My Blog

KentuckyJones and the Carpet of Doom! 4 Nights Only!

primitivescrewheads — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 07:29:17 GMT

In a world where terrorism runs wild and evil is slowly destroying hope, only one man has the ability to save the world... GOD HELP US ALL! Join Kentucky Jones and his band of Adventurers as they scour the globe looking for the Legendary Flying Carpet of King Solomon, while battling deadly hitmen, sophisticated traps, and deadly monsters! Doors Open at 7:00pm Shows Begin At 8pm Sharp! Live Performance at :THE BRAVA THEATER Tickets at: http://www.sfindie.com/

To our fans...

primitivescrewheads — Thu, 29 May 2008 00:28:47 GMT

It's been a year since our last show, and during that time we've been working hard on our next production. It seems our reputation for being a bit messy has spread far and wide and we've been denied and banned by all the theaters and warehouses throughout San Francisco and the Greater Bay Area. But you have to admit, with puddles of blood an inch thick on the floor and people's clothes being soaked and dyed in red liquid, you really can't blame them. In January, our friends from the Hole In The Head Film Festival found a theater for us to perform in, and asked us to do a show for them again this year. The catch was that we would not be able to spray blood or any other type of liquid. Now, The Primitive Screwheads enjoy being known as "The Blood Guys." We absolutely love seeing people drenched in fake blood and screaming for more. But we also take a lot of pleasure in being the group who works hard at making live theater fun, exciting and different. We've been able to bring in and entertain a lot of people, many of whom would not normally go to a live theater performance. And this is something that we're really proud of. So, we decided to take the challenge of doing a show with absolutely no blood. And over the past few months, as we created this show, we didn't just start thinking outside the box; we broke the box down, rebuilt it, and found a way to redefine live theater once again. For only four nights in June (18th to the 21st) at the Brava Theater, the Primitive Screwheads will be BONE DRY, with our new show: Kentucky Jones and The Carpet of Doom, a wacky takeoff on all the adventure movies we grew up on. It's got action, excitement, romance, monsters, and Killer Teas. Same silly fun. Same crazy excitement. Same unpredictable show. The only difference is we emptied our buckets of blood and we filled them up with OTHER things (tee-hee!). You can watch two of our mini teasers as well as buy tickets at this link: http://audience.withoutabox.com/festivals/event_item.php?id=16643 We really hope you can make it out to the show. You're going to have a lot of fun at our first ever BONE DRY show. Just remember: No blood, so Anything Goes! Our website is jacked right now so for More Info email: information@primitivescrewheads.com or aprilmarch@primitivescrewheads.com But don't worry. The Blood will be back soon ; )

Hello to all of our blood crazy fans

primitivescrewheads — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 02:58:54 GMT

It's been too long (way too long) since we last had fun together. We needed to take some time off to recharge our batteries, but we also needed some time to create and develop more carnage and mayhem for you to enjoy. But now that we are ready, we've unfortunately run into a rather nasty roadblock. It seems our reputation for being a bit messy has caused theaters and spaces to be afraid of us (and if you've seen our shows, you know their fear is warranted.) Simply put, we can't find a place to perform. Owners and managers have refused, denied, and backed out because they find us too messy for their tastes. So we're reaching out to all of you, our fans, for suggestions or contacts. If you know of a space or someone with a space who might be willing to rent out to us and our antics, please let us know. We really need your help. We're just about out of options on our end. Ideally, we'd like to stay in the San Francisco Bay Area, but we're open to any and all suggestions. If you could please email us at admin@primitivescrewheads.com with your ideas or suggestions, that would be great. So, it might be a while till we see each other again and get to spray blood all over you, but don't worry, we will find a way somehow, because much like the killer who won't die... We will be back. Buckets of Blood Forever, The Primitive Screwheads

Night of the Living Dead now open!!!

primitivescrewheads — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 16:19:04 GMT

