'Evil Dead' musical bedeviled by clichés, tired jokes
A fan-favorite moment of the "Evil Dead" series of comic horror films happens after the main character, Ash, equips himself with a chain-saw to battle a nasty group of demons.
Ash brandishes the chain-saw and says one word with Clint Eastwood steeliness: "Groovy."
Unfortunately for fans, "Evil Dead: The Musical," now playing a limited engagement at the Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, sucks just about all the groovy out of its great source material.
The musical, created by George Reinblatt, Frank Cipolla, Melissa Morris and Christopher Bond, follows the basic outline of the first and second "Evil Dead" films. A group of college kids travels deep into the woods for a weekend at a remote cabin the kids think is empty. Once there, the students unwittingly unleash demonic spirits, which proceed to possess them one by one.
The first "Evil Dead" film, released in 1981, played the story in a more-or-less straight fashion. The second, called "Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn," added a dose of offbeat humor that has become the trademark of the series.
The musical attempts to pay homage to those films, created by filmmaker Sam Raimi, while also satirizing the tropes of 1980s-era horror flicks.
The problem is that the musical isn't nearly as clever or inventive as Raimi's flicks. It relies on the most shopworn brand of raunchy humor, replete with dumb-blonde jokes and repeated references to a particular sex act. And the jabs it takes at the fright-flick genre were barely funny when the first "Scary Movie" parody movie came out 14 years ago.
Other aspects of the production disappoint, as well. The prerecorded music is standard musical-theater stuff, which seems like a missed opportunity.
Before the show started and during the intermission, 1980s heavy metal played on the theater's sound system - AC/DC, Quiet Riot and the like. Why not write music that riffs on that genre? It would have fit the '80s-horror-movie vibe nicely.
And the much-ballyhooed segment in which the first few rows of the house are drenched in fake blood during the final battle turned out to be more sputter than splatter. I would have thought, given the gory nature of the story, that the production would go all out and really soak the audience for the whole two hours. They paid extra to sit in the "splatter zone," after all.
The actors, despite not having much to work with, do a nice job. Particularly strong are Andrew Di Rosa, who plays Jake, a southern-friend local, and Callie Johnson, who plays both the dumb-blonde character and the brainy daughter of the cabin's missing owner.
"Evil Dead: The Musical," with better writing and music, could have been a worthy companion to the film franchise. As it is, though - nothing groovy here.
'Evil Dead: The Musical'
<span class="fact box text bold">Location</span>: Broadway Playhouse at Water Tower Place, 175 E. Chestnut, Chicago; (800) 775-2000, <a href="http://broadwayinchicago.com">broadwayinchicago.com</a>
<span class="fact box text bold">Showtimes</span>: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Thursday; 7 and 10:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 3 p.m. Sunday; runs through Oct. 12
<span class="fact box text bold">Tickets</span>: $29.99 through $67.99
<span class="fact box text bold">Rating</span>: Best for teens and up; coarse language, sexual humor, sexual situations, comical violence