Ashley "Ash" Williams (Bruce Campbell), his girlfriend and three pals hike into the woods to a cabin for a fun night away. There they find an old book, the Necronomicon, whose text reawakens the dead when it's read aloud. The friends inadvertently release a flood of evil and must fight for their lives or become one of the evil dead. Ash watches his friends become possessed, and must make a difficult decision before daybreak to save his own life in this, the first of Sam Raimi's trilogy.

Inconsolable since the death of his wife, Karsh, a prominent businessman, invents a revolutionary and controversial technology that enables the living to monitor their dear departed in their shrouds. One night, multiple graves, including that of Karsh’s wife, are desecrated, and he sets out to track down the perpetrators.

BLEAK WEEK : CINEMA OF DESPAIR is co-presented by the American Cinematheque.

Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) returns to battle horrifying demons at a secluded cabin in the woods. After discovering an audiotape left by a college professor that contains voices reading from the Book of the Dead, Ash's girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) becomes possessed by evil spirits that are awakened by the voices on the tape. Ash soon discovers there is no escaping the woods.

On Sunday 6th October, the short film THE HECKLER (2024) will be presented prior to EVIL DEAD II. 

THE HECKLER
Director: Scott Castles & Chevy Mclaren
Starring: Ginnia Cheng, Edward Mannion, Ricardo Freitas, and Chevy Mclaren
UK / 2024 / Comedy/Horror

A failing Stand-up comedian is accosted by a demon Heckler.

Ash is transported back to medieval days, where he is captured by the dreaded Lord Arthur. Aided by the deadly chainsaw that has become his only friend, Ash is sent on a perilous mission to recover the Book of the Dead, a powerful tome that gives its owner the power to summon an army of ghouls.

At a party, someone goes insane and murders three women. Falsely accused of the brutal killings, Jerry is on the run. More bizarre homicides continue with alarming frequency all over town. Trying to clear his name, Jerry discovers the shocking truth...people are losing their hair and turning into violent psychopaths and the connection may be some LSD all the murderers took a decade before.

A "metal fetishist" (Shin'ya Tsukamoto), driven mad by the maggots wriggling in the wound he's made to embed metal into his flesh, runs out into the night and is accidentally run down by a Japanese businessman (Tomorowo Taguchi) and his girlfriend (Kei Fujiwara). The pair dispose of the corpse in hopes of quietly moving on with their lives. However, the businessman soon finds that he is now plagued by a vicious curse that transforms his flesh into iron.

When health official Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) notices that her lover has become strangely distant, this sets in train a series of shocking discoveries that sees both her and colleague Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) fleeing for their lives to the sound of ear-piercing alien screams.

Remakes of great films are usually on a hiding to nothing, but Philip Kaufman's brilliant update of the 1956 classic is a rare and memorable exception. Transposing the action to the heart of San Francisco allows Kaufman to retain all the suspense of Jack Finney's original story while adding caustic social commentary about the selfishness of the 1970s "me generation" that remains all too relevant today.

But it's a paranoid thriller first and foremost, based on one of the most psychologically terrifying of all premises - what happens when you can no longer trust not just the authorities but even your nearest and dearest?

A cop chases two hippies suspected of a series of Manson family-like murders. Unbeknown to him, the real culprits are the living dead.

Jason ships out aboard a teen-filled "love boat" bound for New York, which he soon transforms into the ultimate voyage of the damned.

As the president of a trashy TV channel, Max Renn (James Woods) is desperate for new programming to attract viewers. When he happens upon "Videodrome," a TV show dedicated to gratuitous torture and punishment, Max sees a potential hit and broadcasts the show on his channel. However, after his girlfriend (Deborah Harry) auditions for the show and never returns, Max investigates the truth behind Videodrome and discovers that the graphic violence may not be as fake as he thought.