LogFAQs > #979979823

But yeah, having other characters in the film allows for greater range of scenes, and interplay between characters with regards to the demons attacking them. Jake being cowardly in contrast to Ash works much better than Ash having to play cowardly and heroic all to his lonesome. And Jake actually gets some funny moments, namely when Annie accidentally stabs him and then keeps slamming the door on his still-conscious body while trying to secure the cabin. All of that for him to get sucked into the basement to an insane torrent of blood water. And of course, once the other characters show up, Ash works better as the leader of a group of survivors, and he generally gets to be a badass in the face of demonic possession and whatnot.

Ive also gotta comment on the ending, because it is amazing. The movie foreshadows The man who fell from the sky early on, and then while sealing away the ancient evil, Annie opens a portal to another realm. Ash gets sucked back in time with his car, boomstick, and chainsaw, and suddenly he becomes the slayer of monsters in medieval times, and becomes worshipped by the knights that have arrived to see his victory. Its great to see them all in awe of him, while he clearly wants NOTHING to do with this location, and its just another heaping helping of shit on his life. Its a great capper to the movie, and its a set-up to a sequel that would still work even if Army of Darkness never got made. Thats funny to me.

Karo - Some idiots fuck around with the necronomicon and that goes about as well as it usually goes, as an unspecified evil is set loose to wreck havoc upon the world with bad special effects.

It feels somewhat different in its handling of horror elements with a certain kind of comedy that is rarely seen in the genre. Sometimes it works very well, such as the antics of Ash vs his evil hand, but more often it doesn't, especially towards the end. It needed a lot more of this kind of humorous levity and a lot less of just shit faced ghouls going rawrrr for what it was trying for to truly work.

The premise started to get real old by the time the movie was over, as silliness has a tendency to do. It tries to be unique at least, but ends up being just... too much everything and I don't really have any desire to watch more of the franchise.

Plasmabeam - Infinitely better than the original, but not my thing.

Snake - I really hate how low I have to rank this since Evil Dead II is a treat. The over-the-top violence and slapstick humor is incredibly well-done here. Bruce Campbell of course shines as Ash, delivering a performance that is both charismatic and hilarious. His witty one-liners and over-the-top reactions as he battles his dismembered hand or the possessed Henrietta are iconic for a reason. I guess one point that knocks it down for me is the simplistic plot if I had to force myself to say a negative but really its not something I even think about when Im watching here!

Jcgamer107 - 4/10

Johnbobb - The order I've watched the Evil Dead franchise: Army of Darkness -> Evil Dead Rise -> Evil Dead II
I watched Army of Darkness as part of the 90s horror list, and ended up placing it 35th/40. I feel like these movies are kind of "you had to be there" kind of thing. Like seeing Ash Williams put the chainsaw onto his stump arm is more of a "hey he did the thing" moment for me rather than a "woah that's so cool!" moment as I expect it would've been seeing it for the first time in the 80s. It's funny sometimes; not like hilarious but it got the occasional chuckle. I definitely liked ED2 more than Army of Darkness but that wasn't really a high bar. Overall, just okay.

Evilordexdeath - I'm watching these movies in chronological order and writing these blurbs immediately after I finish, so the last two films I saw prior to this one were Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and The Fly. In both of those writeups I talk about how I feel more frightened by more grounded and realistic horror movies. Evil Dead II is well known for being pretty much the polar opposite of something like that so I wasn't expecting to like it very much, but god *damn* did I hate this movie more than almost any other I've seen in my life. I wanted to turn it off after 10 minutes because I felt like everything else would be minor variations on the exact same shit and at the end I felt completely justified in that assumption. Scary thing pop up, everyone scream, Ash smash with axe, blood splatter, rinse and repeat for God was it only 84 minutes? This felt like a 4 hour film.

I haven't seen too many legendarily bad movies like Disaster Movie or what have you. I would say the worst movie I've ever seen is Movie 43, which from what little I sat through was basically just people vomiting, pissing, menstruating etc. on each other for two hours or something with no attempt at wit, structure, overarching narrative or any of the components that go into a watchable film. This reminded me very much of that except as a horror movie, with its main advantage being that Movie 43 is also a profoundly lazy film and this at least has some definite effort put into the direction, set building, special effects, even shot composition and there is some sense of imagination in the different creatures and setpieces and all that. But the sense of complete meaninglessness and repetition, the deep exhaustion at how dull it all was, and the overwhelming desire to turn the movie off 10 minutes in were all the same. I know this won't be last in the rankings - in fact I expect it to be in the top 10 in one or two lists, and I can see how it could be fun to get drunk and watch this with your boyfriend or something, but personally, I was immediately convinced I had found my #30.