BLOOD AND GORE HAVE NEVER
BEEN SO MUCH FUN – OR TUNEFUL

This Halloween season has seemed to be unusually focused on horror movies so it came as a welcome relief for Revolution Stages to produce Evil Dead The Musical, a side-splitting parody of the Evil Dead movie franchise.

Five college students – Ash (Julian Perez), Linda (Samantha Simmons), Cheryl (Zelaya Sanchez), Scott (C. James Slaybach) and Shelly (Abby Kapadia) – set out in their car for a weekend in a mountain cabin. The boys have discovered that the cabin’s occupants have been absent for a long time, so they convince the girls that it’s the perfect place for a cuddle fest.

It’s obvious from the high-energy start that the entire quartet is extremely capable when they are crammed behind a car cartoon cutout. They introduce themselves with “Cabin in the Woods,” a great setup that primes us for a very good time.

The kids discover the Book of the Dead and start to read some of its incantations aloud, allowing demons to possess them one by one. Ash, who has established himself as the leader, first cuts his own hand off with a chain saw. He then cuts his girlfriend’s head off after she turns into a demon. Gory? Grizzly? Delightfully so. It’s hilarious when Ash’s recently severed hand takes on a life of its own, crawling across the kitchen counter and even attaching itself to the backside of one of the girls. For splatter-lovers, there is a “blood zone” in the first two rows.

In the second act, Ann (Kapata again, completely unrecognizable from her first act character) arrives in the nearby woods, stating that the cabin is owned by her father, a researcher into the powerful Book of the Dead. She is accompanied by Ed (Alfredo Bazua), a poor lad who can never get a word in. As they near the cabin, they run into Jake (Justin Ayestas), a foul-mouthed angry farmer complete with shaved head and bib overalls, who takes them to the cabin’s door. From there, The action never wanes, and the young cast captivates with pure, powerful voices, and all dance well.

Director/choreographer Carlos Garcia has staged dance numbers that are hysterical because of the way the company moves their heads and bodies quickly and with absolute precision. I’ll hazard a guess here that Garcia and the majority of the cast were trained in Coachella Valley’s Music Theatre University program so they already had a bit of shorthand from their training.

There are four composers – Frank Cipolla, Christopher Bond, Melissa Morris and George Reinblatt – with book and lyrics by Reinblatt, whose script is full of one-liners and corny clichés, all consistently delivered with so much energy that the young cast seems to barely take a breath as they mine every possible humorous nuance of the material. The actors believe what they are saying, even with lines like one girl saying, “My mother always told me that if I was in a spooky cabin, to go outside by myself without telling anyone else in the house.” There are many other tropes from horror films which the kids deliver seriously, which, of course, makes it even funnier.

The high-quality songs vary from the overly-earnest ballad “Housewares Employee” in which Ash and Linda sing about the marvel of their falling in love while both are employees of S-Mart, to the wacky “All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Kandarian Demons.”

Joyanne Tracy’s tacky set design offers lots of opportunities for action from three entrances, windows, and a trap door to the basement. It even has pictures and cabinet doors that dance, and a moose head hung on the wall that eventually gets involved.

I heard a couple of comments after the show that the volume was too loud. Frankly, it seemed natural to me with a young cast and a rock score, though there were a few mix issues where the recorded music overwhelming the live vocals. Also, be aware that the language is pretty raw, even in the song lyrics. Two boys have a duet where they repeat the words abbreviated by “WTF,” and it’s, as they say, disarmingly funny.

In short, this is a terrific show which unfortunately only has a two weekend run. Help pack Revolution Stages for their final weekend. They deserve the attention and you won’t be disappointed with this bowl of Halloween candy.

photos courtesy of Revolution Stage Company

Evil Dead The Musical
Revolution Stage Company
611 S. Palm Canyon Drive in Palm Springs
ends on November 1, 2025
for tickets, visit Revolution