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD: LIVE! Six strangers are trapped in a small farmhouse in the countryside of Pennsylvania… Why? Because the dead are coming back to LIFE and want FLESH!!! You’ve seen it millions of times, but now see it as you’ve never seen it before—RIGHT IN YOUR LAP! Night of the Living Dead: LIVE! is a live, interactive, theatrical production that parodies, yet remains faithful to George Romero’s classic horror films. Combining elements from Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead, this show will blow your mind if zombies don’t eat it first. Be ready for Nudity! Brains! Dismemberment! Gore! And as always, lots and lots of BLOOD!!! as only The Primitive Screwheads Theatre Co. can bring to you! WARNING: BLOOD AND GORE WILL SHOWER DOWN UPON THE AUDIENCE IN AN UNHOLY THUNDERSTORM FROM HELL!!!! June 13,14,15,16 and June 20,21,22,23 Doors Open at 7:00pm Shows Begin At 8pm Sharp! To be performed at: Hole Head Playhouse 1333 Indiana @ 25th DO NOT WEAR YOUR NICE CLOTHES! Tickets at: http://www.sfindie.com/catalog/ind http://www.primitivescrewheads.com

Up Next

primitivescrewheads — Fri, 11 May 2007 16:17:32 GMT

Night of the Living Dead: LIVE!!!!! When: June 13th-16th and 20th-23rd Six strangers are trapped in a small farmhouse in the countryside of Pennsylvania… Why? Because the dead are coming back to LIFE and want FLESH!!! You've seen it millions of times, but now see it as you've never seen it before—RIGHT IN YOUR LAP! Night of the Living Dead: LIVE! is a live, interactive, theatrical production that parodies, yet remains faithful to George Romero's classic horror films. Combining elements from Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead, this show will blow your mind if zombies don't eat it first. Be ready for Nudity! Brains! Dismemberment! Gore! And as always, lots and lots of BLOOD!!! as only The Primitive Screwheads Theatre Co. can bring to you! Tickets: $20 To Get Tickets, go here: http://www.sfindie.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=Night+of+the+Living+Dead&osCsid=97f4c19a3b41bcaaaeba9d32b8e8ae4a WARNING: BLOOD AND GORE WILL SHOWER DOWN UPON THE AUDIENCE IN AN UNHOLY THUNDERSTORM FROM HELL!!!! Don't wear your nice clothes.

Final Weekend of H3D!

primitivescrewheads — Thu, 22 Mar 2007 16:54:46 GMT

Finally, the true story about the Haddonfield Babysitter Murderer is revealed in this suspense-filled, gorefest comedy by the Primitive Screwheads, who will be performing this show for the first time in SCREW-U-VISION, a revolutionary sensory process in which audiences will be given special glasses that will make it seem like the actors are not on stage, but they'll swear the actors are sitting on right in their laps. This time around, we are performing at the Xenodrome Theater, which is a small 80 seat Venue, which allows our shows to be more intimate and it also brings the entire audience right up close to the action and excitment. The Xenodrome has also given us full permission to spray as much blood as we want, which means we are going to shower the entire audience without remorse. No one will be safe. NO ONE! There will be beer and wine and snacks for sale. WHEN: Thursday, Friday, Saturdays March 22nd,23rd,and 24th 8pm Shows Doors open at 7:15pm WHERE: Xenodrome Theater 1320 Potrero (@ 25th Street) San Francisco Tickets: www.brownpapertickets.com/event/11223 $20 plus service charge online $25 at the door. Get your tickets early. Our shows sell out fast especially since we are at a smaller venue. Thank You for your enthusiasm and support. And may God have mercy on you, because we sure won't! www.primitivescrewheads.com

Crazy Go Nuts Show!

primitivescrewheads — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 18:42:02 GMT

