Editor’s Note: Evil Dead has returned to The City City Theatre. Read our review from 2015. When a show returns with many of the same cast members, and same production credits, we run our previous review.

From OCTOBER, 2015: Click here for current show days, times and details.

Evil Dead, playing at The City Theater is a bloody mess. And that is the point, of course, for camp-horror genre-loving folks who will go see the show based on the gory 1983 Sam Raimi film.

From the fake chainsaw to the blood spattering into the audience to the talking decapitated head, the musical is idiotic. But, of course, that is the point and that is what the cackling audience paid their money to see.

Dead, a joint production of The Ringwald and Olympia Entertainment and directed by Brandy Joe Plambeck, is a show that makes the rounds hoping to capture the same cult following as The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Based on this critic’s observations and travels over the years, it succeeds in being only Rocky Horror’s poor relation; not as polished a book, and the music not as ear-wormy. But the production is quite worthy for the zombie and severed-limb crowd.

The story revolves around five horny co-eds who crash a cabin in the woods for their own holiday. They come upon a 13th century “Book of the Dead,” and an audiotape of someone calling demons to action. Soon, they become possessed, one by one, by evil forces and become crazed demons.

The silliness ensues. Cheryl (Crystal Donovan) is demonized by living, grabby trees in the woods. Ash (David Moan) chooses a chain saw as his weapon, and decapitates his randy girlfriend (DeAnnah Kleitz-Singleton). And so on. The ensemble cast is rounded out by Stephanie Bainter as Shelly/Annie, Garrett Michael Harris as Scott, David Schoen as Jake and Miles Bond as Ed and the actor who gets to embody the evil moose head.

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Though Plambeck does a solid job of bringing the campy musical to life, the fact is this show is not for everyone. There is copious amounts of liquid blood all over the stage and actors have to endure much stage time being wet. At intermission, stage hands came out with what looked like four or five washcloths to clean it up, and it seemed laughably insufficient.

The songs lack the charm of Rocky Horror. “Do the Necronomicon” is an obvious homage to “Do the Timewarp.” “Housewares Employee” has possibilities, but lack of face microphones (probably not advisable because of all the liquid blood) made the song between Ash and Linda a bit hard to hear at times. “Blew that Bitch Away” as the final, and numerous utterances of the line “dumb bitch” by the Scott character are supposed to be funny, but just don’t land for this critic.

The set by Tommy LeRoy perfectly evoked “cabin where bad, bloody stuff is going to happen.”

Truthfully, the whole show feels like something written by author George Reinblatt in two hours the morning after seeing Rocky Horror and the Evil Dead film in a Halloween double-feature in a college dorm room littered with beer bottles. But, in a way, that seems to be the point. It ain’t Hamlet or Damn Yankees. Audience members seems to find plenty to laugh about. And many purposely sat in the six center rows of seats covered in plastic hoping to be splattered with stage blood.