THE
EVIL DEAD ESSAY
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| Unlike the first two films, "Army of Darkness" was essentially an action/adventure film with a horror motif. It relies more on one-liners and comic slapstick than either of the previous films, and is a switch to the complete other end of the spectrum from the first film. There are few scary moments in "Army of Darkness"; there are moments with dismemberment and the Evil Camera, but these have already been trodden before, in both Raimi's previous films and the genre in general, and are little more scary than the peasants Ash meets. |  |
The film has a different beginning than "Evil Dead 2" insinuated; rather than being recognized as a savior, Ash is renounced as an ally of a warring castle. Ash is dragged in a stock to the castle, which in itself is humorous since all Ash has in one hole of the stock is his stump of a forearm. In a hilarious part shortly after he arrives shackled through the castle gates, Raimi makes sure to give Ash a good beating.
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A woman, distraught that her brother was killed by the men of the enemy castle, attacks Ash, tearing at his hair and spitting in his face. Ash endures this with the same exasperated expression he endures all his indignities. The following scenes establish Ash as the smug, self-centered man he is. When accused of allying with Henry, the opposing castle's leader, Ash declares "I never even saw these ***holes before!" |
The infamous torrent of blood returns when a prisoner is thrown in a pit that harbors Deadites, which is strange, since Deadites are the major enemies in the film, and one would think that the peasants would fear these Deadites escaping at night.
Ash is thrown in, of course. Here, three classic campy moments occur.
| The first is when Ash is fighting a Deadites and the walls, which are covered with spikes, begin to close in. |  |
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Though we constantly see them right next to Ash and his Deadite foe, in the next scene they are back again, getting ever closer but then going back to give Raimi room to film, and Ash room to fight. Then, to aid Ash, a priest throws him his chainsaw. Ash leaps up with his stump and, without any aid, it locks into his stump in midair, with a resounding click. |
Clearly, the chances of this occurring are essentially nonexistent. Ash then chops a Deadite's hand off, which flies up and sticks to a peasant's face. One genuinely terrifying moment does occur as Ash tries to escape the pit. As he starts to climb the rocky wall, some of the moss and what looked like rock detach into a hideous Deadite.
Incredibly unlikely incidents and situations occur throughout the film. Ash shoots a sword in half with his double-barreled shotgun at twenty yards, a feat I'm told by a rifle expert is basically impossible. When he is escaping the pit, he takes of his belt with one hand and snaps it at the rising chain, and it wraps around and grips quite nicely in a little homage to Indiana Jones. These parts don't really detract to the film, but add a certain comic-book feel to it.
Comical moments in the film include Ash's duel with his evil twin, who constantly refers to him as a "goody-little two shoes" and his battle with a bunch of tiny copies of himself, who tie him to the floor in a Gulliver-like scene. As mentioned before, Ash defends himself against the Evil Camera, which attempts to bash in the door Ash hides behind. The film also includes a blatant reference to another film; the words Ash must recite when retrieving the Necronomicon, which he naturally forgets, are from the classic black-and-white science fiction film The Day the Earth Stood Still.
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Stooges-like comedy is rampant throughout the film, and is most clear when Ash is beat up by a bunch of skeletal hands reaching from the ground. These hands go through all the classic Stooge routines, such as the eye-poking, punching, and slapping. The final battle between the castle warriors and the evil Ash's army of skeletal Deadites is full of slapstick, such as silly shattering skeletons and other cartoonish violence. |
Though it is full of comedy and action, "Army of Darkness" is much more of a tight-knit, big-budget film, and thus, it doesn't really cover any new ground. Unlike the first two films, its budget was so large Raimi could do nearly anything he wanted, and this may have hampered his creativity--without constraints on action, he could let the plot suffer a little. "Army of Darkness", unlike its predecessors, does not really mock the horror genre. Rather, it mocks the action/adventure genre with a hero that simply cannot be stopped, who is always confident and egotistical, and delivers one-liners the way we all wish we could. "Army of Darkness" is a good way to end the trilogy, but it lacks any of the tongue-in-cheek punch of the first two films.
"The Evil Dead", "Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn", and to a degree, "Army of Darkness", all poked fun of the horror genre while making new innovations in it. "The Evil Dead" showed that a horror film could be grisly and still be well-made and humorous, "Evil Dead 2" let the horror genre know just what it looked like much of the time, and "Army of Darkness" showed that action/adventure films and horror films could be successfully paired, though Army leaned heavily toward the action end. Without these three films, horror cinema might have continued a downward spiral into pointless gore. Sam Raimi showed film makers how, by inserting quirky humor and victims with personalities, the horror could be increased and the film made more believable. The horror genre owes Mister Raimi a great deal of thanks for his contributions to it.