2 FOR 1 TICKETS WITH THIS FLYER! Starring The Primitive Screwheads Theater Company and Sketch Comedy Group Tossing Alice A widely experimental musical, comedy variety program that harkens back to the glory days of Creature Features, The Donnie and Marie Show, and Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-In. The Show features a wide variety of outrageous comedy sketches, musical performances, and improv routines so offensive, so risqué, and so controversial that it can only be shown at the stroke of 11:45pm. The center piece of the show is the return of the legendary and notorious Stand-up Comedy Contest: Driest Comic Standing, in which Bay Area Comedians perform their routines and audience members get a chance to toss water balloons at the contestant if they do not like them. Think the Gong Show, but with water balloons. In addition to this, The Crazy Go Nuts show will mark the unveiling of the most outrageous skit ever to be performed live on stage: THE EVIL DEAD PORN. And if that’s not enough, audiences will get a chance to see a 20 minute sneak peak performance of the Primitive Screwheads’ brand new blood splatter show H 3-D: The True Tale of The Haddonfield Babysitter Murder. A parody based on John Carpenter’s cult horror classic Halloween due out in March. The Victoria Theater 16th & Mission February 9,10, 16,17 11:45pm Tickets: $15.25 http://www.sfindie.com/catalog/ For more info: primitivescrewheads.com myspace/primitivescreheads.com Or contact: admin@primitivescrewheads.com

Come and get it!

primitivescrewheads — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:24:14 GMT

We're gearing up for the new year! Blood, violence, mayhem, comedy, nudity, loud music - what's not to love? Jan 5- The Fangoria Convention in San Jose - we'll be doing Friday the 13, Part 4 in 10 minutes, and the cat scene from our play, Re-Animator of the Dead Feb 9,10, 16, 17- The Crazy Go Nuts Show @ The Victoria Theatre - we're teaming up with our pals from indiefest and performing our violent, derranged comedy/variety show for two weekends of Mayhem. Featuring the immensly popular, Driest Comic Standing! The audience gets water balloons! March- H 3-D, The True Tale of the Haddonfield Babysitter Murderer - Our first 3-D play! you'll ba astounded as we present this live version of the Halloween movie! June- Night of the Dawn of the Day of the Dead - This will be the end all, slap a baby in the face, best show EVER!!!! All three Romero zombie movies in one show!?!?!?!?!!! Yes indeed.

"Best Goofy Gore"

primitivescrewheads — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 21:49:03 GMT

We Were Voted Best of the Bay 2006 by the SF Gaurdian! Severed arms, gushing entrails, and rivers of blood everyfreakingwhere! Yep, must be another Primitive Screwheads extravaganza. Beloved by local horror fans since its 2003 debut (the groovy Evil Dead: Live), this energetic company lures nontraditional theater crowds with its movie-inspired productions, most recently The Chainsaw Massacres. If you make a date with the Screwheads, it..s best to leave your favorite all-white outfit in the closet .. either way, though, prepare to draw stares as you shuffle home looking like a refugee from the set of Dead Alive. But mastering the art of modern Grand Guignol ain't the whole story: These thespians are side-splittingly funny. Their shows are so tech-heavy that improv is par for the course (allowing for spontaneous hilarity in case of a malfunctioning prop .. a mischievous axe, say). The future looks gruesomely bright for the Screwheads, who are in the process of becoming a nonprofit and plan to fling gore into their ever-growing audiences for years to come. Spray it, don't say it!

"Madcap Masters of Mayhem" - SF Guardian

primitivescrewheads — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 17:13:04 GMT

