Army of Darkness

31 Days of Horror: Day 3

All right, now we're talking.  After watching The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II on consecutive nights, now it is time for Army of Darkness, the third and possibly final entry in Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's Ash trilogy.  This was the movie that I had some peripheral awareness of, even before I became a fan of horror movies, if only because this movie poster was on the back cover of every comic book I bought in 1992.  One of my fondest Army of Darkness memories involves a few of my moderately normal friends in college asking me to choose what we watched on a movie night; they wanted "strange" things they hadn't seen before, and I chose Army of Darkness and Labyrinth.  They were (obviously) excellent choices, but I don't recall receiving any standing ovations.  Anyway, Evil Dead II has made me like it more and more with each viewing.  Will the same go for Army of Darkness?

Last time we saw Ash (Bruce Campbell), he had been sucked into a void (along with his car) after he defeated the evil wood spirit/demon/thing that plagued the Evil Dead movies.  When he landed on the other side of the void, he was in Medieval times and he was once again faced with possessed monsters.  This time, though, they have a name: Deadites.  While it is possible for Ash to find his way home again, it requires him to go into a haunted cemetery and retrieve the Necronomicon, which is the book Ash burned in the first film.  All he has to do is brave the challenges ahead of him and say some magic words, and all will be right with the world.  Since not much has gone right for Ash in the last few days (Is that math correct?  Do the events of the first two movies take only about two days?), the Deadites rise up and mount a large-scale attack to retrieve the Necronomicon.  Who will lead the miserably primitive Medieval peons against the Deadite army (of darkness)?  The only man with balls big enough to carry a shotgun and a chainsaw hand, of course.

Pictured: General Ash and PFC Boom Stick

Army of Darkness stayed true to its acting roots, once again going out of its way to not try to impress audiences with the talent of its cast.  This time around, Bruce Campbell got to be even more of a cartoon character, both with his physical humor and with the special effects.

Following true cartoon logic, shaking his head fixes this disfigurement

What I like best about Campbell's performance his fantastically over-macho swagger.  This isn't something we've seen in the other Evil Dead movies, but it's a big part of what makes this one special.  Embeth Davidtz plays Ash's love interest, and she gives the best performance of any female in this series so far.  That's not saying much, and it's saying even less in AoD because Ash spends a hefty amount of time sharing the screen with evil versions of himself.  Still, she was perfectly acceptable with only a few lines.  Marcus Gilbert and Richard Grove were okay as the leaders of the non-Deadite forces, but neither really had much to do.  Ian Abercrombie sounded as wise as his role required.  Bridget Fonda has a brief cameo as Ash's dead girlfriend in a flashback, but she doesn't even get a line.  Ted Raimi did a little better, playing three brief bit parts.  There's not much to say about the acting outside of Campbell because the movie relies so heavily on him.

For the villain, they cast the only man who could hold his own against Bruce Campbell: Bruce Campbell

Sam Raimi returned as director and co-writer for a third round with Ash and the Deadites in Army of Darkness.  By this point, Raimi had just had his first mainstream hit, Darkman, and got a substantially larger budget for this film as a result.  With that in mind, a lot of his choices are curious.  Why go the Jason and the Argonauts route with the skeleton army?  Sure, I guess it looks cool, but it makes the inclusion of non-skeleton warriors --- who suddenly appear whenever there is a castle interior shot --- seem a little out of place.

None of these brave soldiers make it inside the castle gates

I would have thought the cost for the skeleton FX would be greater than costuming people (which he ended up doing, anyway).  This movie is kind of like Baron Munchausen in that it is pretty obvious where the budget went, and it's not always clear if the cost was worth it.  I'm not complaining, by any means, about Raimi's love of old-school special effects.

A rubber suit, water, a fog machine, with fake moss and rocks still make for fun scenes

He just made some unusual choices.  Chief among those was making Army of Darkness skew heavily toward its comedic elements.  It is strange to think of a sequel that purposely strays from the tone of its predecessor --- I can't imagine that happening today --- but I guess Raimi & co. had already gotten the ball rolling with Evil Dead II, so why not go all-out in the final chapter?  Raimi's direction did a good job emphasizing the one-liners in the script, and he made the special effects look good.  Beyond that, this movie just feels like he was having fun.

...or possibly on drugs

While I would probably categorize Army of Darkness as more of a comedy than a horror movie, it does have enough gross imagery to stay in the horror genre.  One of the odder things about this movie, though, is its rating.  Army of Darkness is rated "R."  For a movie with relatively little gore (aside from some ridiculous over-use of fake blood in the beginning), no sex, and little profanity, that seems a bit harsh.  If you just look at the stills, then sure, I can see Evil Ash looking a bit gross and scary.

