The Evil Dead and Old Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout

It is time for a booze fueled review of Sam Raimi's holy trilogy of slaphappy horror.  It's EVIL DEAD!  1981 hasn't been the same since.  You can't talk about The Evil Dead without talking about Bruce Campbell.  Who?  BRUCE FUCKING CAMPBELL THAT'S WHO!!!  Before getting fat and lazy as Sam Axe on Burn Notice he was a horror movie hero....well a b-rate horror movie hero at least.   This guy gets his real time movie debut in one of the greatest horror movies ever!  He slams it out of the park!  Then he limped on for a bit not getting proper recognition until 1987 when Bruce did what Bruce does best......Ash.  He does Evil Dead 2 and his career explodes (as much as a b-rate horror career can, context people, context).  After that it was bad movie after bad movie (all great!!) until Army of Darkness (AKA Evil Dead 3) in 1992.  If you haven't seen these films then stop reading this post, report directly to Best Buy and slam your 30 bucks down on the counter for The Evil Dead (ULTIMATE EDITION).  You'll regret this less then your high school hair cut that's for sure.

A beer is a beer....until it becomes Old Rasputin.  Then it becomes something more.  Our friends over at RATEBEER.COM give this big bastard a rating of 100 overall with 98 for the style.  This is bigger and blacker than Ving Rhames so watch out.  It's 9% abv with 75 IBUs to kick you in the teeth and laugh as you sniffle.  It doesn't give a shit.  I guess that's the whole Russian thing?  Just kidding......but seriously.  And this beer is a cross legged, sheepish little wimp compared to Old Rasputin XII which is 11.2% abv, unknown IBUs, and more whiskey barrel character than you can probably handle.  Just leave it on the shelf.  You don't want to have to explain to your girlfriend why you spend $25 on a 22oz bottle of beer.  Yikes!!!  I wouldn't have this problem because i would tell my wife "My beer, Damn it!!"  With a grunt and a firey glare.  She would inquire no further......maybe.  Anyway this beast pours a thick thick black.  It's the portal to intoxication, the vile nectar of taste and punishment swirling around in an intimidating pool.  "Focus Daniel-san" (Mr. Miyagi joke).  Not only is this beer the blackest of the black but it's deep brown head tells you that this beer will stain your very soul.  Once you've been marked there is no return.  You can't undrink this beer.  You'll be stuck in beer hell, roaming the coolers with dead eyes while you fill your cart with $12 four packs.  That's what happens.....no joke.

You start as the evil spirit in this movie, gliding over the autumn leaves and a pond.  As an evil spirit what do you encounter but a car with four young lovers (and a tag along) on their way to a cabin in the hills of Tennessee.  I'm not so scared of evil spirits and undead, i'm really scared of "Hill People"!     Their get away cabin has to be the creepiest most obvious setting for an evil spirit to brutaly murder people.  Come on!  Anywhere that has bones just hanging randomly in a shed is not a place you should hang out in.  It's the straight forward manner of this film that makes it so wonderful.  It's not going to pump fake and go deep on you.  No!  This son'fabich is going to pound the ball right down your throat until you give up.  The cinimatography is also just awesome.  So many films of this time frame use single shots for long periods of time and keep the same basic angles and points of view.  That makes it boring.  Not Sam Raimi though.  He uses lots of different shots, with multiple angles and keeps the camera moving.  While we are getting introduced to our characters they come across the book of the dead and a knife with a tiny skull and spine handle.  And the best part is they don't think there's anything weird about it.  All this foreshadowing is making me thirsty.

There's big aroma spilling out of this beer like a stab victim.  There's dark roasted malty goodness, caramel, burnt sugar, and tons of coffee.  There's also dark chocolate and this strange floral/citrus hoppiness that mingles with it all.  It's not overpowering it's empowering.  It's get up and do push ups good.  Now for the taste.....BOOM! (that was an explosion).  Some people say the taste is a bit of a let down and i say these people need to get real jobs and real friends.  It's affecting their ability to accurately taste beer.  It's thick and viscous (same thing?) and delivers a powerful blow of charred roasted malts and dark caramel.  The aroma is in the taste for sure.  There's the chocolate, and the coffee.  I don't think i have to say this but if you were to drink i cup of coffee and take a sip of this beer you wouldn't be like "ummmm which is which, i don't know!" but it's there in levels enough to be told.  Same thing with the chocolate.  The beer finishes big and with a long bitter and greasy aftertaste.  All of that in the best of ways.  This beer lingers on your tongue.  You don't drink this beer, the beer drinks you.

Our friends break out an old tape recorder and by playing the tape accidentally unleash an evil from the forest.  Ash is such a player.  He does the old "fake like your sleeping with a jewelry box in your hand".  What a card. He gives his girlfriend the gift that says "I love you" more than anything, a women's best friend, a circular piece of glass necklace!!!!  How romantic.  You get a brief shot of side boob and then it's on to the haunting.  Brace yourself for one of the most wildly inappropriate sex scenes in the history of horror movies.  One woman leaves the cabin in her robe in order investigate some strange noise when she is assaulted by some seriously perverted vines!  I mean they rip her clothes off and.....and.....well watch the movie because it's brutal and strange.  She turns into a zombie and has one of my favorite not for the squeamish scenes ever. She stabs a girl in the ankle with a pencil for like 5 minutes.  So they lock her in the basement.  But you can't stop evil.....not forest evil!  It takes another girl.  But, this one they throw on the fire.  Nice guys these two.  The blood is flying as limbs are being chopped off, people are eating their own limbs, and people are getting stabbed with skull knives.  All this is capped off with my favorite dismemberment with an axe scene.  Bing bang boom.

I could go on and on about the gore that is just splattered all over this movie but instead i thought it would be good to make a little list.  It will be quicker and more to the point.

The Evil Dead

2 Stabbings

1 Tree Rape

1 Shovel Beheading

1 Complete dismemberment with an ax

1 Blood pipe rupture

3 Gunshot wounds

2 Gouged out eyes

2 Total body liquefactions

  Amazing?......YES!  Zombies?.......maybe?  I mean this is included in every great zombie movie list and it sure as hell feels like it should go.  But to throw down and put this in a pile with Dawn and Day just doesn't feel right.  I mean it's really more of a possession movie than anything.  I think this movie probably fits better with 13 Ghosts than it does with The Horde, or Dead Alive.  So there you have it!!!  Not bad.  One of the best horror movies ever even.

The Beer:

Aroma – 11/12

Appearance – 3/3

Taste – 19/20

Palate – 5/5 

   Overall – 9/10

Total = 47/50

  

The Movie:

Production – 4/5

Plot – 5/5

Gore – 5/5

Zombies – 2/5

  Overall – 4/5