The Big Picture
- The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis is a fictional book that originated from the works of H.P. Lovecraft, who created a body of work filled with mysterious and terrifying elements.
- The Necronomicon has appeared in various stories within Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos," presenting it as a cursed book containing forbidden knowledge of dark gods and perverted incantations.
- The Evil Dead franchise gave the Necronomicon a distinct appearance and expanded its mythology, depicting it as a book written with human blood on pages made from human skin, capable of summoning demons, opening rifts in time and space, and resurrecting the dead.
Sometimes it's hard to believe that the demonic book in every Evil Dead story is fictional. For all the glorious goofiness of the horror-comedy franchise, the Evil Dead movies still manage to present a cursed tome that has so much lore that it feels like it was inspired by a true story. That's not the case, but it's not surprising that so many horror fans have wondered. After all, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis has a longer history than the Evil Dead franchise, popping up in a variety of scary stories of the years. But where does this Book of the Dead come from? And how did the Evil Dead franchise expand on its mythology?
Who Created the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis?
The Necronomicon is a recurring element of horror, science fiction, and fantasy stories written by early 20th century author H.P. Lovecraft. Fascinated by all the mysterious -- things the human mind cannot comprehend -- Lovecraft crafted a body of work filled with scientists and scholars whose sanity is challenged by ancient monsters, dangerous aliens, and occult objects. One of the reasons Lovecraft’s stories keep resonating with readers decades after his passing is how his style mimics that of official reports, making it easy to mistake a fictional horror story written by the master for the recountings of daring adventurers that took place in the real world. It is worth underlining that Lovecraft published most of his work before the television was invented and while cinema was still finding its footing. As such, it was much easier to be tricked by Lovecraft’s apparent rational description of wondrous and terrifying things hiding in plain sight. That helps explain why the Necronomicon became an urban legend of its own.
The first official mention of the Necronomicon occurred in the short story The Hound, written in 1922 and published in 1924. The story follows two gravediggers who find a mysterious amulet mentioned in “the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.” However, that’s not the first time the name Abdul Alhazred appeared in Lovecraft’s work, as the fictional writer is mentioned as the author of verses in The Nameless City, a story written and published in 1921. The Nameless City is of utmost importance for Lovecraft’s work because it’s the first story of the “Cthulhu Mythos,” an interconnected narrative universe that introduced the concept of Great Old Ones to horror fans, and that explores how little humanity knows about the forces toying with their spirits.
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Over the decades until Lovecraft’s passing, the Necronomicon would return to haunt different people in the stories of the “Cthulhu Mythos.” The book is part of fan-favorite tales such as At the Mountains of Madness, The Call of Cthulhu, and The Dunwich Horror. By feeding readers tiny pieces of information over the years, Lovecraft painted a vivid picture of a cursed book capable of breaking the minds of anyone who dared to study its pages, as it contains forbidden knowledge of dark gods and perverted incantations. The Necronomicon is, for instance, responsible for the descent into madness of R. U. Pickman, one of the main characters of Pickman's Model, which got recently adapted in Guillermo del Toro’s Cabinet of Curiosities.
Lovecraft even wrote a fictional History of the Necronomicon in 1927, although the short story was only published posthumously in 1938. According to the tale, Abdul Alhazred worshiped Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth in the early 700s CE, being granted secret knowledge that he used to write the first version of the book, titled “Al Azif” in Arabic. The book was translated into Greek in 950 and named “Necronomicon” by Theodorus Philetas, another fictional scholar. After many incidents inspired by the Necronomicon, the tome was burnt by the Holy Church, but copies are still available worldwide. It’s an intriguing story that masterfully patches together pieces of factual history and Lovecraft’s nightmares, which only helps people to mistake the Book of the Dead for something that could be real. Furthermore, thanks to the Evil Dead franchise, the Necronomicon is more popular than ever.
How Does ‘The Evil Dead’ Franchise Use the Book of the Dead?
The Necronomicon was used by Sam Raimi in the first The Evil Dead as an obvious nod to Lovecraft’s body of work. Unsurprisingly, Raimi’s vicious horror movie is, at its core, a story about people inadvertently unleashing an ancient evil on the Earth after reading passages from a cursed book. However, in the Evil Dead franchise, the Necronomicon (which actually might include three different but related books) has an entirely different origin. For starters, in the “Cthulhu Mythos,” the Necronomicon is never said to have a specific look. In fact, since copies of the book exist in at least five libraries worldwide, it’s fair to assume that Lovecraft’s Necronomicon looks just like other books. That makes sense since people try to hide its existence and study its forbidden knowledge without fear of persecution. In its turn, the Evil Dead franchise gave the Necronomicon a distinct appearance by making the book be written with human blood over pages made from human skin. Evil Dead’s Necronomicon looks so gnarly that no one can imagine the book as anything other than evil incarnate.
While Lovecraft never listed all the things the Necronomicon can do, over the decades, the Evil Dead franchise also showed how the incantations in its pages could summon demons, open rifts in time and space, resurrect the dead, and release an army of Deadites upon the lands. In the Evil Dead franchise, the Necronomicon is also much older than Lovecraft’s version, created by a race of evil beings called The Dark Ones. As the under-watched Ash vs. Evil Dead series tells us, the Dark Ones wrote the Necronomicon to hold all their secrets. The Dark Ones even used the Necronomicon to enslave humanity in Mesopotamia thousands of years ago until they were banished to a different dimension, and the book began to be used by their followers or people willing to uncover its mysteries.
Since the Evil Dead franchise once again made the legend of the Necronomicon popular, it also helped to once again spread the confusion about its possible existence. That’s because, since the book also shows up in literature decades before Raimi’s cult classic, some people might wonder what’s the original source for the Books of the Dead. Fortunately, no one needs to worry about Great Old Ones or Deadites, as the Necronomicon is nothing more than a surprisingly persuasive piece of fiction. The Necronomicon Ex-Mortis was last seen in Evil Dead Rise, currently streaming on Max.
