The Footlighters don’t want you to forget Halloween again this year.

“Everyone’s always busy with school and ends up missing it,” said student director Sam Haese. “Around Nov. 2 you look up and think: ‘Oh no, I didn’t do anything for Halloween.’”

The musical-production group hopes to remedy this with their fall show, the gory “Evil Dead: The Musical.” The musical follows five college students to a cabin in the woods, and features demons, zombies and spurts of blood, and it will run for three days next weekend.

“The adjective we are going to go for is ‘gratuitous,’” said Haese.

That should be easy to achieve with this show, which is based on the original “Evil Dead” movie franchise, a cheesy horror trilogy that established the cabin-in-the-woods cliché. The musical version is a “comic retelling” of the movies, according to Haese. The larger-than-life characters fight evil spirits and transform into the undead, singing along the way.

“This gave us an opportunity to work with makeup and special effects, which we haven’t done before,” said Haese. “It’s very new for the club.”

Footlighters’ choice to perform “Evil Dead” falls within a Cleveland trend of horror-inspired productions; local Black Canvas Theater is now wrapping up its production of “Night of the Living Dead,” and Footlighter’s “Evil Dead” will be performed just a little over two weeks after Playhouse Square’s production of the same play.

The timing of the play was perfect in more than one way. The Footlighters have needed a comedic break, since they have done dramatic shows for a while now.

“We did three very serious shows in a row, they were a bit on the tragic side and we tended to stick to classics,” said Haese. “I wanted to venture outside of that and do something unconventional and lighthearted.”

Location: Carlton Commons
Tickets: Students $5, Public $10
Show Dates & Times: Nov. 6 at 8:30 p.m.; Nov. 7 at 8 p.m.; Nov. 8 at 8 p.m. and 11:59 p.m.