Time: 84 Minutes
Age Rating: Graphic violence
Cast:
Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams
Sarah Berry as Annie Knowby
Dan Hicks as Jake
Kassie Wesley as Bobby Joe
Richard Domeier as Professor Ed Getley
Director: Sam Raimi

The second of three films in the Evil Dead series is part horror, part comedy, with Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) once again battling horrifying demons at a secluded cabin in the woods. After discovering an audiotape left by a college professor that contains voices reading from the Book of the Dead, Ash’s girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) becomes possessed by evil spirits that are awakened by the voices on the tape. Ash soon discovers there is no escaping the woods.

With the latest film in the franchise releasing relatively soon, I decided to rewatch the previous Evil Dead movies in the lead up to it. The Evil Dead released back in 1981 ended up being something of a low budget horror classic, especially with the creative direction and impressive practical effects despite the budget constraints. 6 years later, director Sam Raimi directed a sequel which many have regarded as the best of the franchise, myself included.

The opening 10 minutes might confuse people who recently watched the previous film. While Evil Dead II is indeed a sequel to the original, Raimi didn’t really own the rights to his original film and so couldn’t use any of the previous footage from The Evil Dead. So he reshot his own recap of the first movie and due to constraints, they opted to only feature lead character Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) and his girlfriend Linda instead of all 5 characters in the original movie. While you could very well just jump into Evil Dead II completely blind, I’d still recommend watching the original. The plot is very similar to the first movie; Ash is still at the cabin dealing with the undead, and you could say that it’s just a rehash of Evil Dead but with a bigger budget. However, it works better for me in just about every way, and I found it to be really entertaining. The first Evil Dead was a crazy movie and had some over the top moments which bordered on hilarity especially with the blood and gore, but on the whole it was straight faced horror movie aiming to be intense and scary. Its sequel however opts to play more as a horror comedy, and delivers on both aspects. The issues of the first movie are conquered by the more absurd approach in its sequel, as is self aware and embraces the silliness. Horror comedies are pretty hard to pull off, but Raimi delivers on that. The dark and slapstick humour is pretty much pitch perfect and makes the movie so much fun to watch. I liked the first movie, but it does take its time to escalate to craziness, even though I do appreciate that. Evil Dead II takes the deranged insanity of the original’s last 30 minutes and sustains it for the entire runtime of the movie. It is a far more exciting movie and is absolute madness from beginning to end. It also concludes with an insane ending, which would lead into the third entry of the Evil Dead franchise, Army of Darkness.

Bruce Campbell gave a decent and commendable horror performance in the first Evil Dead. However, he gets taken to a whole other level in the sequel, and it would be the start of his character of Ash Williams becoming a pop culture icon, who would become fully realised in Army of Darkness. On top of Campbell’s acting just being better, Ash isn’t only a normal guy put through the wringer, but is also pushed to far beyond insanity. His performance is completely manic and unhinged, to the point where he resembles a cartoon character. Bruce Campbell chews the scenary delightfully and also has a likable charm to him, and he especially delivers on the physical comedy. The supporting cast aren’t particularly huge, but the acting was at least a little better than the cast of the first movie.

Sam Raimi returned to make a sequel to the 1981 original and this time he is working with a considerably larger budget. However it doesn’t lose the creative vision behind the first movie, if anything Raimi’s style is more fully realised here and his direction is fully confident. At its heart, it is still a low budget horror that takes advantage of the increased production value. There’s a lot of creative and unique choices and familiar trademarks, from the use of stop motion, snap zooms and POV shots. It’s a better looking movie, from the cinematography to the production design. They also again use some practical makeup and effects from the deadites to the violence and gore, which still look rather impressive and hold up well today.

Evil Dead II is not only an improvement over the first movie in just about every way, but also horror classic in its own right. It is a very fun and absurdly over the top horror, made excellent by Sam Raimi’s still creative but more refined direction and style, and an incredibly entertaining lead performance from Bruce Campbell.