Mike_Bracken's Full Review: Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn: Renaissance Pictures/ Rosebud Releasing Corporation Rating: USA: R/ UK: 18/ Australia: R
Bruce Campbell (Congo, Army of Darkness) is back as lovable demon killer Ash in this, the second installment of the Evil Dead series.
Released in 1987, Evil Dead 2 is more of a remake than an actual sequel. While the first film had Ash and a group of friends travelling to a remote country cabin and unleashing a horde of Kandarian demons, this time around it’s just him and his girlfriend, Linda. After arriving at the cabin, Ash stumbles across a tape player—one containing the translations of passages from the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, AKA The Book of the Dead—a book bound in human flesh and inked in human blood. As the cabin’s previous inhabitant recites the passages, the evil dead awake…forcing Ash to do battle with the forest’s evil inhabitants.
Unlike the first film, which had a decidedly horror feel, Evil Dead 2 goes for a more slapstick approach. One-liners and corny puns fly as fast and furious as the copious amounts of gore Raimi and company continually bathe the actors in. And while the tone is certainly lighter than in the first film, there are still a few good jump scares intermingled in the film’s narrative as well.
Director Sam Raimi (Evil Dead, A Simple Plan) pulls out every trick in the book and the end result is a wild, roller coaster ride of a film. Everything from miniatures, to puppets, to claymation, to stop motion animation, to rear projection is used here, and while much of it looks decidedly cheesy, it certainly adds to the film’s overall effect. Raimi also relies heavily on weird camera movements and first person perspective for the evil dead themselves. Raimi runs like a madman in one of the film’s early sequences, chasing Campbell through the cabin, bursting through doors, running behind the walls and eventually ending up outside before retreating back into the forest—all of this done in one continuous take. It’s nothing less than the hyper-stylized kind of direction that cult fans have come to expect from Raimi—something that’s sorely missing from his recent mainstream films.
Yet, even with all of Raimi’s visual flourishes, Evil Dead 2 would fall flat without the performance of Bruce Campbell. Campbell is the film’s true center—a character who’s so ordinary that every guy in the audience identifies with him, yet so cool that we all long to be him. Whether it’s firing off one-liners or slicing up demons, Campbell is beyond cool. And while a lot of folks look at him as little more than one of the genre’s most competent and intriguing B movie actors, he’s actually a solid thespian capable of pulling off serious roles as well (witnessed through his guest starring performance on Homicide: Life on the Streets).
Campbell carries much of the film, spending almost the entire first half trapped in the cabin on his own. Even though there’s no one for him to work with, this is the best part of Campbell’s performance as he demonstrates a great propensity for pulling off some Three Stooges style physical comedy. He fights with his own hand (after it’s possessed through a bite from a dismembered head), gouging his own eyes, flipping himself onto the floor, and even smashing plates over his head. It’s a fantastic performance—entertaining throughout the course of the movie.
The boys at KNB did most of the FX make-up, and it’s just what you’d expect for this kind of film—cheesy and gruesome. There are lots of stabbings, demons, geysers of blood, and tree monsters here...and while gross, it’s usually humorous as well. For example, in one gruesome sequence, a demon’s head is wedged between the floor and a board. As Ash jumps on it, trying to force it back into the basement, one of it’s eyeballs pops out—shooting across the room and into the screaming mouth of a woman. On the other hand, this psuedo-remake doesn’t feature the infamous "tree rape" scene from the first film. While it’s not as gory as Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive, there is enough carnage to satisfy even the most discerning gore fans.
Evil Dead 2 is a classic cult horror film in every sense of the word. Even though I find it inferior to the original (I like it, but it’s a little too light-hearted for my tastes) it’s certainly the film that put Sam Raimi on the map with most mainstream filmgoers. It’s basically just a rehashing of the first film, with little in the way of plot, yet it works because Campbell is so perfect in his role and Raimi’s style of filmmaking is so much fun to watch. The film rips along at a furious pace, finally reaching a climax that, like the rest of the movie, is so absurd that it’s actually entertaining—and it sets up the sequel, Army of Darkness, perfectly. If you’re a fan of cult film or a serious horror buff, then you’ve undoubtedly already seen this film. If you’re new to the genre, or just looking for something wild and different to watch at your next get together, grab Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. In a word, it’s "groovy".
In this sequel-remake of the original EVIL DEAD a group of people are trapped in a cabin while ancient evil lurks outside and threatens a fate worse t...More at Family Video
DVDS. This high-octane semi-sequel to {$Sam Raimi}'s cult hit {#The Evil Dead} has nearly eclipsed its predecessor's reputation thanks to an endless b...More at DeepDiscount.com
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