The Superior Evil Dead
Saturday, October 10th, 2009
This is usually what I look like after botched car repairs.
Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn is the best of the Evil Dead Trilogy, you say? Fuck yes it is! The most fun, the most insane, the most entertaining, the goriest, the most outlandish of the three movies. There’s no hints that Ash has gone insane in this one. He not only jumps the border of sanity…he fucking dives over it!
It’s clear that Sam Raimi loves this character (if not the actor…do a little research to find out how he likes to torment his actors. It’s funny!) this premise, and the means with which he tells the story. This one is gleeful in its mirth! The Evil Dead in this one are Eviler! And Deader!
It’s been argued that this is kind of a revisionist remake of the original, to which I call shenanigans! This movie takes up the VERY SECOND after Evil Dead and continues from there. My understanding in some of the story changes is that not all the rights for a sequel were secured, so they came up with something on the fly. Something that works, damn it! In this version of events, Ash and his girlfriend are the only ones to come to the cabin(real romantic, Ash…In the woods, no one can hear you scream, I guess.) and that story is dispatched in quick succession. The crux of this story is that the steps taken to end the first movie did absolutely nothing to contain the problem, which, in the first ten seconds of the movie manages to possess Ash. Add the family that owns the cabin into the mix, along with two hillbilly tour guides, and this movie really takes off!
Everything you might have liked about the first film returns here, just with a glossier finish. There’s even some new innovations. But, for me, the thing I enjoy about Evil Dead 2 is that it’s like watching a Warner Bros cartoon gone horribly awry! Ash will get into a fistfight with himself because his hand is possessed. Cutting it off does no good, because, hey, it still hates you!
And, the ending of this movie! WOW! Just WOW! I loved it the first time I saw it, and every time since. Everything seems to fit into place here. There’s decent dialogue this time, better camera work, buckets of silly ass gore running down the walls. This is a funny, scary movie that hits on all cylinders!
Now, I’m not going to tell you to just watch this one. If you can only watch one of the trilogy, this is the one you should, but you really should watch them all. And then marvel at a man who fixes a chainsaw to his duct taped stump of a wrist and says “Groovy.”
Which is what this movie is, really: Groovy.
Posted on October 10th, 2009 at 10:08 am
The first one will always be my sentimental favorite, but ED2 is the best one of the trilogy for all the reasons you listed.
Interesting side-note: Bobbie Jo is played by Kassie Depaiva, who plays Blair Cramer on “One Life to Live”. Yes, my loser ass watches soaps… it’s an unfortunate side-effect of all male unemployment, if it’s not unavoidable.