The Evil Dead Chainsaw T-Shirt

- The Evil Dead Chainsaw T-Shirt is one classic horror theme shirt that every horror fan will want to have in their wardrobe!

- The graphic print on The Evil Dead T-Shirt features a scene with Linda and Ash holding a chainsaw!

- Wear this Evil Dead T-Shirt and flaunt your love for classic horror cinema!

If you’re a fan of The Evil Dead franchise, check out our Evil Dead Collage Shirt !

The Evil Dead 1981

The Evil Dead (Evil Dead) is a 1981 supernatural horror film, written and directed by Sam Raimi, starring the then-unknown Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss and Betsy Baker. Despite its low budget and the melodramatic bad acting due to the actors inexperience, the film was a commercial success, grossing more than $2.4 million in the United States and $27 million internationally, for a worldwide gross of $29.4 million. This launched the careers of Raimi, Campbell and Tapert, who collaborated on films for years afterwards.

It is based on the short film Within the Woods, which served as a 'prototype' that allowed Raimi to secure $90,000 to produce the film. The film was a hardship for the cast and crew, being filmed at an actual cabin in Morristown, Tennessee, secluded from the nearby town. Despite the hardships, the film was released to positive reviews, including a rave review from Stephen King, calling it "the most ferociously original horror film of the year", allowing it to secure an international distributor, the then-unknown New Line Cinema. The film currently holds a 98% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and is considered to be one of the largest cult films.

Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell, and Robert Tapert had collaborated on several short films in college, which were mainly comedies. However, the shooting of a suspense scene in one film, It's Murder!, got Raimi interested in shooting a feature-lengthed to secure a budget of $350,000, and with the cast and crew - found via a local ad, as well as being made up of family and friends of Campbell and Tapert - headed for a wilderness cabin in the end under different "stage names" during the shoot, since they were members of the Screen Actors Guild and wanted to avoid being penalized for participating in a non-union production.

They are credited in the credits as "Hal Delrich" for Richard and "Sarah York" for Theresa. According to Bruce Campbell's autobiography, If Chins Could Kill, Richard acquired his stage name by combining his short name with his roommates' names, Hal & Del.

Because of its graphic violence, the original version of the movie was banned in several countries, including Finland, Germany, Iceland and Ireland. The "tree rape" scene in the movie was also described by some as being misogynistic. A heavily edited version was made legally available in 1992. In 2001 an uncut German DVD version was released, but the Berlin-Tiergarten Court ordered seizure of the DVD in April 2002. In Finland, The Evil Dead was later released uncut on DVD by Future Film, and rated K-18. The uncut version was rated FSK 16 in Germany in early 2017.

Upon its release, contemporary critical opinion was largely positive. Bob Martin, editor of Fangoria, reviewed the film before its formal premiere and proclaimed that it "might be the exception to the usual run of low-budget horror films”. The Los Angeles Times called the film an "instant classic", proclaiming it as "probably the grisliest well-made movie ever." In a 1982 review, staff from the trade magazine Variety wrote that the film "emerges as the ne plus ultra of low-budget gore and shock effect", commenting that the "powerful" and inventive camerawork was key to creating a sense of dread.