Get your tickets for this weekend while you still can! SLAY TIME If you love comedy, horror movies, and the singular sensation of being doused with oddly fruity stage blood, you're probably already a Primitive Screwheads fan. If you're not, its time to familiarize yourself with the madcap masters of mayhem behind such spectacles as Re-Animator of the Dead: The Tale of Herbert West and the inimitable Evil Dead: Live. Named for a favorite Army of Darkness quote, the young company was founded by a group of San Francisco State theater students in 2003; now something of a splat-stick phenomenon, they've also mounted two hugely successful shows as part of the Another Hole in the Head film festival. A few weeks back, a rowdy HoleHead crowd greeted their latest, The Chainsaw Massacres â€” a riff on The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (with The Devil's Rejects, Saturday Night Fever, and other pop culture insanity tossed in) that's now returning to CELLspace. Codirectors Sean Madeira and Robert Selander â€” the troupe's standout ham, who played Evil Dead's Ash and has a juicy role in Chainsaw â€” are in the process of attaining nonprofit status for the Screwheads. It's an exciting development for a group that basically runs on a self-fueled (and self-funded) mix of ingenuity, enthusiasm, and a staggering ability to multitask. "Sean is our main writer, and I'm our main blood technician and fight choreographer, but we split directing evenly," Selander explains. Madeira, who dreamed up the Evil Dead play while at a comics convention, drew on his screenwriting background for the company's first production, filling a previously undiscovered niche in the San Francisco theater scene in the process. "Everyone's seen Shakespeare," Madeira says. "I figured I'll just give them something different, something wild." The Sam Raimi cult classic was chosen because of its single location and handful of characters and, of course, its gore-tastic possibilities, though the company's audience-splattering ways (now a trademark) were stumbled upon with utter spontaneity. "I knew we were gonna have a lot of blood, because it was Evil Dead," Madeira recalls. "But then once it started accidentally hitting the audience, they went crazy." "By the end of the first run, Sean was, like, 'Well, they liked it! We should just spray it at the audience,â€™>â€ Selander adds. "Ever since then we've been trying to invent new ways to do it. I think where we are now, we have a good basis for trying to get the audience involved that way. It's almost like a 3-D movie: We started doing the blood, then we started putting more actors dying in the audience. Now we have full scenes that happen in the aisles." With a loyal following in place, the tight-knit Screwheads hope to do another comedy, Ã la their vaudevillian Crazy Go Nuts Show. "The horror stuff is cool," Madeira says. "But we don't want to be known strictly as the blood and guts guys." One day, he hopes to write an original play for the troupe without having to keep copyright laws in mind. "That's why we stopped doing Evil Dead â€” we'd like to do it again, but go through the proper channels. We're not out here to steal anybody's property," Madeira says. "It was just a fun thing to do and it caught on. We had no idea it would be that popular." Finding popularity isnâ€™t a problem for the Screwheads anymore, since their gruesome gospel has spread as their productions have become more technically accomplished. With an eye toward attracting an even bigger nontraditional theater crowd, each night of Chainsaw features a live band before the show. But one burning question remains: What's in the blood? "Can't tell you," Selander explains. "The blood is made of secrets." (Cheryl Eddy) THE CHAINSAW MASSACRES Thurs/29â “Sun/2 and July 7, 7 p.m. CELLspace 2050 Bryant, SF $20.25 www.sfindie.com www.primitivescrewheads.com

Article in Pink Section of SF Chronicle!

primitivescrewheads — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 18:57:16 GMT

