Clermont gets visit from ‘Evil Dead’

MATTHEW J. PALM The Artistic Type

Tad Kincade has died hundreds of times. Onstage, that is. Clermont resident Kincade appeared in the Las Vegas production of “Evil Dead: The Musical” from 2014-16. He performed in more than 400 shows “and I died in every single one of them,” he says.

Now Kincade is directing the campy musical inspired by the cult horror film for the Moonlight Players in Clermont. It opens tonight.

In “Evil Dead,” college student Ash and four of his friends spend the weekend at an abandoned cabin, where they are terrorized by supernatural forces. The stage musical takes liberties with the 1981 movie and incorporates elements of its sequels as it spoofs the cliches of the horror-movie genre.

Among the show’s silly songs: “Look Who’s Evil Now,” “What the (Expletive) Was That?” and “All the Men in My Life Keep Getting Killed by Candarian Demons.”

“It was so much fun to do for two and half years,” says Kincade, who played Ash’s buddy, Scott. “It’s not scary, it’s more funny. You’ll be laughing more than being scared.”

While the musical goes for laughs, the film had its screaminducing moments … if you were of a certain age.

“I remember being terrified as a kid,” says Kincade, now 30. “But I always remembered the movie about a guy who had a chain saw for a hand and was killing people.”

You can’t talk about “Evil Dead: The Musical” without talking about blood. While the production is awash in the fake stuff, Clermont’s production seeks the real deal to replenish the local supply, depleted after hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.

Moonlight Players will host blood drives 5-11 p.m. today and Oct. 13 in hopes patrons will donate before or after the show.

In Las Vegas, the production’s “blood” was made from “mostly Kool-Aid,” Kincade says. “It didn’t look like blood.”

For his Clermont show, Kincade is using a more realistic formula. Theatergoers who sit in the first three rows — the “splash zone” — will get their fill of blood. They’ll also get a T-shirt to soak up the mess each time a demon is dismembered.

Says Kincade: “I want to make sure we get those people bloody.”