Theatre / Evil Dead: The Musical

A Canadian rock musical based on the Evil Dead films.

Five college students decide to spend some time in a cabin in the woods. They unleash demons, and sing and dance about it.

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This musical has examples of:

• Action Dress Rip: Parodied by Annie's outfit getting progressively and pointlessly ripped apart.
• Adaptational Dumbass: Shelly in the play is portrayed as a ditzy moron where in the movie she was not implied to be dumb.
• Adaptation Amalgamation: It's The Evil Dead (1981) and Evil Dead 2 if they both happened in the same night, plus a couple of the iconic lines from Army of Darkness. Ash goes to the cabin with a gang of his friends like in the first movie but bar his girlfriend Linda, they were removed from the Broad Strokes sequel. Then the cabin owner's daughter shows up thinking Ash killed her parents like in the second movie.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: Lampshaded. In the movie, Jake tries to force the group out into the woods to look for Bobbi Joe, his girlfriend. In the show, Bobbi Joe is adapted out, but Jake still wants to force everyone out into the woods. When Ash demands to know why Jake would want to go into the woods, Jake handwaves it by saying, "I don't have time for your common sense!"
• Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: Shelly was Scottie's long time girlfriend, and a friend of Ash and the girl in the first film. The musical changes it so that she's a one night stand he just met, and frequently lampshades the oddness of bringing someone he barely knows on a trip with his friends.
• Adapted Out:
  • Bobbi Joe, Jake's girlfriend from the second film, is the only character not used from the second film. Cheryl being attacked is enough to establish that the woods are dangerous.
  • Invoked in the transition between Act 1 and Act 2. Just as Evil Dead 2 adapted out Shelly and Scotty, the bodies of those characters disappear during the intermission. Ash lampshades this at the beginning of the second act.
• Affectionate Parody: The show is very much a loving send-up of the franchise.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Lampshaded and subverted in "Bit Part Demon". Eddie bemoans being a bit part demon, but then it's pointed out he's been singing for two minutes without interrupted meaning he's now a character - and mid-song, he gets blown away by Ash, who snarks, "Now you'll have a bit part - in Hell!"
  • Considering the show adapts the first two movies altogether, Cheryl lasts a lot longer than the other characters from the first. Shelly, Scottie and Linda all vanish after the first act (except to reappear for the Necronomicon), but Cheryl remains to occasionally pop from the cellar.
• Audience Participation: "Do The Necronomicon" is a full dance the audience is invited to participate in. To say nothing of the show's infamous "splatter zone."
• Bit-Part Bad Guys: Invoked by Ash regarding Ed. Then doubly subverted, because Ed gets a song - "Bit-Part Demon" - before he gets shot, likely because not being a Bit Part Bad Guy meant he really was a potential threat. This is lampshaded by Ash immediately afterward.
  Ash: Now you'll have a bit part... in hell!
• Biting-the-Hand Humor: Annie mentions having seen Spider-Man and thinking the direction was poor. Sam Raimi of course directed the original trilogy.
• Blatant Lies: Jake's song "Good Old Reliable Jake" is filled with these. He claims to be a pro basketball player, to have won an Oscar for directing Platoon, written Jackie Chan's autobiography, and coined the phrase "fo shizzle, my nizzle!"
• Bloody Hilarious: If the "Splatter Zone" didn't tip you off.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: When Ash, Annie, and Jake saw the ghost of Professor Knowby, they share this exchange:
  Jake: It's a ghost.
  Annie: It's my dad.
  Ash: It's a ghost dad.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Two characters give a shout-out to the band when a particular musical sting occurs.
  • Jake also does this quite openly, much to the confusion of the other characters. When first introduced he explains unsolicited why Bobbi Joe would be a redundant character and was thus Adapted Out.
• Camp:
  • The show never takes itself too seriously, although given how the source material wound up, that's no surprise.
• Cartwright Curse: "All the men in my life keep getting killed by Candarian demons!"
• Clothing Damage:
  • Parodied, with lots of "Oh no, now my [X] is torn" by Annie. Followed by her ripping the offending bit of clothing off.
  • Ash's shirt gets torn up throughout the show, much like the original films.