Theater on the Cutting Edge When I came home from "Evil Dead: Live" two years ago raving that it was "the best thing ever onstage," my wife was skeptical. Serial dismemberment, blood shooting into the audience, characters swinging axes inches over our heads -- sure, that's entertainment. But the history of theater celebrates many great auteurs: Sophocles, Shakespeare, Tennessee Williams. How could the Primitive Screwheads' clever re-enactment of the "crawling evil hand" sequence from the film "Evil Dead II" possibly compare? "Shakespeare's fine. Beckett's fine," says Primitive Screwheads playwright and co-director Sean Madeira. "But they've been done so many times. I wanted to do something new." The Screwheads are doing something new this month: their third major show, "The Chainsaw Massacres," which promises, among other things, a new vegan-blood formula -- an important consideration, as everyone in the first few rows is likely to sample some. Unlike "Evil Dead: Live," which was based primarily on the three "Evil Dead" films, "The Chainsaw Massacres" will be based partly on the 1974 Tobe Hooper film "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and partly on the true story of serial killer Ed Gein that inspired the film. Madeira says it will also pay homage to other horror films, including "that genre of kids in the woods being stalked by cannibals." Madeira, whose day job is in operations for a major accounting firm, has two bachelor's degrees -- in screenwriting and scene design -- from San Francisco State. "I came from a film background," he says. "While I was sitting there watching all that theater, I was a little bored because I was used to the quick cuts of a movie. I noticed some other students were bored, too." Call it theater for people with short attention spans. Or, as Jane Ganahl wrote for The Chronicle about "Evil Dead: Live," "For teenage boys, there ain't nothing better." That's me, simply multiplied by an unnamed integer. I coaxed my wife to attend the group's previous show, last year's "Re-Animator of the Dead." We sat in the second row and she hid under the double-layer of protective plastic sheeting provided. As frequent blood sprays turned my T-shirt and sneakers a pretty pink by intermission, my wife was untouched until she let her guard down in the last five minutes. That's when a character had her arm ripped off and stumbled directly at my wife, spewing blood from the open socket right into her face. We got some interesting looks going home on BART. We did laundry right away, the stains came out and I didn't notice a sour-milk smell; the fake blood had milk in it to give it thickness and opacity. But for those who didn't launder quickly, the milk was a problem, so co-director, actor and blood creator Robert Selander, 25, has since spent many weekends creating a new, top-secret, nondairy formula with an uncle in Sonora who is a paramedic. He does confess that it will once again contain Karo syrup. "Otherwise it's kind of bitter," Selander says. "I did it for 'Evil Dead' because it was all over my face. I just did it because it was sweet and yummy." Selander has been playing with fake blood since his sophomore year at Sonora High School, when he bit on a blood capsule on Halloween and faked a seizure. The following year, he had a friend stab him in the neck. "I made this nasty blood mixture out of old spices and it was almost brown," he says. For his senior year prank, he made his first fake arm, which -- when ripped off -- pumped out tomato juice. The ripping off of fake limbs plays a major role in Primitive Screwheads productions. Before interviewing them at a rehearsal at San Francisco State, I imagined that they were trust-fund kids because their admission prices are low, yet they have so many props. I was wrong. "Everything we make ourselves," Selander says. "All the arms coming off in 'Re-Animator' we made in our living room one weekend. We Dumpster dive so much." They don't tour because they don't have any money; Selander says each troupe member took home about $100 from the entire run of "Re-Animator," though that may improve with their move to the larger CellSpace theater. (Note to fans: If a prosthetic part lands in your lap, please return it; they need it for the next show.) Screwheads' audiences cheerfully put up with all sorts of abuse. "After we did 'Re-Animator' some guy came up to me and said, 'You elbowed me in the face at 'Evil Dead,' " Selander says. "I said, 'Oh, I'm sorry.' He said, 'No, it's cool.' We've gone from spitting up blood at people to throwing fish at people -- real fish. We threw trout. But we get no complaints. Once the show starts, you kind of know what you're in for." Things have gone wrong. "One time Robert cut the girl's head off and it stuck on the mantelpiece," Madeira says. "That wasn't supposed to happen. Our props break. We miss our sound cues. Our crowds are very forgiving. People think it's part of the show." Part of the reason for that is the troupe's ability to improvise. Madeira says that although a few members have acting experience, others are stand-up comics. He says the troupe's first shows attracted some makeup experts who help out for little reward: "I have my crew guys do little scenes and get killed onstage," he says. "The Chainsaw Massacres" opened June 14, and this time, though there are "designated safe zones," my wife sat beside me up front. We both wore white. This production isn't as brilliant as "Evil Dead." The 90 minutes before intermission are more coherent and enjoyable than the hour of screaming and bloodshed afterward. But for $20, this is still plenty of visceral entertainment. I washed my hair twice after returning home and still had a bit of pink color in it the next morning; fortunately, all the noodles, Jell-O and watermelon were gone in the first rinse. My wife's reaction? "I want to go again," she says. Must be the vegan blood. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Chainsaw Massacres plays at 8:30 p.m. Thurs. through July 7 at CellSpace, 2050 Bryant St., San Francisco. Bands at 7:30 p.m. $20.25. primitivescrewheads.com. E-mail W. Blake Gray at wbgray@sfchronicle.com.

