00:00Open up and let us in, Cassie.
00:04We can be a big happy family again.
00:07Welcome to WatchMojo.
00:09And today, we'll be counting down our picks for the most iconically insane moments from the world of Ash and
00:16the Evil Dead.
00:24Number 10. Stop Motion Linda. Evil Dead 2.
00:31Stop Motion Linda.
00:39Director Sam Raimi perfectly blends horrific body horror with bizarre, Looney Tunes-style comedy during Linda's stop-motion dance in
00:48Evil Dead 2.
00:49Ash suffers a psychological breakdown after he's forced to decapitate his possessed girlfriend and bury her in the woods.
00:56Looking out the window under the moonlight, he hallucinates her headless, decayed corpse rising from the grave.
01:11The miniature armature puppet performs an eerie, fluid ballet, pirouetting and leaping through the air while holding her own severed
01:19head.
01:19The choppy, surreal nature of the stop-motion animation enhances the nightmare, making the sequence feel deeply unnatural.
01:27It cements the film's signature splatterstick tone, turning a tragic grotesque moment into a beautifully unhinged dancing hallucination.
01:42Number 9. Army of Darkness
02:01Even time-lost horror icons can forget their lines every now and then.
02:05Unfortunately for Ash, he had a pretty important one, and despite some worthwhile mumbling…
02:17The Necronomicon isn't convinced.
02:19In layman's terms, Ash messed up, and here comes the dead.
02:23Don't worry, it's more funny than scary.
02:26Three movies deep, this absurd skeleton attack is Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi at the peak of their slapstick game.
02:39The bony visitors are more handsy than anything else, and mixed with some incredible facial expression from Campbell,
02:46this goes down as a hilarious highlight in a film with plenty of them.
02:57Number 8. Raining Blood
02:59Evil Dead
03:09Fans of the Evil Dead franchise wondered if director Fede Alvarez's 2013 reimagining
03:14could possibly match the visceral intensity of the original.
03:18This climax answered that question with a resounding, blood-soaked yes.
03:23In the final act, after surviving unspeakable horrors, Mia has to face off against the abomination.
03:29As if a demonic doppelganger weren't enough, the sky literally opens up and begins raining blood.
03:43We aren't talking like a, you know, light drizzle here.
03:47The production famously used roughly 50,000 gallons of fake blood for this sequence alone.
03:52It drenches the screen in a deep, claustrophobic crimson, turning the final battle into a slick, slippery nightmare.
03:59The sheer scale of the practical effects here elevates a standard Final Girl showdown
04:04into an operatic masterpiece of pure cinematic excess.
04:12I'll go back to hell, bitch.
04:16Number 7. Fighting Henrietta
04:18Evil Dead 2
04:31It's within a dark and damp fruit-cellar sequence where Ash Williams further confronts
04:36a possessed Henrietta Noby in Evil Dead 2.
04:39The latter emerges from the earthen floor with a swollen, distorted face and a terrifyingly
04:44high-pitched screech.
04:46Henrietta taunts and brutally attacks Ash, with the actual mechanics of the scene relying
04:51heavily on practical makeup effects and kinetic camera work.
05:03Evil Dead 2 isn't finished with us yet, however, as Henrietta transforms into a long-necked,
05:09worm-like creature, and the encounter shifts into a gore-filled, action-packed battle for
05:14survival.
05:15These deadites want life, and they won't rest until Ash and the other survivors are dead
05:20by dawn.
05:31Number 6. Eating a wine glass
05:34Evil Dead Rise
05:36One of the most agonizingly tense moments in Evil Dead Rise occurs in the kitchen when the
05:49possessed matriarch Ellie corners her sister Beth. Ellie bites deep into the rim of a standard
05:55wine glass, shattering the glass right between her teeth with a sickeningly crunchy crack. Then,
06:02instead of spitting out the shards, Ellie deliberately chews and swallows the jagged pieces.
06:15Blood instantly wells up, staining her teeth and tripping down her chin as the glass lacerates her throat
06:21from the inside. It's a masterclass in body horror, using a familiar domestic object to create a visceral,
06:28bone-chilling sense of dread before the physical violence even truly begins.
