10 Greatest Use Of Practical SFX In Horror Movies

Sam Raimi’s feature-length directorial debut came with The Evil Dead (1981), the original tale of a group of teenagers visiting a decrepit cabin in the woods for a weekend retreat. The tone of the film is eerie and sinister from the off and is clearly a B-Movie horror created on a modest budget. This makes Raimi’s inventiveness with cobbling together the practical effects in the way he did, all the more impressive.

The teenagers come across a dusty old book of occultism, and a tape recording which tells them that the manuscript is a conduit for demonic resurrection and possession. The stormy weather outside crashes around the cabin as the elements appear to come alive, and one of the female teenagers is attacked by the thorny branches of a tree, which snake around her like tentacles, pinning her down and ripping her clothing and skin as she struggles to break free. She becomes the first character to become possessed, floating in the air with gruesome make-up, and in one scene of gloopy body horror she grabs a pencil and stabs it into the ankle of her friend.

All of the characters eventually become possessed, asides from the main tormented protagonist Ash (Bruce Campbell), and during his fight for survival we see a demon thrown face first into a fire, body parts becoming dismembered and convulsing on the floor, faces melting, eyes gouged out, and all sorts of other extraordinarily graphic practical effects that made the film an infamous cult horror classic.