Evil Dead II (1987)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley

Have I Seen it Before: A couple of us guys watched it late one night in High School. When you’re taking in movies at that age, you’re more susceptible than at any other point in your life* than to have contrary opinions about movies, just for the sake of having contrary opinions about it.

I didn’t like the film. You would have thought that I had pledged my life to Al-Qaida. For years after that, I wondered if I had taken the stance because I too felt that need to not enjoy something everyone was.

I honestly haven’t watched the film since.

Did I Like It: Well…

I really wanted to. As you—or at least, as I—head north of forty, there’s a temptation to like something more than its reputation or your own memory would suggest. Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999) becomes a unique symbol of the auteur, and a children’s film making the bold choice to be mostly about trade policy. Batman & Robin (1997) is a heartfelt action adventure film, if you can get over most of the writing and cheap staging. I’ll defend The Shadow (1994) despite an array of flaws weighing it down.

It’s time for me to give Evil Dead II another chance.

And yet.

Something about this film just doesn’t connect with me. It’s nothing more than a cheap array of horror gags. Perhaps more polished than the original The Evil Dead (1981), but never concerned with being as satisfying as Army of Darkness (1992). All of the pieces of Raimi’s brilliance are here, but they don’t cook together. The gore sprays. The monsters groan. Campbell mugs. Rinse and repeat. Campbell is a charming enough presence, but there’s a reason that he was never a big enough star to be the lead in Darkman (1990) or the villain in an eventual sequel to Spider-Man (2002). I think he might agree, and indeed has made a career based on this very same image, but Campbell isn’t much more than a B actor.

*Some people never get over it.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DaManicor, Betsy Baker

Have I Seen it Before: No. I’m usually tempted to say at points like this “strangely, no” but I’m more tempted in this particular case to question whether most people have seen it.

Did I Like It: I’m going to try real hard not to blur the lines between my review for this and my eventual review for Evil Dead II (1987), even though Raimi and company didn’t feel much of a need to differentiate between the two films while making them. My memory of the sequel was that I didn’t see the big deal that everyone was going nuts over, and the same can be said here.

I’m all for horror. I’m all for Raimi’s other work*. There’s just something about the Deadites that always left me cold to varying degrees, and seeing them in their prototypical form doesn’t do much to dissuade that. You’ve got to wait for Army of Darkness (1992) or even Evil Dead Rise (2023) before my heart grows big enough to embrace the carnage.

The film isn’t entirely without charms. Seeing a horror movie made with the same kind of near-zero budget and in the same era as Halloween (1978) but that embraces the supernatural aspects of horror, even if the budget isn’t always there to back it up. It’s also worth glancing—if for only the jarring quality that may be my most lasting memory of the film—at a version of Bruce Campbell so youthful that it’s difficult to imagine the Bruce Campbell residing somewhere in his future.

*Drifting through some of the information on this film, I can’t help but be consumed by a desires—as we all must, from time to time—to watch Darkman (1990).

Evil Dead Rise (2023)

Director: Lee Cronin

Cast: Lily Sullivan, Alyssa Sutherland, Morgan Davies, Gabrielle Echols

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: Yes, I really did. However, there is likely to be a confession at the end of this review, so watch out.

This fifth film in the house that Sam Raimi built does something that most horror sequels don’t even try to do. It absolutely does not concern itself—not one bit so far as I could tell—with slavish devotion to the canon which proceeded it. This is not to say that the film avoids those trappings entirely, but even David Gordon Greene’s Halloween trilogy used what happened before to fuel its madness, here one could go in blind about Deads Evil or otherwise and have a the same visceral (take that word to mean any possible definition) reaction.

And that reaction is likely to be made in spades. Sutherland makes for a sympathetic victim before instantly becoming one of the most unnerving villains in recent horror memory. You’ve seen the bathtub sequence, if you’ve seen the trailers, and it delivers, but once you start seeing things through a peephole, you know there is a level of craft on display here that isn’t often seen in any film, regardless of genre.

And yet…

Look, I’m reasonably sure that its not the film’s fault, but I’m entirely certain that I fell asleep for the last few minutes. Given the nihilistic chaos on display here, that probably says more about me than it does the film itself. I’ve looked at synopses since, and I’m relatively sure I maybe missed about 2-3 minutes in the third act, but there’s definitely a gap in my memory. Maybe I was abducted by aliens briefly just as the film is deciding to justify its opening scenes.

But really, I think it’s more of a byproduct of the chairs at Cinergy Theaters. Reclining is fine. But these numbers have seat warmers to boot, and sink into the ground as you recline. The sunken place is real, folks. Jordan Peele tried to warn us.