The decade long debate among theatre producers has been devising a strategy to renew audiences. That is to clear out the aging gits and their bad polyester while securing a younger, loyal demographic. What makes this new generation tick? What would motive a large number of them to drop $30 bucks for a theatrical event?

And with so many thumbs firmly up arses and unable to come up with an answer to these agonizing questions, a small group of ambitious nobodies came along with a comical narrative to parody bad horror flick conventions and dress it up with catchy, memorable show tunes, sending audiences away with an altered sense of what theatre can offer.

That answer—of course—is Evil Dead - The Musical.

No doubt creators George Reinblatt, Frank Cipolla, Christopher Bond, and Melissa Morris, may have simply wanted to write a little musical to bare their artistic talents but little did they know they had inadvertently stumbled across the secret of theatergoer recovery.

The production unfolds with five college students breaking into a secluded cabin only to discover a necronomicon—a book of the dead. What could possibly go wrong you ask? Ummm, aside from everyone turning into unholy entities before your very eyes, not much!

A boisterous scream, Evil Dead - The Musical goes where no musical has gone before with scenes so farcically boorish that it’ll make you shriek and snicker. This highly innovative, blood curdling theatre experience brings together the spirit of B-movie storytelling with good ol’ Generation X potty mouth humour to deliver a gutsy new wave of musical adventure.

Ryan Ward is killer as the courageous hero Ash who can bitch slap evil with one hand. His love interest, Linda, played by the impressive Tara Macri ensures that there has to be a happy ending somewhere on the horizon.

Sarah Cornell as the blonde bombshell Shelly gives the show just naïve warmth and sex appeal but you can’t not admire Matt Olmstead’s Scott who gets some of the show’s coolest lines: “Death is a bitch, a stupid bitch.”

Rachel Fischer’s contributions as Ash’s younger sister Cheryl busts some fine moves on stage it’s Mike Nahrgang’s Jake that comes out of nowhere to score some big laughs while singing Good Old Reliable Jake.

Other songs such as What the Fuck Was That?, Bit-Part Demon, and Do the Necronomicon give the play a distinct musical flavour.

It may not be an instant cult classic just yet but Evil Dead – The Musical will keep you coming back again and again.