06:41Number 5. Cheryl is Possessed
06:44The Evil Dead
06:56This is the exact moment the Evil Dead franchise changed forever. Cheryl is the first of the group
07:02to fall victim to the ancient evil, and her transformation set the gold standard for what a
07:07Deadite should be. She flees the woods and sits blindly at a deck of cards, accurately predicting
07:13them before suddenly levitating, her flesh turning a decayed grey and her eyes whiting out entirely.
07:28Cheryl then turns around and unleashes a barrage of demonic poetry and guttural threats
07:33before attacking. The practical makeup combined with Ellen Sandwise's terrifyingly energetic performance
07:39turned a low-budget indie film into an immediate nightmare. It's an iconic, incredibly intense
07:45sequence that proved the movie wasn't pulling any punches.
07:50Did you see your eyes?
07:52Gosh, I'm scared. What's wrong with her?
08:12Number 4. Scissor Stab
08:15Evil Dead Rise
08:28Director Lee Cronin promised that Evil Dead Rise would deliver plenty of high-impact gore.
08:34He absolutely made good on his word with that scissor scene. The characters are using whatever
08:39weapons are at hand during a frantic struggle to keep the possessed Ellie out of the apartments.
08:44What follows is a brutal close-quarters sequence where a pair of heavy scissors is driven directly into a
08:50character's eye socket and violently twisted. The camera doesn't blink, giving the audience a front-row seat
08:56to the sickening crunch and fluid dynamics of the injury. It's a moment of pure, unfiltered intensity
09:02that honors the franchise's history of cringe-inducing facial trauma. Even after four decades, Evil Dead can still find
09:10new ways to make audiences gasp in collective shock.
09:14Are you gonna be a mom?
09:24Yes.
09:25Number 3. Split Tongue
09:28Evil Dead
09:35Fede Alvarez's 2013 film intentionally avoided the slapstick humor of the later sequels, opting instead for a grim,
09:43hyper-realistic approach to body horror. No scene exemplifies this better than the infamous split-tongue moment. A
09:51possessed Natalie corners her targets, takes a standard utility razor blade, and slowly, deliberately slices her own
09:59tongue directly down the middle, creating a horrific serpentine fork. To make matters worse, she then uses the freshly split
10:08tongue to enthusiastically lick a horrified, blood-covered friend. The use of practical effects here is so seamless and
10:16lifelike that it triggers a visceral, sympathetic pain response in anyone watching. It remains one of the most
10:22infamously difficult-to-watch moments in modern horror history.
10:27Number 2. The Ending Bloodbath
10:30The Evil Dead
10:42The climax of the original Evil Dead is a masterclass in stop-motion animation, practical puppet work, and absolute
10:49cinematic chaos. Once Ash finally manages to throw the Necromicon into the fireplace, the demons possessing his former
10:57friends don't just die, they aggressively decompose in real time. We see flesh melting off bones, eyes
11:09popping, guts bursting, and limbs dissolving into puddles of green and yellow slime. It's a completely
11:15over-the-top, multi-minute assault on the senses that pushes the limits of what special effects artist Tom
11:21Sullivan could achieve on a low budget. The sheer volume of fluids, melting clay, and screaming monsters
11:28creates a surreal, hallucinatory nightmare that left an indelible mark on the horror genre and guaranteed
11:34the film's cult status for generations to come.
11:38Number 1. The Tree Assault
11:40The Evil Dead
11:51There is simply no denying that the tree sequence from the original 1981 film is the most infamous, shocking, and
11:59utterly insane moment in the entire Evil Dead pantheon. Cheryl ventures out into the dark woods alone, and an ancient
12:06Kandarian spirit commands the surrounding forest to attack her. The vines and branches literally
12:12come alive, wrapping around her limbs, trapping her, and subjecting her to a violent, deeply controversial assault.
12:19It's a scene so intense, raw, and explicitly disturbing that it led to the film being banned or heavily censored
12:27in
12:27multiple countries as a video nasty. The sequence completely shattered the conventional boundaries of mainstream horror at
12:40the time, establishing the terrifying, boundary-pushing rules of the Evil Dead universe forever.
12:56What's your favorite Evil Dead movie? Let us know in the comments!
Comments