But his grosses moment just had him trying to kiss a girl.  That is a pretty soft "R."  If I was making the movie and received that rating, I would have gone back and gored things up a bit to make the rating worthwhile.

In my "R" cutting, Bat-Deadite is touching her boobies

With its toned-down feel, how does Army of Darkness stack up?  As far as horror-comedy blends go, it's one of the better ones.  The lines are often corny, but they are classics worth memorizing.  That doesn't make it a good horror movie, though.  I find myself entertained by this movie every time I watch it, but I'm laughing at the same parts every time, with dwindling results.

"It's not THAT bad.  Throw us a *bad pun*"

Maybe I need to watch this with a first-time viewer, to remember what it was like when "Groovy" and "Boom stick" were brand new to me.  Will I watch Army of Darkness again?  Absolutely.  When I have kids, this will be one of the first "horror" movies they will see.  Is it my favorite Evil Dead movie?  Not anymore.  That distinction now belongs to Evil Dead II.

Evil Dead 2

31 Days of Horror: Day 2

Legend has it that director/co-writer Sam Raimi always had a plan to make a sequel to his surprise cult hit, The Evil Dead.  I've seen it reported in a few places that he wanted to tell a story where Ash is transported to Medieval times, an idea that later became the story to Army of Darkness.  So, if the third movie in the series used the idea that the director had for the second movie...what did he do with the actual sequel?

Evil Dead II picks up right where...well, where the other movie began.  This time around, though, only Ash (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend, Linda (Denise Bixler), make the poor choice to spend the weekend in a cabin in the woods.  This isn't a creepy, ramshackle cabin, though; it is well-furnished --- it even has a piano! --- and looks more like a vacation home than anything else.  Not that Ash and Linda are renting it or anything; Ash is taking her there because it is "deserted."  Essentially, Ash is an aspiring squatter.  He then makes the mistake of playing an audio tape he finds on a desk in the cabin, where a professor of some sorts reads off his phonetic translation of the passages in the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis, or the "Book of the Dead."  Soon enough, an evil spirit possesses Linda, she get decapitated by Ash's shovel, and Ash is the last person standing, alone in the woods with some sort of woods demon out to get him.  To this point, the story has been pretty much a highly edited (about six minutes long!) remake of the original movie.  But then things start to get a little weird.

That's right: hillbilly-in-overalls weird

It turns out that the voice on the audio tape belonged to an archaeology professor who was working on a project to explain the Book of the Dead.  His daughter, Annie (Sarah Berry), and her research partner, Ed (Richard Domeier), were on their way back from an excavation, where they had found the last pages of the book.  Those pages contain spells that can ultimately destroy the evil spirit.  Now, all we need is for Annie and her partner to get to the cabin, team up with Ash, and figure out how to stay alive long enough to do what needs to be done.  The only problems are (in order):

• the only bridge leading to or from the cabin has been wrecked by the demon spirit thing
• Ash is a stranger, covered in blood and Annie's parents are missing
• All they have to do is decode a dead language and apply that knowledge to the problem at hand

Oh, and Ash's hand has become possessed and is trying to kill him.

The acting in Evil Dead II is certainly not impressive at first glance, but Bruce Campbell's improvement is more noticeable if you compare it to his work in the previous film.  This is less of a straight horror movie, as it has added a lot of broad slapstick comedy to the mix, and that plays to Campbell's strengths.  Specifically, he does well with exaggerated expressions and hammy dialogue, so the cartoony sequences in the movie (especially Ash vs. his hand) are a lot of fun to watch.

"What's up, Doc?" would have fit this scene like a glove

Of the rest of the cast, I suppose longtime soap actress Kassie Wesley DePaiva is probably the most noteworthy; she didn't do a whole lot, but she was inoffensive.  This was the only featured role Sarah Berry ever had --- her only other credit is as an extra in C.H.U.D. II - Bud the Chud ---but I thought she was pretty decent.  There aren't a lot of good female roles in horror movies, especially in the 80s, but she was convincingly stubborn and strong.  Ted Raimi, as is his usual schtick, played a small part in his brother's movie.  This time, he played Henrietta, Annie's possessed mother.  Ted doesn't really "act" in this movie, so much as he "lumbers around under a lot of makeup and costuming," but Henrietta is one of the more memorable monsters in the movie, so I guess all that thankless work was worthwhile.

