The Evil Dead (1981)

This auspicious feature debut from Sam Raimi — shot on 16mm in the woods of Tennessee for around $350,000 — secured the young director’s cult status as a creative force to be reckoned with. The film follows a now classic Hollywood narrative of a group of teenagers making their way into the spooky woods for a cabin holiday, but end up being picked off one by one by merciless demons of all shapes and sizes. Luckily one of the teens finds a particularly nasty chainsaw, and uses it to blitz his way out of the woods to safety. The film manages to pull of a miraculous thing; making audiences question whether they should be laughing or screaming at what they bear witness to, as skeletons dance with their skulls in the moonlight.