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The Review:
When we walked up to the theatre doors, I was already as
excited as a high schooler who’s prom date just told him
that he is ‘getting lucky tonight’. Evil Dead : The Musical
was something that I embarrassingly missed during its first
run through the city of Toronto and I was damned (‘damned’ ,
get it?) if I was going to miss it the second time around.
My excitement turned to sheer
giddiness when I was escorted by an usher to what was called
the ‘splatter zone’ (the first row) and given a plastic
disposable raincoat to protect me from the potential fake
blood that would be spurring all over me and my date.
“Fuck that!”, I told the kind
gargantuan of a man. “I didn’t wear white by accident”, I
further commented.
I took my seat almost forgetting
that I had some eye candy strapped to my arm and I started
to wringing my hands like Mr. Burns does when told of
another dastardly way to suck money out of the poor
residents of Springfield.
On stage sat a four foot
Nacranomicon (Book of the Dead) that I could swear winked at
me when I stuck my tongue out in mock fun at it.
My checklist was now complete. Good
seats. Check. Splatter Zone proximity. Check. Beer. Check
and Check.
Let the show begin.
For those of you not familiar with
The Evil Dead story, pull the rip cord now cause I ain’t got
time in all my excitement to explain it to ya’ all.
For those of you fortunate enough
to have seen the films, Evil Dead : The Musical starts with
five young things traveling through the woods to get to a
secluded cabin they will be residing in for the week-end.
Leading the pack is Ash (played wonderfully by Ryan Ward)
and his girlfriend Linda (Tara Marci). They are in love and
anyone who follows the horror genre knows that only bad
things can come of happy beginnings. With Ash’s sister
Cheryl and friends Scott and Shelly along to help with the
body count, the week-end is nearly set.
When Ash and the gang find a tape
recording in the basement of the cabin that recites passages
from the Book of the Dead, the evil awakens and takes sister
Cheryl as its first victim. Belting out a song called “Looks
who’s evil now”, Cheryl explains in song both what has
happened and what befalls each of the remaining members of
the cast.
The sung is quickly followed by
some comic banter between the guests and the subsequent
shotgun death of Shelley that brings Ash and Scott to a
musical rendering of “What the fuck was that?” – a
fantastically comic song that brought the house down with
each punctuated baritone ‘fuck’.
Before you can get your own
intestines back in your stomach from the burst out loud
laughter, we are introduced to three additional characters –
Jake, Annie and Ed. Refer back to your Crib Notes to remind
yourself the significance of these characters to the overall
story. While they develop into the overall plot, Ash hacks
off his own hand with a chainsaw when evil penetrates the
appendage. The blood flows on the stage like a runny ketchup
station at your local McDonalds. My smile was so wide that I
couldn’t fit the beer bottle between my stretched lips. By
the end of Act One, many are dead and the chainsawing of
Linda’s head induces stand up cheers from the sell out
audience. Goddamn, we are having a good time!
Luckily, there was an intermission.
It gave me a chance to stretch and savor again in the
reminiscing of the first hour of the performance. My only
regret was that my shirt had not one drop of the red stuff
by the time the curtains fell for the half.
That was about to change – big
time!
Act Two sets up quickly with a
reprise of a song by Ash called “I’m not a killer” followed
closely by the weakest number of the performance, “Bit-part
demon” which is sung by Ed who is helped to conclude that
even as a demon, he will play such a small part in the
overall outcome due to his bit-part status.
The next two songs set the stage
for ‘Do the necronomicon’ where the evil dead break out into
Michael Jackson Thriller-ish type dance. It was as
exhilarating as it was entertaining and the conclusion of
the bit lead to a blood bath that finally covered me in the
oozing, red blood that I had been waiting for on the edge of
my barely comfortable seat.
By the time Ash is safely back in
his hometown job of S-Mart, you feel sorry there weren’t
more characters to kill off so that the production would run
another Act. But alas, “Blew that bitch away” is the final
lyrical verse. The show was over and still singing “What the
fuck was that?”, I walked past a mirror to see my clothes
and hair covered in red goo.
Evil Dead : The Musical was
everything I wanted it to be and more. The songs worked, the
cast was phenomenally committed and the audience cheered
with every uttered phrase quoted directly from the original
film (“Who’s laughing now”, “Good. Bad. I’m the one with the
gun”. And the crowd pleasing, “This is my BOOMSTICK”).
The jokes were all in tune –
including a knock on Spider-Man being a poorly directed film
and the gore which includes shotguns, axes, chainsaws and
even a pencil provided the front row with an experience as
close to a massacre of zombies that we could ever hope to
find.
Kudos has to go to the cast, in
particular Ryan’s Ash and Mike Nahrgang who stole every
scene he was in as good ole reliable Jake. It didn’t take
long for me to lose myself in Ryan’s Ash and that is hard to
do for someone that holds Bruce Campbell in such reverence
for his role and involvement in the Evil Dead series.
Evil Dead : The Musical is small
budget and might not be coming to a production theatre near
you in the immediate future. But if you do get a chance, and
the travel is within your means, then get a ticket on
splatter row and sit back and enjoy. You won’t be
disappointed.
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EVIL
DEAD THE MUSICAL
