Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Evil Dead II 1987

Evil Dead II takes the sequel concept of “Let’s do the same thing as last time, multiplied by 200” and absolutely nails it. Less a sequel and more of Remake-quel, Rami and Co saying “This is the movie we WANTED to make but didn’t have the budget.”

Being the second go around comes with some advantages. A more seasoned Bruce Campbell, higher budget. Last time around seemed more like a cross between a traditional ‘woods, teens, slaughter’ and the actual vision, where this time around everyone knows what to do and runs with it.

There are some things that I enjoy about the original.  It had better make up effects,  the non-Ash characters were a little less bland last time, and it was a significant bit more creepy. But what we get from the  tradeoff has a higher entertainment value in my mind than what was lost.   It expands on the mythos and delves deeper into the back story this time around as well.


It almost feels like a dash of a superhero origin story sprinkled on top of everything else this movie has going for it.  Considering that even though Ash is more what I expected this time around, he really doesn’t  get to the chain-saw arm, hacked off shoot-gun toting Ash of Legend till the end. Speaking of the end, I would have loved to have seen the reaction to people that didn’t know where this was headed, and how out of nowhere it must of felt to the Audience back in 87. It’s so unpredictable, gutsy and BEGS for a sequel.

Horror takes a back seat to off the wall effects.  The thing is a cartoon and that is by no means a bad thing. In fact it’s a good thing, a very very good thing. What else more is there to say besides ‘Groovy.’ 

Rating 4.5/5

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