Why is this not Ted Raimi's IMDb image?

Only one film bridges the gap between the Sam Raimi that made The Evil Dead and the one that made Evil Dead II, but it makes all the difference.  Raimi is much more confident as a director and the overall feel of the film is less "amateurish" and more "professional with a low budget."  The most obvious difference between the two films is the conscious choice to add a lot more comedy to Evil Dead II, and that was probably the right choice.  Raimi has a talent for capturing comedy on camera, especially slightly awkward comedy, and this was his first true platform to show off that talent.  I don't know if I would say that Raimi was any better at directing the cast in this film, but he and Bruce Campbell seemed to be working on the same comedic wavelength, if nothing else.  The cinematography, while not spectacular, wasn't bad.  The iconic POV shot of the evil woods demon thingie tearing through the woods made a return, and that was probably the most memorable bit of cinematography in the film.  Raimi also did a good job capturing some truly weird and gross moments on film.

...sometimes bordering on cold-medicine-induced-nightmare moments

Evil Dead II may be going for laughs, but there are still enough horror tropes to satisfy most fans of the genre.  If you're looking for fake blood, this has some of the more ridiculously over-the-top spurts of the 80s.  I was a little surprised to notice that there is very little gore captured on-camera, though; the most gruesome scenes simply show blood spattering on something else, like the wall of the shed.

Remember those Gatorade "sweat" ads?  Raimi missed an advertising tie-in.

If you're looking for special effects, the makeup and costumes for the possessed are pretty good.  Some of the FX are simply claymation and are showing their age, but I'm pretty sure those FX were cheesy when the film was released, too.  Still, they add to the goofy/surreal tone of the movie and I like them a hell of a lot more than late 80s CGI.

Can you imagine this with 80s CGI?  Ugh.  Now THAT'S gross.

Even though the gore was off-camera (or just goofy) and the special effects were more gross-looking than scary, Evil Dead II earned an "X" rating in America when it was released, for reasons I cannot understand.  If they had recreated the rape tree scene from the first movie, that would make sense, but Kassie Wesley DePaiva's scene doesn't get sexual at all. 

"NO RAPE TREE?  NO X RATING!  IT'S PRACTICALLY A RULE!"

In fact, Evil Dead II is generally less horrific than the original movie, despite the cast and director having more experience and money to work with.  And yet, Evil Dead II is a much, much more entertaining movie on every other level.  The characters are a lot less irritating, the story makes a little bit more sense, and the comic weirdness and goofiness that comes from a hero with a chainsaw hand all add up to something odd and unique.  Ash may have been the main character in The Evil Dead, but the character that has become a cult icon doesn't appear until he grabs a chainsaw and shotgun.

Behold: Ash is born!

The first time I sat down to watch this film, I was eighteen.  I hadn't gotten into horror yet, and didn't really understand the value of campiness or low-budget charm.  However, when the movie finished, I turned to my friend and said, "I can't believe that I have to see the sequel now."  Even though I didn't care for Evil Dead II at first glance, it still reeled me in and left me wanting to know more.  Since then, it improves with every viewing.  It's not quite up there with my absolute personal favorites, but I give it...

Oh, and I have come to a realization with the "is it a remake or a sequel" question that surrounds this movie.  We don't actually see the Necronomicon after the six-minute recap at the beginning of the film, just the additional pages.  It is entirely possible that the events of the first film could have happened (minus, I guess, the other two friends).  So, aside from the recap --- which was necessary to explain what the hell was going on --- there is little to no remaking going on.  Why did they film the recap instead of showing clips from the original film?  Since it was made by a different production company, I will assume there was some sort of ownership issue.

The Evil Dead (1981)

31 Days of Horror: Day 1

When I sat down to watch The Evil Dead recently, it was with the goal of re-watching the entire Evil Dead series, rather than enjoying the original film; it's not that I dislike the first entry in the series by any means, but Evil Dead II is a remake of the first film, and is funnier/gorier/awesomer.  Ask anyone.  After about fifteen minutes of The Evil Dead, though, I came to a realization: I have never seen this movie before.  I don't know why I was so absolutely certain that I had seen this movie --- I would have sworn to having seen this, even at gunpoint --- but that shock did two things for me.  First, it was a bit humbling to realize that I had missed a cult classic like this, especially since I enjoy its sequels so much.  Second, it meant that I should probably reassess my presumptions about the film.  So, here goes a review --- now, with fresh eyes!

 The Evil Dead begins with five coeds on a trip to a remote cabin in the woods.  And, by "remote cabin in the woods," I of course mean a traditional horror movie murder cabin.  This place doesn't look relaxing or quaint. 

