Evil Ed is a 1995 Swedish horror-comedy directed and photographed by Anders Jacobsson and written by Göran Lundström, Christer Ohlsson, and Anders Jacobsson.
The film tells the story of Ed the editor, a mild-mannered film editor with a wife, child, and a comfortable job editing art and drama films for a major studio. Following the suicide of their editor, heartless studio exec Sam Campbell transfers Ed to his department, the Splatter & Gore Department, to finish the censoring of the hyper-violent Loose Limbs series. Sam allows Ed the use of his secluded country cottage so Ed can go about his work undisturbed, or so he thinks. The seclusion and the constant exposure to the violent nature and content of the films he's editing start to drive Ed insane.
The film is a satire of the censoring of films in Sweden and is regarded as the top Swedish cult film and one of the goriest Swedish films of all time. It also uses an intentionally bad English dub for humorous effect. The film stars Johan Rudebeck as Evil Ed, Olof Rhodin as the sleazy Sam Campbell, Per Löfberg as the innocent horror fan Nick and Gert Fylking as the crazy SWAT leader who challenges Evil Ed.
In 2017, Arrow released the film on Blu-ray with new scenes and a newly produced documentary Lost in Brainland about the film's troubled production.
This movie contains examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: Nick saves Mel, but Ed dies, leaving his wife and daughter without a husband and a father.
- Bond One-Liner:
- You're fired!
- This is dying time!
- Rest in pieces, motherfucker!
- Punny Name: Film editor Eddie Tor Swenson.
- The Cameo: Bill Mosely makes a voice appearance as the killer in "Loose Limbs".
- Karmic Death: Sam Campbell is killed by the monster he created, Evil Ed.
- Mexican Standoff: Evil Ed vs. the SWAT leader
- Neck Snap: Ed snaps Sam’s neck when he hallucinates that Sam is Satan.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping:
- The dubbed voice actor for Ed, his American accents seems to slide all over the place. Very noticeable in the beginning.
- Ditto for the actress playing Mel. She did her own dubbed voice. Her accent starts to slip when Ed holds her hostage and she screams "Nick! Nick!".
- Real Trailer, Fake Movie: In-universe, all the footage from the "Loose Limbs" films.
- Running Gag: The SWAT Leader complimenting on how "nice" things are;
- "Nice tie."
- "Nice bed."
- "Nice door."
- And his final words: "Nice shot."
- Same Language Dub: All the characters in the film were played by Swedish actors and actresses and they were all dubbed by native English speakers.
- Shout-Out:
- The film's title is a pun on "Evil Dead".
- Sam Campbell!
- When Evil Ed chases one of the robbers, the scene recreates the chase in Evil Dead 2.
- The scene where Ed's wife Barbara hides in the closet looks exactly like the one in Halloween (1978).
- "I'm coming to get you, Barbara!"
- "Don't you fucking look at me!"
- From the same movie, the line, "Now it's dark..."
- The stand-off between Ed and the SWAT leader is from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.
- The film's title is a pun on "Evil Dead".
- Take That!: The plot for this film makes fun of how poorly censored horror films are for European releases. Anyone who has seen a Swedish state-censored horror film will say the edit Ed does to the murder scene is spot on in its clumsiness.
- Your Head A-Splode: In the opening scene, a crazy editor puts a grenade in his mouth and allows it to go off. Gorn ensues.
