The Evil Dead C64

Sam and Rob are the hitchhikers down the road!!!

The Evil Mutants is not as catchy a title

With the remake of the classic horror film the Evil Dead hitting the cinema I thought it was time to revisit the not so classic game from 1984 for the Commodore 64. The Evil Dead is one of the first true examples of a survival horror game. Following the storyline of the film Ash and 4 of his friends move into the infamous cabin in the woods. All is going well until the evil spirit in the woods is awakened and starts wrecking havoc on poor Ash. You control Ash as he tries to keep the evil spirit out of the cabin by closing the doors and windows that randomly open. The evil spirit is manifest as a yellow cloud that will chase Ash's friends. If it catches up to them then they are turned in to er... a mutant. I don't know if a Candarian demon was too scary for an 80's game but the instructions say they are mutants so that's that. If Ash is hit first by the evil spirit then a life is instantly lost which is sucky. It would have been cool to become a deadite (screw the instructions) and killed off the rest of the living.

The evil spirit about to posses an innocent

Once possessed your un-friends will turn their attention on you and mercilessly hunt you down. Luckily the cabin is well equipped for such a scenario. A sword, shovel, shotgun and axe are all at your disposal to send the undead fiends back to the fires of hell and you will need all the help you can get. At the bottom of the screen is your energy meter that plummets with every step taken. The enemies take a huge chunk when they attack. The only way to refill it is by cracking some heads. Kill a demon though and it's body parts will come after you. Once you have destroyed them too then that's one less deadite to worry about. After all 4 of Ash's friends have turned and been killed then the cabin resets and we start again.

The tools of demon destruction

Being such an old game the Evil Dead is as basic as it gets. The graphics are simple but get the idea across. The action is fast paced but it can be confusing as to whether you are successfully killing the demons before they damage you as there is no animations when attacking. It's seems to be pure luck as to whether I regain any health or not. The demons follow a very simple route to Ash and will get stuck on every bit of the scenery. Ash is also difficult to manoeuvre which leads to frustration when you can't get into a room because your shoulder is slightly touching a spade. The instructions state that once a certain score is reached then the book of the dead (the ancient text in the film that summons the demons) will appear for the player to throw into the fire and complete the game. I wouldn't know as no matter how long I play for it never appears.

Even body parts hate you.

The Evil Dead is ok for a few minutes but it is too confusing to actually get any enjoyment out of it. There doesn't seem to be any skill involved just random events that generally go bad for the player. To be fair though it would take until 2005's Evil Dead Regeneration before we could finally play a good game based on the films.

Erm......Groovy anyone?