Check out our Trailer!

primitivescrewheads — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 16:55:13 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izZa6WSO5zg Tickets for the opening night of Chainsaw Massacres Live on June 14th are almost gone - don't expect any to be available at the door. Don't miss out on the bloodshed! For Tickets: www.primitivescrewheads.com

Murder = Meat

primitivescrewheads — Sat, 27 May 2006 17:31:58 GMT

Tickets for Chainsaw Massacres Live on sale! Five teenagers celebrate their last night together before college begins. When their car breaks down in the middle of the nowhere at the dead of night, they encounter a man who leads them down the road to one of the most terrifying experiences anyones darkest imagination could ever envision. strong pervasive horror violoence and gore - gruesome images - profanity - cannibalism - drug references - inbreeding - disco dancing - sustained intense action - violence - gratuitous spraying blood all over the place Live Bands Every Night! wednesday june 14th - Whisky Dicks Darryls Thursday june 29th- Suburban Death Camp Friday june 30th- Thee Merry Widows Saturday july 1st- Darker My Love Sunday july 2nd- The Hacks Friday July 7th- The Departed www.primitivescrewheads.com for tickets

SFist Goes To See: Re-Animator of the Dead: The Tale of Herbert West

primitivescrewheads — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 18:18:06 GMT

Full Disclosure: Any last scraps of journalistic "integrity" regarding this show were swept away when we saw that our earlier interview with The Primitive Screwheads excerpted in the program for Re-Animator of the Dead: The Tale of Herbert West. Our first blurb! Look out, David Manning! Going to see a Primitive Screwheads show at the Off-Market Theater is always weird -- you wait in one room, are ushered into an elevator, and eventually enter the theater itself. The theater is covered in plastic, as you are warned, again and again, that the audience isn't safe from the onstage carnage. We'd planned ahead by wearing black...oh, wait, we always wear black. But that seems apropos for Re-Animator of the Dead: The Tale of Herbert West, a staged production based firmly in the source materials of both Lovecraft and recent popular adaptions of his work. The story is simple: oddball medical student Herbert West (played by Kun Shin with a witty slam against the stereotype of the socially inept Asian physician) and his roommate and fellow student James Whale (Danny Acree at his wide-eyed best) have discovered a serum that reanimates dead tissue, with invariably catastrophic results. It seems that dead things are pretty cranky when you wake them back up, but Whale and West persist, reanimating pretty much anything dead that crosses their paths. Co-director and writer Sean Madeira does a pretty graceful job of merging the source texts with self and pop culture referential jokes to create a single work. That said, as audience members on opening night, it's clear that the show is still evolving -- but that was half the fun, as this seasoned ensemble works so well together that seeing their improvised responses to glitches packed as much hilarity as the intentional gags. The source material and intentionally over-the-top acting all takes a back seat to the Grand Guignol gore of the show. Every violent confrontation (and there are plenty) is punctuated by hoses and buckets of blood, much of which is tossed over the plastic-draped audience (note: yes, you do get hit with less blood if you sit in the back row, but then you have to deal with all the pussy-ass folks in front of you raising their plastic to block the spray and obscuring your vision in the process. Our advice: sit towards the middle and wear a black t-shirt and quit your whining) to their delight. Other stand-out performances were the frighteningly realistic portrayal of med-school Dean Halsey by Amber Kvietys, a sweet Vittoria Federico as the ingenue Elsa, the always-reliable Robert Selander (who also co-directed the production) as asshole talking head Colin Clive, and Chris Bowen as the tragically misunderstood metrosexual Fritz. We love watching these kids work together -- all of them play off one another like the cast of "Friends," except without making us want to kill them. We look forward to seeing this show later in the run, as it continues to gel and some of the more manageable technical and pacing issues are dealt with. Right now, this show is solidly good, with flashes of greatness, but our previous experiences with the Screwheads make us certain that brilliance lies in wait. At its very worst, it's like the log ride at Great America, except with sex and blood and swearing, and at its best it's like adrenaline straight to the heart. Either way, it's a must for all genre fans who are up for geting a little messy.

