The Horror: Of all the Evil Dead incarnations, this was the most like a true horror film. The other characters are nothing to write home about, mostly fodder to attack Ash throughout the film, but I think that was the whole point of the exercise. Therefore, when he is being attacked constantly when the action gets going, it’s as much the audience getting attacked as his character, through that identification. He seems like a nice, quiet guy who is in love with his girlfriend (he apparently is preparing to propose to her) and is the everyman character who the audience quickly identifies with the most.
The Characters: While Bruce Campbell’s career was launched with this film, Ash isn’t the same over-the-top that we would come to know in future entries in this series.
#EVIL DEAD ARMY OF DARKNESS MOVIE#
While this may be ho-hum now, it wasn’t when this movie first came out.
In this film, the characters are more or less together through the movie (with some exceptions), but the characters can pretty much see the threat coming at them head-on, the Evil Dead doesn’t hide much unless it’s possessing a person and even then, it’s usually out and in your face. While it seems rather simplistic, there weren’t a lot of movies out there that followed this formula, you usually had the big bad (be in Michael Myers or the killer from Black Christmas) killing the characters one on one while they were separated. Reading from the book, they awaken an ancient evil that spends the rest of the movie terrorizing, killing, possessing and killing again the occupants of the cabin. A bunch of young adults go to a cabin in the woods, one would think to party and find a book. The Story: There isn’t really much to speak about in regards to the story. Now it’s time to go to that cabin of the woods, sit down for a spell, ignore the screaming and pounding at the door and see which one was the best! What started out as a small-budget horror feature turned into a franchise and a television show with a cult following and made Bruce Campbell a star. Three young fellas from Michigan brought the story of the Evil Dead to the screen in the early eighties, and the genre of horror was never the same. Necronomicon Ex Mortis…the Book of the Dead.