Sam Raimi's first full-length film, about a group of college-age kids who find a necronomicon-like book and unleash the evil spirits of demons who possess them sequentially, has an enormous cult following, and it's easy to see why. Low on both plot and character, the film instead offers an enormous number of scares and thrills, and exhibits a precocious (and highly effective) use of camera placement, make-up effects, and editing and story rhythms--this is one of the best-paced horror films ever made. Raimi makes reference to almost every film you can think of that preceded it, from the expected (CARRIE, HALLOWEEN, SUSPIRIA) to the surprising (THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, with the shot of the tendril creeping up Cheryl's dress, and THE WIZARD OF OZ, with Cheryl's zombie mocking Ash just like the Wicked Witch of the West mocks Dorothy). The tone is mostly straightfaced, with little indication of how tongue-in-cheek the series would later become, though there are some indications in the demons' impossibly but enjoyably arch dialogue. The film won no prizes for progressive gender politics: the hero, Ash (the strongjawed and likeable Bruce Campbell) basically learns how to be a man by ceasing to protect the possessed female characters and instead beating them literally to bits. But on the level of delivering purely shocking thrills it would be hard to match this lowbudget work.