Ever wonder what happens if you jam a high-revving chainsaw straight into a zombie’s jugular? Well … Up to three geysers of demon blood shoot out in graceful arcs and splatter anyone within 20 feet. And in a small theater, that means some front-row customers are going home with plasma on their Dockers.
Of course, you just might want to position yourself under one of
those blood fountains. Evil Dead: The Musical, now at the Beck
Center, combines the first two Evil Dead movies into a
rock-music extravaganza featuring decapitation, dismemberment and more
fake (and easy-to-clean-up) blood than was spilled during the entire
run of ER.
The Evil Dead cult flicks of the 1980s were directed by Sam
Raimi and featured some questionable special effects (in the original
low-budget version, the rotting flesh of the zombies looked like bad
claymation paired with oozing, weirdly tinted oatmeal). But there was
an infectious spirit of manic, stomach-churning, harmless anarchy that
has inspired a substantial following.
The same is true in the musical version, with book and lyrics by
George Reinblatt and music by Frank Cipolla, Christopher Bond, Melissa
Morris and Reinblatt. Borrowing freely from other musicals, especially
The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Little Shop of
Horrors, Evil Dead manages to put its own stamp of giggly
ghastliness on the horror genre.
Directed with fiendish glee by Scott Spence, two horny college
couples and one female grind are on a spring-break jaunt to an isolated
(of course) cabin in the woods. They soon stumble upon the
owner’s Book of the Dead and, once they crack that text
(probably the first book they’ve opened all semester), they summon an
evil force from the forest.
One by one, the visitors (starting with bookish Cheryl) are
transformed into ghouls, celebrated in the rousing tune “Look Who’s
Evil Now.” It’s left to Ash, the group leader and part-time employee at
S-Mart, to fend off the army of the night. It’s no easy task, since Ash
has to saw off his own hand (the demons turned it against him) and
battle with his girlfriend Linda’s severed head, which has the
vise-like bite of a pit bull.
The Beck cast handles all this carnage with bottomless spurts of
energy and just enough overacting to make it the romp it should be. As
Ash, Dan Folino has the comical swagger and portentous mien of a corny
horror-flick hero, and his golden pipes do justice to all his songs
(particularly “I’m Not a Killer,” sung while elbow deep in
blood).
As Ash’s sister Cheryl, Amiee Collier has plenty of fun with her
character’s demon side, although the script tries too hard to give her
an extended series of forced puns. Josh Theilan is properly obnoxious
as Scott, a dim bulb with a perpetual hard-on, and Megan DePetro (an
understudy) is every inch a comely coed as Linda, until you-know-what
happens.
A special nod goes to the special-effects designers, Folino and P.J.
Toomey, since the gallons of blood jet, ooze and even drop out of
nowhere, right on cue. It all makes Evil Dead a gory, campy,
rollicking delight.
This article appears in May 13-19, 2009.
