Evil Dead 2 (1986)

Tagline: ‘Kiss Your Nerves Goodbye’
Running Time: 87 minutes

Film Quality: 5/5
Gore Content: 3/5
Entertainment Value: 5/5
Originality: 3/5

Introduction

How do you follow up ‘The Ultimate Experience in Gruelling Terror’? Answer: By repeating the formula but jettisoning the dark and, at times, nasty undertow and replace it with balls out comedy and some of the most insanely entertaining sight gags and camera tricks in horror film history. It’s no secret that Sam Raimi was a little concerned with the reaction to his first outing into ‘Evil Dead’ folklore, particularly the ‘tree rape’ scene, and the film was banned in many territories, including the UK…his response was to come up with something that couldn’t possibly be taken seriously but was still in keeping with the original’s basic theme. What followed has grown to become what some regard as a horror classic of the VHS era.

In a Nutshell

Hapless Ash takes his girlfriend up to a cabin in the woods and finds an old tape recorder with a recitation of the Necronomicon Ex Mortis…the Book of the Dead. Upon playing it all hell breaks loose, he kills his zombified girlfriend, cuts off his own hand and generally saves the day, in a manner of speaking.

So, what’s good about it?

It’s relentlessly entertaining! There is not a single frame wasted on needless exposition, the entire first 45 minutes of the first film is condensed into about five minutes of this remake/sequel with the rest of the film played entirely for laughs with a few scares along the way. Sam Raimi seems to have a ball, throwing pretty much every single colour and consistency of liquid and gloop at Bruce Campbell in the name of slapstick, Campbell taking it like a true comedian!

The star of the film is undoubtedly Campbell. He delivers his lines with laconic style and shows some fantastic acrobatic skills during the scene where he has a fight with his own possessed hand that is a joy to watch. His character grows throughout the film from slightly idiotic buffoon to chainsaw wielding hero who calls out the demons to go toe to toe with a fistful of boomstick and a sideline in attitude. Who can forget arguably the coolest montage in cinematic history where Ash and Annie go into the work shed, ‘A-Team’ style, attach the chainsaw to Ash’s arm stump, fashion a shotgun holster for Ash to swing the gun in one hand, over the shoulder, into the holster before uttering that single syllable that would define his career…”Groovy!”

Servicing Campbell’s acting is Raimi’s incredible direction and the electrifying camerawork on show where he delves into his bag of tricks to come up with some truly original shots and effects. I love the matte shot where the sun goes down behind Ash as he stands by the fallen bridge, there’s something wonderfully surreal about it. The frantic shot where he propels Ash through the woods, throwing branches and leaves at him as he whizzes past, the point of view shots of the evil force chasing Ash through the crawlspace of the cabin, the quick fire editing and reverse zoom shots during the scene where ‘something is trying to force its way into our world’. It all adds up to one gloriously demented movie that never gets boring, repetitive and constantly innovates.

Along with ‘An American Werewolf in London’ this is the greatest example of a film that gets the balance of horror and comedy spot on. It has enough to offer a few chills with the sound, particularly the eerie ‘wind’ effect which was apparently a genuine sound recorded within the on location cabin, and unsettling camerawork . The undead are both funny and grotesque, the gore is plentiful and very ‘Monty Python’ (one of Raimi’s influences for this film was ‘The Three Stooges’), a bizarre recurring villain (namely our hero’s severed right hand!) and anyone who claims they saw the ending coming is telling porky pies. All in all this is a highly satisfying movie of whch you never tire of finding any old excuse to dust it down and shove the shiny disc into your blu-ray player!

What about the bad?

The reputation of the first film ensured that some people came to this sequel expecting another out and out fright fest. That didn’t happen and Raimi’s ‘toning down’ of the nastiness that caused the original’s notoriety doesn’t please everyone. It’s refreshing to find a sequel that doesn’t try to out-gore its predecessor (for example if they do release another ‘Saw’ film then I can only assume they’ll just place the victims in an orderly queue and disembowel the lot of them with as many power tools and contraptions as they can find) but the insertion of so much humour isn’t to everyone’s taste.

