10 Terrifying Low Budget Horror Movies

5. The Evil Dead

Backcountry 2014
Renaissance Pictures

The Evil Dead is just about the grooviest movie ever made. It’s dirty, cheap, hilarious, disgusting, violent, vile and, though these are all adjectives that can be given to other movies, too, there is one thing it has in spades that you’ll be hard pressed to find anywhere else on this list: glee.

You can sense the fun that Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and Rob Tapert are having behind the scenes. You can almost hear them giggling as you watch a Deadite’s face explode, as though they are young boys who are getting away with something that they know they’re going to be in trouble for.

The blood flows freely in this little cabin in the woods, as soon our hapless heroes venture into the basement and read from the book of the dead, summoning an evil so hideous that it can only be demonstrated by flinging a camera around the forest. Then it possesses what it can - the girls, the boys, the trees - and everything collapses into a great, bloody, utterly-bonkers mess.

The Evil Dead is a brilliant movie. Bruce Campbell’s Ash is as iconic a protagonist as they come and, though they would really hit true excellence with Evil Dead 2, this 1981 offering remains a testament to creativity, friendship, and just what you can make if you have an idea and just a couple of people around you who are crazy enough to believe in it, too.

Contributor
Contributor

A bald, broken boy who’s trying to build a life one step at a time. A SunBro until his final hollowing, he loves a good story, and has been recently seen teaching his class the important lesson of how to refresh an Amazon link until the PS5 pre-orders go live.