The Evil Dead 2

What was the subtitle? Dead by dawn I belive.

I never fully understood the purpose of Evil Dead 2. It’s not a sequeal as much as it is a remake, or rather a redoing of the Evil Dead. It’s like Sam Rami, Rob Talbert and Bruce Campbell made enough cash from the first movie and said let’s start over cause I really didn’t like it. For a movie geek that techically sucks that they would somewhat forget how awesome the original was. It’s like when they did the Star Wars special edition. However, Evil Dead 2 is conceptually better than its original, if not as original as its original.

Anyway, this is the movie that would make Ash Williams a legendary charater in cinema. Even though the same thing happens to him in this movie that happen in the first it’s the one slight turn in the sequeal’s verson of his orgin that makes him infamous…the chainsaw hand.

Ash takes his girlfriend up to a cabin in the woods for a good time, but maybe Ash should have checked who the owner of the cabin he’s squatting in was, cause after listening to a recording this guy has left behind, an evil spirit living in the woods forces Ash to kill his possessed girlfriend chop off his possessed hand and find a way to close the doorway that was opened.

Still acting like three kids from Michigan who are still learning the film game, Rami, Talbert and Campbell seem to be trying to make what was great greater, adding elements they could not do in the original because they did not know how or did not have the money. Most notable is a series of visual effects they most likely could not work into the budget of the Evil Dead.

Evil Dead 2 seems to really up the comedy in the horror as well. The Evil Dead parically revolutionized the horror genre in the 80s by adding some humour in the horror making it stand out from the rest. Others would follow in movies like Dead Alive and my all time favorite, Return of the Living Dead. With Evil Dead 2 it almost feels like they did not mean for The Evil Dead to be funny, but decided to go along with the flow.

I think it’s fascinating how good it is. Most of them movie relies on Bruce Campbell’s charm as he plays Ash, whose stuck in a cabin all by himself facing off against evil.

A sequeal that parodies the original movie. Great concept. Making for a movie more polished than the first and turning Ash into a cult hero.