have! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

Cheryl is soon on her way racing through the woods, trying to escape an evil presence unseen by the audience as it chases her through underbrush and streams, making it's bizarre sound effects until she finally reaches the house and bangs the front door with all her might... is it really necessary to lock the door when you're located out in such a rural environment? Anyway, with Scott's timely intervention our damsel in distress eludes the unholy lawn mower... oops, sorry, the evil Indian spirit was flying a little low to the yard and I was confused for a moment. In the safety of the house, Cheryl recalls her story to her friends and Scott's overcome by the urge to go into the darkened woods alone in an effort to find his dead pal's remains for a sense of closure. Of course this can't wait till morning... While he's out making a target of himself, the girls sit around getting anxious and frightened. When Scott doesn't return, Shelly takes up her flashlight and prepares to get herself lost too. But, she doesn't get past the front door in her endeavor, as Bruce, now all zombied out and possessed by the vengeful spirit of an Indian shaman, is there to say hello, grab her by the throat, bellow a memorable "Join us!" and introduce his 200 year old blade to her jugular vein. Surrounded by some generic horror movie music and zany sound effects, and desperate to dyke out and defend herself like all horror heroines eventually do, Cheryl searches the kitchen for the two biggest, shiniest pieces of cutlery she can find!

In a scene that would later be copied for the second Evil Dead, Cheryl gets overzealous and stabs Scott in the stomach when he walks in unannounced, then spends the next minute or so trying to drag his ass out of the doorway so she can bar the way for possessed Bruce, who's stalking around outside and in doing so finally does what I've always wanted to do while watching Evil Dead: smash that fucking porch swing! Score one for EEEEEEEEEEEEEVIL! While Scott lays on the floor staining it with his bodily fluids, Cheryl sneaks into the basement to retrieve the group handgun. Wait a minute... yes! I can see it now! "Cheryl Get Your Gun! The Within The Woods Musical!". Well, when she returns with the firearm in hand, she finds Scott full on corpsified in the living room, a certain ceremonial dagger lodged in his back... and yes, she's then attacked by Bruce... and yes, the gun is as useless as a villainous extra's rifle in a Rambo movie. After chasing her around the house and acquiring numerous injuries (including an escaped eyeball), Bruce is finally dealt with in a permanent fashion when his former lover stabs him with his own dagger (his severed hand still on it) and hacks him into easy to chew pieces of demonic appendages. Cheryl then goes on to babble and whimper like Marilyn Burns during the final shots of TCM, which means that in her oblivity (provided that's a word) she doesn't realize zombie Scott is quickly sneaking up behind her and drooling plasma all over himself...

Though done at the tender age of 19, Raimi's flare for direction is ever apparent even here. You get the standard P.o.V. shots abounds, the dramatic angles and close-ups, the crazy sounds and noises and many many moments that, as I've stated before, would be later copied, in some cases frame-for-frame. It's also got that innocent low-budget charm that I can't resist and sets my black heart a flutter... okay, maybe not "a flutter", but you get the point. As for the rest of the crew, Campbell doesn't exactly get a chance to really show off the talents he would later on, but he is given a few good lines in his all-too-short time of verbatim. Ellen Sandweiss would of course also return to portray the tortured Cheryl in Evil Dead, where the plantlife would get a little more intimate with her... Scott Spiegel would return too, but in a behind-the-scenes role, not on camera as he appears here. The other chick is the only one not to return in some format... though her mom was one of the investors! As for Rob Tapert, he'd return in the Producer's chair as well, though why he's credited as "Rip Tapert" here is beyond my cranial capacity. The name "Rip" in general is beyond my cranial capacity, whether in reference to the flamboyant Rip Torn or the ridiculous Hulk Hogan character of Rip in No Holds Barred... either way, No Holds Barred is still one of my number one movies to laugh at uncontrollably on those lazy Sunday afternoons! Anyway, after Within The Woods we all know what would happen as the Evil Dead Trilogy would go on to become one of the most beloved horror trilogies in the history of cult cinema. As for me, I'm going to go gloat about my copy of this rare little gem. Please don't e-mail as to where I obtained this copy, as it's probably not legal in this country and the local constables already have their eyes on me for recent comments about my status as a Death God of Egypt... Anyway, I leave you with this one nugget of wisdom: Dead Indian medicine men DO consider eating hot dogs as a violation of their burial rites...