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“A horror film’s job is to scare you, is to get your pulse going, is to make you scream and yell. It’s to make you be afraid. That’s its main purpose, and creeping you out. And that can be an enjoyable experience.” --- John Carpenter ::::::::::::: MY CRITERIA FOR DISCUSSION ENCOMPASSES THE HORROR GENRE AND BEYOND, SO I USE THE TERM "NIGHTMARE MOVIES". SPOILERS CAN OCCUR WITH OR WITHOUT WARNING. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

Evil Dead II

October 2nd 2007 00:21
Evil Dead II movie poster
After The Evil Dead (1982) made Sam Raimi and Rob Tapert a tidy little sum they realised they had tapped into something. But Raimi wanted to push the boundaries a little further. Not in the area of blood and gore, but into the area of slapstick. Well, splatstick, to be precise (although Evil Dead II is far from the excesses of Peter Jackson’s seminal splatsticker Braindead from '91).

Evil Dead II (which had the sub-title Dead By Dawn for Australasian audiences) came out in 1987 and made stupid amounts of money, which is fairly apt, since it’s a pretty stupid movie. Perhaps I’m being a little harsh. It works for the most part for what it is, but it ain’t a hell of a lot. I didn’t care for it much the first time round, and watching it again all these years later I care for it probably less, although I’m considerably less disappointed by it.
Evil Dead II book of the dead
The Book of the Dead waiting to be opened and read aloud again
I love The Evil Dead. It has a no holds barred approach, is endlessly inventive, creepily atmospheric, and the shoddy acting and technical goofs only heightens the movie’s rustic, raw appeal. The Evil Dead was a punch in the face of modern horror, saying, wake up and smell the coffee, the new blood’s in town, while Evil Dead II is a slap and tickle, a nudge and a wink.

Evil Dead II Bruce Campbell
Bruce Campbell as Ash possessed
Curiously Sam Raimi chose not to make a direct continuation, but to re-style the first movie. Evil Dead II sits in an odd limbo between remake and sequel (re-quel, perhaps?!). With a bigger budget and shooting in widescreen Raimi opted to tell the same story again but differently, with an almost entirely different cast (except for hero anti-hero Ash), and end it very differently (leaving the movie wide open for what fans assumed would no doubt be called Medieval Dead, but turned out to be named Army of Darkness).
Evil Dead II Bruce Campbell
Ash's hand has an evil mind of its own
Second time around Ash (Bruce Campbell) arrives at the cabin with only his girlfriend Linda (now played by Denise Bixler). Ash plays the tape recording left by Professor Knowby (John Peakes) and, of course, unleashes the forces of the evil dead. They possess Ash and in one of the movie’s best sequences the monstrous force slams into Ash as he surveys the scene outside the cabin and propels him backwards at incredible speed through the trees. It’s a superbly executed camera trick.
Evil Dead II the bird
Ash's Deadite hand gives him the finger
The professor’s daughter Annie (Sarah Berry), on a mission to recover her father’s findings, with her boyfriend assistant Ed (Richard Domeier) in tow, plus a couple of country hicks, Jake (Dan Hicks) and Bobbie Joe Kassie Wesley) whom they inadvertently got saddled with, arrive at the cabin and assume Ash has murdered the professor and his wife. Soon after the evil dead forces possess Ed. Then the gargantuan Henrietta, the professor’s Deadite wife (played by Ted Raimi), emerges from the cellar and the shit really starts to hit the fan.
Evil Dead II Richard Domeier
Watch out, it's evil Ed (Richard Domeier)
If there’s a couple of words to sum up Evil Dead II, it’s damn silly. Call me old fashioned, but I am very picky on my horror-comedy, and this style just leaves me cold as a corpse. I thought it was a cop out when I saw this at the movies with a bunch of mates during uni, but I had to keep my mouth shut as everyone else seemed to think it was a real hoot. Twenty years later and it looks and acts even sillier. All the real shreds of horror have been toned down. But I understand why. Raimi wanted to make shit loads of money, so he made a movie that would receive a soft “R” at the most (the Aussie equivalent of an M rating).
Evil Dead II Ted Raimi
Possessed Henrietta (Ted Riami) wants a piece of the action
There’s blood, but the violence is more cartoon like. The fear factor has been replaced by an invisible laugh track. There are deliberate one-liners, like the most famous line of the movie when Ash has attached a chainsaw to the end of his severed wrist and he coolly remarks, “Grooovy!” Or, the only time I actually smirked; when Ash is trying to catch his taunting, possessed hand, which he’d severed, he manages to impale it with a knife and then, with a maniacal expression, shouts at it, “Yeaah! Who’s laughing now?!!” It’s arguably the movie’s only real moment of vaguely clever humour. That and the absurd ending.
Evil Dead II Bruce Campbell and chainsaw
Ash and his trusty chainsaw
With Evil Dead II Raimi certainly has fun throwing the camera round, probably more so than in the original, and does deliver some clever shots, the best one when Ash is studying himself in the mirror, and his reflection leans through the mirror and begins throttling him. But there are also way too many sequences of blatantly lowbrow comedy, especially the stop animation dead can dance sequence which girlfriend corpse Linda does outside the cabin, and the sequence where all the furniture (including the deer head trophy) start to laugh and jeer at Ash resulting in Ash doing his own over-the-top cackling. It’s obvious, but rather ill-conceived, that Raimi was keen to capture a touch of the silent era’s style of bumbling humour i.e. Buston Keaton and Harold Lloyd.
Evil Dead II bloody Bruce Campbell
A little blood in the eye never hurt no one
Evil Dead II does have a huge legion of fans, many of whom prefer it over the original movie. I’m not one of them. With a handful of exceptions, I prefer my sense of humour in horror to be black and acidic, subtle, but uncompromising. Evil Dead II lays on the humour with a plastic trowel.

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews
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3 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

October 2nd 2007 01:43
I rewmember the ads on television.
Not my style of horror but my brother loved it.

Comment by anonymous

October 2nd 2007 04:43
Hi Bryn, its John Doe (Unable to comment under my username?)

Essentially a more comedic, higher budget version of the original...and I loved it...Bruce Campbell is a god, groovy...totally dig the alternate endings too

Comment by Bryn

October 2nd 2007 05:05


Horrorphile
Damo, wid ya.

JD, yes very much so. And hey, Raimi laughed all the way to the bank. Then made the dreadful Darkman. There are two camps to this movie, and you and I are on opposing banks. And what alternate endings?? I've never seen or heard of any alternate endings to Evil Dead II, I know of ones for Army of Darkness though ...

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