Even odds on the lampshades being made from human skin

Whatever, this is a horror movie and unfortunate choices are bound to happen.  When exploring this rustic cabin, the group discovers a trap door that leads to a dank basement.  Now, as a horror movie viewer, you might imagine that the basement is going to have something scary in it.  It's a reasonable assumption.  However, the trap door has been fashioned so that you can chain it shut, which makes it --- and this is a best-case scenario, mind you --- a torture dungeon.

"Last one in is the gimp"

But, once again, horror movie logic dictates that the two men of the group, Scott (Richard DeManincor) and Ash (Bruce Campbell), go down to the creepy basement and explore.  Surprisingly, it's not too bad down there.  There's a few weapons, but nothing alarming.  In fact, the most interesting thing they find is a weird book and an audio recording.

So...it's a book about Megadeth?

Being curious youngsters, thy decide to sit and listen to the audio recording while flipping through the obviously-not-evil book.  Ash's sister, Cheryl (Ellen Sandweiss), had had some weird premonitions of danger before they found the book, which culminated in her drawing hand getting possessed and making a truly dull pencil drawing.

Her possessed hand drew...Spongebob?

Of course, she doesn't tell anyone about this incident because HORROR MOVIE.  Instead, she listens to the audio tape with the others.  It seems that the book they found is a Book of the Dead, which has spells and incantations for all sorts of bad stuff, and the tape they found was the audiobook version of it.  Why would somebody record spells on an audio tape?  Maybe to allow underprivileged aspiring cult leaders to cast spells without having to learn demonic languages at Satan School?  Anyway, Cheryl freaks out, runs into the woods, and winds up getting raped by the woods.  What does that mean?  It means just what it sounds like.

Not surprisingly, that makes a bit of an impression on Cheryl.  However, she handles it in an somewhat surprising fashion: she gets possessed by a demon (or something) that has a fondness for skin-shredding.  Whatever she has is contagious, too, because every member of the group demons-out at one point or another, except for Ash.  Can Ash save his friends?  Will they survive the night?  Or will they all become *pause for effect* the evil dead?

It's not as bad as it looks.  The heavy makeup ruins your complexion over time, but hey, you're dead.

The Evil Dead was twenty-year-old writer/director Sam Raimi's first movie (although IMDb does list some Super8 shorts he made as a teen), and it definitely has some rough edges.  The dialogue is frequently stiff and unnatural.  The cast tends to overact, even in the most basic scenes.  The synth-heavy soundtrack only adds to the overall sense of cheesiness.  The story doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, and there does not really seem to be much logic in who gets "infected" by demons and when.

And why is Ash's nemesis in this film bookcases?

And yet, that somehow doesn't really matter.  Raimi put together a bizarre movie --- a horror film without an enemy to attack and overcome --- and he spiced up this unusual format with plenty of creative gore.

Raimi's sped-up POV-ish camera work for the forest demon-things is distinctive enough to make a movie with a LOT of stereotypical setup feel different.  Is this great work from Raimi?  No, but it is, at the very least, interesting...provided that you can get past the initial cheesiness.

The acting in The Evil Dead is pretty terrible, overall.  A very young Bruce Campbell showed some charm, but his best moments were the less serious moments.  It is also kind of cute listening to him without his trademark baritone.

Campbell, charting when his other testicle will drop

Richard DeManincor was pretty awful as Scott, but he also had the dumbest character in the movie, so it's probably not entirely his fault.  Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker, and Theresa Tilly don't really have many instances to be much better; at best they are damsels in distress, at worst they are cackling witches.

Acting isn't everything, though, in a horror movie.  The ultimate question here is whether or not The Evil Dead provides a scary experience.  And that answer is: kind of, I guess.  There is certainly enough violence and gore to satisfy most fans of the genre.

Not much in terms of sex, which is probably for the best.

The makeup is actually pretty good in this movie.  The special effects --- the ending melting scenes and the tree rape --- are not technically impressive, but they are pretty memorable.   

Above: Not your standard monster death

Overall, The Evil Dead is a solid low-budget horror flick.  It's not that scary, but it more than makes up for it in gore and strangeness.  It is substantially different from Evil Dead II and Army of Darkness, but that difference in tone is what makes this worth watching.  Evil Dead II is so goofy, it is interesting and fun to see the same talent doing the same story with a different spin.  It doesn't happen much, but The Evil Dead is a rare example of a movie that is definitely less impressive than its remakes, but still worth a watch.