  • The show has a "splatter zone" encompassing the first three rows or so. Some fans have taken to wearing white shirts to take home as bloody souvenirs.
• Colorblind Casting: If Cheryl is played by a black actress, her last words will be to tell Ash that he's adopted.
• Comical Overreacting: Ash is just as horrified by all the supernatural terror as he is by a mustard stain on his pants.
• Composite Character: Cheryl is one, taking parts of Cheryl and Henrietta Knowby after becoming a deadite.
• Dance Sensation: The Necronomicon is the new dance sensation. "Dooo the Necronomicon. The Necronomicon."
• Damned by Faint Praise: Linda is repeatedly called "the perfect girl," while Ash is repeatedly called "a housewares employee."
• The Dead Can Dance: The deadites "Do the Necronomicon".
• Denser and Wackier: When adapting the first film's events, it does so in a much more comedic tone. Notably the first film was more of a straight horror, rather than the horror comedy the franchise would become best known as.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Basically the whole male cast, especially Ash.
• Don't Go in the Woods: "Cabin in the Woods" is a song about this trope.
• Doom Magnet: Annie is portrayed as this. She complains of a "trend" in her life where all the men she knows are killed by Candarian demons, mentioning her father and fiance. When Ash points out that's only two people, she goes on to clarify at length.
• Doppelgänger Replacement Love Interest: At the end when Ash is Trapped in the Past, he gets together with a knight played by Linda's actress
• Dumb Blonde: Shelly is portrayed as a complete ditz, and gets an Adaptation Dye-Job to become blonde. In the original, it was Cheryl who was the blonde.
• Evil Is Hammy: Cheryl takes the cake with this one. Once she's possessed, she becomes a hammy Pungeon Master.
• Evolving Music: To this day, George Reinblatt is still rewriting the script, updating now-dated references.
• Fanservice: Linda and Shelly wear skimpy clothing.
• Hurricane of Puns: Unleashed after Ash chainsaws his possessed hand off. His Deadite sister then starts mocking him with a barrage of ridiculous Puns on 'hands'.
• "I Am Becoming" Song: "I'm Not A Killer", where Ash brings himself to kill his possessed girlfriend and "It's Time", where Ash finally mans up into the demon-slayer we know and love. "Look Who's Evil Now" also counts for Cheryl.
• "I Am" Song: "Good Old Reliable Jake" and "Bit Part Demon", although "Good Old Reliable Jake" is consist of nothing but Blatant Lies.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: In "I'm Not A Killer" Ash sings "I'm not a killer, I'm an S-Mart employee".
• I Warned You: Scott tells Ash not to open the cellar door, thinking that Sheryl and Lydia are still possessed. Ash ignores his warning to let Sheryl out, only to get attacked by her. Scott got up to tell him so before falling dead to the floor.
• Lame Pun Reaction: Deadite Cheryl speaks in nearly nothing but puns, to Ash's annoyance. Annie expresses a similar annoyance, wondering why, of all the Deadites, Ash left Cheryl alive.
  Cheryl: I’ll get you, Ash! I’m like a literal Hulk Hogan... I’ll get you, brother!
  Ash: Shut up!
  Cheryl: We’re like that Columbia House 'Ten CD’s for a Penny' club. Sooner or later, you’ll join us!
  Ash: Shut up!
  Cheryl: I’m like Dom De Luise at an all-you-can-eat fish house. I’ll swallow your 'sole'!
  Ash: God, shut up!
  Cheryl: It’ll be like you got shot by Don Johnson from that TV show Miami Vice, you'll be dead by Don!
  Ash: That is it!
• Lampshade Hanging: The musical does quite a bit of it. It even points out the inconsistency with Ash being brought back from the curse from seeing Linda's necklace... even though Linda is a Deadite now.
• Mauve Shirt: Parodied by Ed The Bit Part Demon.
  Ed: I'm that guy you see in every horror flick/You probably don't remember me, I come and go too quick
  Annie (a main character): We've listened to you talk for the past two minutes! You said a whole lot just now, just you! Aw, you're not a bit part demon any more, you're a lead player! A star!
  Ed: You're right! Now I see that this thread has been disrupted/I've said more than five words without being interrupted/I'm a bit part no more, my character's had a swing/Now it's time for this demon to sing, sing, singgggggggggggg, I
  * gunshot*
  Ash: Now you'll have a bit part, in hell!
• Musicalis Interruptus: Ed, a person who gets constantly interrupted dialogue-wise and later gets turned into "the bit-part demon" because of it, is about to break out into his own musical number, and is promptly shot by Ash.
