While I was looking for a way to fill a Halloween evening off here in Fredericton NB I stumbled across a poster advertising a local community theatre production of Evil Dead: The Musical. I have heard a lot about this show over the years, and friends of mine were actually in the original Toronto production, but I had never seen it. I thought it would be a hoot to score a $20 ticket, and I wasn't disappointed. Presented at a cute little theatre at the local francophone community center, the show featured a quirky local cast, that may not have had professional talent, but they certainly had a lot of heart.
With its very own blood splash zone in the front row, this show focused on the gory, campy off beat humour that made Bruce Campbell and The Evil Dead trilogy of movies cult classics. Blood packets and Hudson sprayers full of fake blood doused the audience throughout the show, much to their obvious delight.
With songs like "What the fuck was that?" and "Do the Necronomicon" the show kept tonights small audience laughing throughout. Some of the cast may not have had the vocal range to belt these rollicking tunes the way they were written, but I will give them credit for their attempt. They certainly were committed.
The show certainly had its share of technical difficulties, missed mic pick up, miss-cued sound effects, wigs falling from cast members heads, lighting levels that left the cast in near total darkness...the list goes on. It was a little bit like being forced to watch the final performance of Waiting for Guffman.
Despite the technical elements of the show being a propper Tour De Farce I want to give full kudos to the 2 young ladies who played Cheryl and Shelly, as both of them had the pipes to sing their respective roles, and knew how to act their way out of a wet paper bag, qualities unfortunately not shared by the rest of the cast.
Regardless, I laughed pretty hard both with, and at, the cast, and the show provided a solid two hours of entertainment.
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