Five college students take a weekend vacation, and rent an old cabin 'up in the mountains'. Scott & Shelly are together, as are Ash & Linda, and Cheryl is Ash's sister. They drive over an unstable bridge, down a trail and arrive at the isolated creepy cabin, have a look round, and unpack. Later that evening, they are all eating dinner in the dining room. In the main room, a trapdoor leading down to the cellar swings open, startling the group, and they rush in from the dining room. Scotty goes down the steps, into the cellar to investigate. Concerned, Ash soon follows.

Later, back at the cabin, Cheryl becomes possessed and attacks the group, wounding Linda. Scott forces her into the cellar, and locks the trapdoor. Then spirit returns and possesses Shelly. Scott battles with her, finally dismembering her with an axe. With his girlfriend dead, Scott leaves the cabin and ventures out into the woods.

Ash checks on Linda in bed in the back room. She jolts up possessed, and Ash rushes back into the main room, only to find Scott wounded & dying. Linda leaps upon Ash, and he stabs her, seemingly killing her. Ash buries her outside, meanwhile, Cheryl escapes from the cellar. Linda rises out of her shallow grave and attacks him again. Ash manages to decapitate her with a shovel, and rush back inside the cabin, only to find the broken trapdoor.

There are a few other little differences worth noting, such as the cellar trapdoor originally being found to be nailed shut in the script, so when it opens by itself later it is obviously more of a shock to the group. Additionally when Scotty leaves Ash in the script they part as good friends with Scotty going to get help, as opposed Scotty running out on Ash leaving him to fend for himself in the film.

Its also strange how changing one word in a line of dialogue can make something flow/scan so much better, like changing "...I don't know what I would have done if I had remained on THE hot coals burning my pretty flesh..." changed to "...I don't know what I would have done if I had remained on THOSE hot coals burning my pretty flesh..." Also "...like the others before you. We will take you one by one..." to "...like the others before you. One by one we will take you...."

Of the trilogy, The Evil Dead is the straightest horror film, lacking the slapstick and one liners of it's sequels, and is probably the most far removed from the Super-8 shorts in tone & gore. With the exception of Clockwork, there is really little linking one to the other. Comparing it to Within The Woods, you can see Sam has learned to make the most of the suspenseful or creepy elements. One good example is the sing chair outside the cabin, which Sam plays far more on the suspense here, than in Within The Woods, where it is a single almost a throw-away shot.

You can see from the film itself, along with the many anecdotes told by the cast that many individual shots have been carefully thought out & crafted some taking many hours, and that care and attention really comes through. This is an element that is progressively reigned in, to an extent not only in each of the sequels, but broadly across all Sam's films to date, although this is only really to be expected with the growing cast & crews, and the financial and studio executive constraints.