• Mythology Gag: The show is a mish-mash of lines and plot from all three Sam Raimi / Bruce Campbell films.
  • The first act, with the plot of five college students going into a cabin in the woods, is taken from Evil Dead
  • The second act, with Ash joining Annie's group, is taken from Evil Dead 2
  • The finale, with Ash back at S-Mart, is taken from Army of Darkness. All of Ash's iconic lines from this film are sprinkled throughout the show.
• Not What It Looks Like: Jake, Ed and Annie walk in to find Ash sawing Linda's head off with a chainsaw. Coupled with everything else that's happened, and the room covered in blood and gore, all Ash can say to them is "this isn't as bad as it looks." Smash to Black for intermission.
• Oblivious Adoption: If Cheryl's played by a black actress, her last words will be to Ash that he's adopted.
• Painting the Medium: When Eddie starts his song about being a bit part demon, a spotlight comes on and illuminates... the empty staircase next to him. The other cast members have to awkwardly alert him to move.
• Plot Armor: Ash says a "Bit Part Demon" like Ed poses no threat to him, the story's hero.
• Prom Wrecker: Annie's song, "All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Kandarian Demons" mentions how her prom date was killed by a Kandarian demon.
• Race Lift: One run of the show has Ash's sister played by a black woman, which makes her final line, "You're adopted!" even funnier.
• Rimshot: A few particularly corny jokes trigger one.
• Running Gag:
  • Scotty calling the girls a "stupid bitch," culminating in him calling death a bitch... a stupid bitch!
  • Scotty dying and coming back to life to shout a warning to Ash, only to realize that he's mortally wounded and collapse again.
  • Annie's clothing getting progressively more torn up.
  • Deadites shouting, "Look who's evil now!" when they reveal themselves. Eddie is annoyed when Annie shouts the catchphrase instead of him when he reveals himself.
• Skewed Priorities: Shelly got possessed by a demon and is ready to attack Ash and Scotty. Scotty orders Ash, who's holding the shotgun, to kill the deadite Shelly. But Ash refused stating that Shelly is a friend of theirs. Scotty shouts at him saying that he picked Shelly up drunk in a bar two days ago, he rips the shotgun out of Ash's hands and shoots her with it.
• The Song Before the Storm: "It's Time". The gist of the song is that Ash has decided it's time to man-up and kick a whole mess of ass. In the next few scenes, he kills things that are immortal.
• Sound-Effect Bleep: One musical number has a line that goes "And then we'll take that chainsaw and we'll shove it up your-" "Ash!" which is a bit of a moot point, since there's musical numbers titled "Stupid Bitch" and "What the Fuck Was That?"
• Suddenly Shouting: In the song "Ode to an Accidental Stabbing," we have Jake doing this straight in Annie's face, sometimes leading to her breaking up in hilarious corpsing fits.
  Jake: Well, in the future, I'd appreciate it... if you... could... NOT FUCKIN' STAB ME!!!!
• Take That!: A good nature humorous one to Raimi, the play has a gag where Annie calls Spiderman "poorly directed".
• Tamer and Chaster: The infamous tree rape scene from the first film is toned down. The lights go out just as the trees close in around Cheryl, and she'll only come back into the cabin with mild Clothing Damage (in the original she was stripped naked).
• Tempting Fate: Ash in particular has a bad habit of doing this.
  Ash: Well, we will be fine so long as no one else in our party turns into a demon!
  *Loud scream from offstage*
  Ash: FUCK!
• Title: The Adaptation: Evil Dead: The Musical!
• Unrelated in the Adaptation: If Cheryl's played by a black actress, her last words will be to Ash that he's adopted.
• Viewers Are Goldfish: Lampshaded. Act I ends with a long sun solo consisting of "Die, DIE!" repeated fifteen times — and it lasts for nearly 45 seconds — while Ash kills his former girlfriend's zombie head, a pile of other zombie bodies in the corner. Act II begins with the exact same solo, but the head is obviously fake, and the place has been cleaned up. When other characters demand to know how this "isn't as bad as it looks", Ash replies: "At least there isn't a pile of bodies in the corner anymore."
• Villain Recruitment Song: "Join Us" is about joining the deadites.
• Villain Song: "Join Us", a bouncy upbeat song extolling the virtues of submitting to the Evil Dead.
• Would Rather Suffer: "Join Us" has Ash state, "I'd rather look like this moose" than join the deadites. Unfortunately, said moose is also a candarian demon, which bites his hand.
  "Why, thank you!"

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