Despite the astounding camerawork, Bruce Campbell being Bruce Campbell and a barrel load of laughs, it’s not particularly original, retreading a lot of the same ground, locations and scenes as the first film. The jury’s still out as to whether or not this is a sequel or remake, why would Ash go back to the cabin and not know what he’s let himself in for? Personally it doesn’t make a blind bit of difference to me but critics will criticise and not everyone is capable of suspending disbelief.

The only thing that genuinely annoys me is the superfluous characters of Bobby Jo and Ed (who does make a pretty good zombie to be fair...see left!!!). Bobby Jo is sassy but not enough is made of the personality clash with Annie and her eventual demise is pretty poor and not in keeping with the rest of the series…how come she doesn’t come back? Ed does even less, so wooden he could have played the log cabin and doesn’t create much havoc as an undead character either. Thank god for Dan Hicks’ character Jake otherwise Ashley and Annie would have little to react to.

Release History

Ah…the MPAA. By all accounts several attempts were made to get the film a US ‘R’ rating including cuts to a scene where Ed’s zombie wanders around with half a head, Ash eats a squirrel and a gorier hand chop (although the “Who’s laughing now” chainsaw to the hand scene is, see right, for me, the most effective in the film) were all excised or re-filmed. The irony here is that it didn’t work and the film was still released unrated - the original cut of the film is considered lost.

In the UK it suffered two seconds of cuts, both for kicks to the head, which were waived some time ago and the uncut version has since been downgraded from an ‘18’ certificate to more sensible ‘15’ – the BBFC lightening up quite a bit when it comes to horror-comedy. An extended version which is around 3 minutes longer has been released in Germany with some of the scenes described above present but it’s still not clear if this was the original, pre-MPAA version.

Any Themes?

Other than a brief sub-plot which beautifully foreshadows the ending and throws up the issue of destiny, it’s just Sam Raimi taking some advice he was given a long time ago that if the pace every starts to drop, chuck in a bit of gore. A short making of documentary called ‘The Gore the Merrier’ pretty much sums up this philosophy.

As a quick aside, am I the only one who thinks that this film is loosely based on ‘The Haunting’? Some of the lines are the same with Annie, answering a question as to what her parents found in The Book of the Dead, says “Probably nothing, but just maybe a gateway to another world”, echoing a line from Dr Markway. Some of the off kilter camera work is also reminiscent of the 1963 classic and the ghost of Annie’s father appears following loud booming sounds from the other side of a closed door. Frozen food for thought!

Cultural Impact

Over the years it’s grown from cult oddity to genuine horror classic status with fans and critics alike lauding it for its inventive visuals. This was the film that really put Sam Raimi on the map as a visionary director and many of his directorial flourishes and camera tricks are present in his big budget Hollywood blockbusters and ‘Spiderman’ films.

It also gave rise to the cult of Bruce Campbell and showed what a great ‘visual gag’ of an actor he could be. The character he plays in ‘Burn Notice’ is pure Ash and he created a niche in playing the type of cocky, self-centred idiot that you should hate but can’t help warming to. Thankfully Raimi and Campbell found a way of bringing Ash back to the small screen with the riotous ‘Ash Vs Evil Dead’ TV series (left) which takes the tone of ‘Evil Dead 2’ as its selling point to become a massive TV hit and a light-hearted antidote to the brilliant but relentlessly grim ‘The Walking Dead’.

It also showed the world what Greg Nicotero, very shortly after working with Tom Savini on ‘Day of the Dead’, could do shortly after starting his now infamous KNB team.

Final Thoughts

There is so much fun to be had watching ‘Evil Dead 2’, it’s the ‘Ferris Beuller’s Day Off’ of horror films. Forget that it treads similar ground as its predecessor and celebrate the fact that rather than treading it in the same way, it does forward rolls and back flips, to take us, ultimately in a new direction and give us a very different film.

Memorable Quotes

Ash: “Groovy!”

Ash: “That’s right, who’s laughing now……who’s laughing now, aaaarrrrgggghhhhh.”

Annie: “That thing in the cellar is not my mother.”

Reflected Ash: “We just cut up our girlfriend with a chainsaw, does that sound...”fine”?’

You’ll like this if you enjoyed…

‘An American Werewolf in London’, ‘Cabin in the Woods’, ‘The Howling’, ‘Return of the Living Dead’