The Evil Dead Trilogy

 

 

           NECRONOMICON EX MORTIS                     

 

  • What is the Necronomicon?? And where did the idea come from????

The Necronomicon was the creation of the horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, and served as a collection of supernatural wonders, a collection of myths of pre–human species on earth and/or a book of spells . However the Necronomicon ex mortis which appears in these films bears many differences from Lovecraft's book. This book was written more than 3000 years ago and vanished around 1300 AD.

Lovecraft cites the meaning of the title as a translation from Greek – 'An image of the law of the dead,' nekros (corpse), nomos (law), eikon (image). However a more prosaic translation can be derived by conjugating 'nemo' (to consider) : Concerning the Dead.

In 1927 Lovecraft wrote a brief pseudo-history of the Necronomicon that was published in 1938, after his death, as The History of the Necronomicon. In the history Alhszred is said to have nee a half crazed Muslim who worshipped the Lovecraftian entities Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. He is described as being from Sanaa I Yemen and as visiting the ruins of Babylon. In his last years he lived in Damascus, where he wrote Al Azif (original name for Book of the dead) before his sudden and mysterious death in 738. In subsequent years, Lovecraft wrote, the Azif 'gained considerable, though surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age. In 950 it was translated into Greek and given the title Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas, a fictional scholar from Constantinople. this version 'impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts' before being 'suppressed and burnt.' In 1050 by patriarch Micheal.  

After this attempted suppression the work was 'only heard of furtively' until it was translated from Greek into Latin by Olaus Wormius (1228). Both the Latin and Greek text, the History relates, were banned by pope Gregory ix in 1232, though Latin editions were apparently published in 15th century Germany and 17th century Spain. A Greek edition was printed in Italy in the first half of the 16th century.  The Elizabethan magician John Dee allegedly translated the book - presumably into English - but Lovecraft wrote that this version was never printed and only fragments survived. According to Lovecraft, the Arabic version of Al Azif had already disappeared by the time the Greek version was banned in 1050. The Greek version, he writes, has not been reported since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692 - an apparent reference to the Salem witch trials.

The Necronomicon is mentioned in a number of Lovecraft's short stories and in his novels 'At the mountain of madness' and the Case of Charles Dexter ward.

Of course the evil dead films spurned the Necronomicon ex mortis, a book that is similar in many ways to Lovecraft's, but was not initially inspired by it. Instead writer and director Sam Raimibased the book in his film on sumerian mythology and the Ancient Egyptian book of the dead. So the book was described as a text from ancient sumeria 'bound in human flesh and inked in human blood, that can ressurect demons and turn humans into monsters.

 

 

 

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EVIL DEAD I

 

EVIL DEAD II

 

EVIL DEAD III

 

EVIL DEAD 2013

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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