'Evil Dead' Comes Alive Onstage -- SF Chronicle

primitivescrewheads — Sat, 15 Apr 2006 18:13:35 GMT

Ash, the cult hero who is mankind's best hope against the dark forces of the Necronomicon, squares off with a zombie and fires up the chainsaw. The audience knows what's coming. The hapless folks in the first three rows of the Off-Market Studio theater quickly pull a clear plastic tarp up over their faces and heads and the blood starts to spurt. First in little squirts, then in a water cannon- like spray. They scream in unison, less in fear at the ghoulish events unfolding before them than in delighted revulsion at being splattered with red liquid. The zombie is dispatched -- limbs flying and blood soaking Robert Selander, the actor playing Ash. He pauses when finished and lets out a blood- curdling howl -- one of about 250 howls, screams and shrieks that will ensue during the course of the two-hour blood-fest known as "Evil Dead: Live." My 15-year-old nephew Skyler turns to his friend and offers the ultimate teenage approval: "Awesome." It's because of him and his 17-year-old brother Rob that I am here. When I told them that someone had made a stage play of their favorite trio of horror flicks -- "Evil Dead," "Evil Dead II" and "Army of Darkness" -- their reaction was immediate. "Are you kidding? Dude!" (They call everyone dude.) "We have to go!" For the unfamiliar, "Evil Dead" was unleashed on the world in 1981 by first-time director Sam Raimi (most recently of "Spiderman 2" fame) when he was barely in his 20s. It was hilariously poorly acted by young neophytes whose main qualification was to scream on cue. (Bruce Campbell, however, went on to glory as Ash.) But it had a certain ... something -- the same quality of the original "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Night of the Living Dead" -- a refreshing, low-budget rawness, smart camera work, lots of blood. It's that certain je ne sais quoi that makes teenage boys watch a horror film hundreds of times before turning their attention to more relevant things, such as girls. "Evil Dead: Live," which is produced by C.A.F.E. (Combined Art Form Entertainment) and the Primitive Screwheads, seeks to capture that magic and put it onstage. To pay homage to Raimi's vision. And oh yeah, don't wear anything that you can't throw in the washing machine. OK, I told my nephews, I'll take you. But I had not seen the film, so off to the video store I went. I hastily told the young man behind the counter that it was "research." He didn't look up. "Because I'm going to see the live version onstage Friday night." Suddenly he perked up. "Live onstage? Where?" I told him the Web site name where he could find out more information (www.evildeadlive.com) and he could barely contain himself. "Dude!" he shouted to his co-worker, shelving videos. "They've made a live version of E.D.! Sweet! " "Sweet" is not quite what I would call the show-in-progress. Funny and over-the-top, yes. The two acts of the play attempt to present a Readers Digest version of all three films, which means a lot of mayhem packed into two hours. The bulk of the action takes place in a remote cabin, where the accidental discovery of an ancient book of the dead -- the likes of which are found at remote cabins everywhere -- causes the deceased to return to life, none too happy at being disturbed. Like the films, the acting is of the hysterical variety. But no one in the audience of the tiny Mission Street theater space was expecting Tony-nominated performances. No, this audience is here for the thrill of sitting under plastic, waiting to get sprayed with raspberry Kool-Aid -- the first few rows filled up first -- and of course, for the dark humor. Because of the low-budget nature of the production, things do go wrong: the head of the ax that is so liberally used to dispatch ghouls continues to fall off -- something exploited for comedy by Selander, who holds up the headless ax handle: "And what am I supposed to do with this?" By the time the play is over, all 12 actors are soaked in red stain and some of the audience is, too. The applause is rapturous. Later, my nephews critiqued the play like pros. "I was stoked that the play was so much like the films," said Rob. "It was low-budget and over-the-top." "I think the guy who played Ash saved it," added Skyler. "And that they used their limited budget the same way Sam Raimi would have -- on gallons of blood." And for teenage boys, there ain't nothing better. Dude. E-mail Jane Ganahl at jganahl@sfchronicle.com.