Evil Dead II (1987)
Directed by Sam Raimi
Ash Williams and his girlfriend Linda find a log cabin in the woods with a voice recording from an archeologist who had recorded himself reciting ancient chants from "The Book of the Dead." As they play the recording an evil power is unleashed taking over Linda's body.
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6 films that influenced Evil Dead II
What critics say influenced Evil Dead II
It moves with a vicious speed not seen since Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday (1940).
But the director, Sam Raimi , approaches it as a sly jab at the way Robert De Niro armed himself in " Taxi Driver ."
And so defines the goofy humour of the piece, the kind that finds Ash breaking dishes over his own head before strapping a chainsaw to his freshly amputated stump and rigging a contraption that stands as the most twisted homage to Taxi Driver in history.
There's a kick ass scene à la "Taxi Driver" in which Ash attaches a chain-saw to what's left of his amputated arm and chops his shotgun.
Perhaps it's a stretch to bring sociology into it, but at the least Evil Dead II inspires dissection--by the theorist, by the stylist, by the fan of The Stooges and the Marx Brothers (who, with their appearance in Rob Zombie's films, seem to have inspired a lot of discomfort in their barely-contained anarchic explosions), and by the legion of fanatics who treat public screenings with the enthusiasm reserved for The Rocky Horror Picture Show and The Big Lebowski.
The great unspoken peculiarity of siege classics like George Romero's Night of the Living Dead is that there is somehow always discovered a hero who's biologically hardwired for the task of staying alive in the face of great demonic hordes.
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Years that have also, more importantly, given it a sequel; irrespective of anything else, there's almost no way to talk about this film without the knowledge of Evil Dead II coloring the conversation.
Both The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II have enough vile colored liquids to fill a small swimming pool.
Certain fans have always preferred this low-budget original to the much slicker and funnier sequel, Evil Dead II (1987), and looking at it again, I can finally understand why.
Evil Dead II is not so much a sequel as a remake of the original The Evil Dead (1983).
Ash (Campbell), the apparent sole survivor of " The Evil Dead " - and presumably with no recollection of the first film - heads back to the dingy cabin in the woods for a romantic break with his girlfriend (Bixler).
By all means, The Evil Dead and Army of Darkness are grand movies: one terrifying, one wacky, and both a crazy amount of fun.
A classic of the genre for whatever it's worth, Animal House endures because it's a smarter beast than first impressions would suggest--allaying itself in my mind with a film like Evil Dead II more comfortably than, say, American Pie , in that there are certain films in devalued genres that deserve to be entered into a larger dialogue.