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| Army of
Darkness - 2 disc | |
Introduction
If you are a fan of the
Evil Dead trilogy then you are quite
possibly very poor from having to purchase each
new version of these movies as they are
re-released. There are five (count ‘em) releases
of this film on Region 1 DVD and this includes a
highly limited 2 disc set which is fetching
upwards of $75 on auction web sites. How annoying
for those that have splashed out for this as now
Anchor Bay have decided to release this set as a
UK PAL release for a fraction of the cost. This
set includes the theatrical cut of the film as
well as the Director’s cut (both of which are
available separately on Region 1). Separately to
this review, we at DVDAnswers have put up a
comparison page allowing you to vet the video
transfer of each release for yourselves. To view
that, click here
otherwise read on to find out just how many times
I expect you to Hail to the King,
baby!
_fichiers/fancy_pants.jpg) |
| Well hellooo Mr Fancy
Pants... |
Film
Bound
in human flesh and inked in blood, this film is
the final chapter in the story of the (incredibly
hard to pronounce) Necronomicon, or Book of
the Dead. It opens with a brief flashback to the
previous two films showing that Ash’s girlfriend
(now played by Bridget Fonda) is attacked by the
dark forces that are normally contained in the
book. After eventually dealing with these, the
book opens a portal which sucks Ash (Bruce
Campbell) and his car into the past. Landing in a
wasteland, he is soon confronted by knights on
horseback and from here, placed in shackles after
he is accused of being one of “Henry’s men”. This
brings in two feuding armies under the command of
Henry the Red and Lord Arthur. Henry is captured
finally after many fatalities and is sentenced to
death by being thrown into the pit. A soldier from
Henry’s camp is thrown into the pit and seconds
later a fountain of blood gushes from its darkened
depths causing much panic in Ash. A knock to the
head renders him dazed and in he goes. As well as
spikes on moving walls, there resides an evil
witchy hag and a monster in the pit very
reminiscent of what Ash has already dealt with in
the previous film. This is to his advantage as
after he takes a hearty beating, he starts to
battle back. However the witch is too strong and
rains punches on him again and again. This is the
crucial moment when his luck turns. The local wise
man is convinced Ash’s arrival fulfilled the
prophecy and that he has arrived to save the
castle and it’s occupants from the
Deadites. These “Deadites” are vicious
monsters of the night which regularly terrorise
the castle’s occupants and who are part of the
evil that is consuming their fair land.
Ash
uses his impressive communication skills, and his
shotgun to go from being treated like a slave, to
being treated like a king. This leads him into
finding out how to travel back to his own time for
which he will need the Necronomicon to perform
this act. With this knowledge in mind, and some
magic words to speak upon finding the book, Ash
sets out on a quest to retrieve the Book of the
Dead. The people are thrilled as it can not only
send him back, but destroy the Deadites, and so
his journey begins.
I don’t want to spoil
the comical and scary antics that Ash encounters
during the film, however this film did have a lot
larger budget than the previous two films and it
does show. While being a horror flick in places,
it is also a funny film with a lot of slapstick
comedy derived from the 3 Stooges (including one
famous scene acted out by three skeletons). Ash
has more fantastic one-liners here than anywhere I
can remember and from this many films and computer
games have ripped them off including Duke Nukem (a
popular first person shooter PC game from a few
years back). Bruce has said that he does not want
to star in the movie of this game as they have
blatantly ripped off the Evil Dead series and he
would not reward them by playing Duke in a film
version of this (overrated) game.
_fichiers/hand_of_evil.jpg) |
| Gripping |
Since
there are so many bits of trivia related to this
film I thought I would share a few with you lucky
people:
- The magic words Ash says to claim the Book
of the Dead (Klaatu, Barada, Nikto) are
the same words used to command the robot Gort in
Day the Earth Stood Still, The (1951).
- When Ash calls Wiseman Joe "spinach chin,"
it is a reference to the 1949 Three Stooges
short "Malice in the Palace." In it, Moe calls a
man with a long beard "spinach chin."
- The Oldsmobile that goes through time with
Ash and falls from the sky belongs to director
Sam Raimi. He included it in most of his early
movies, each time more battered than the
last.
- Director Sam Raimi shot two different
endings. The UK version had the cruel and morbid
ending while the U.S version was a slightly
funnier and definitely happier ending. Both are
included in this set as part of the theatrical
and director’s cut versions of the
film.
It is full of plot holes,
continuity errors, historical problems and some of
the most fantastically cheesy dialogue you’ll ever
hear in a movie, and maybe if just one or two of
these were present then the film might be bad, but
with everything this way, it just works and is a
great movie.
_fichiers/ouch_copy0.jpg) |
| Bruce only acts well when he is in
pain |
Video
A
bit of a mixed bag really. Both discs are
presented in 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen. The
first disc does have the better video transfer and
actually shows more of the print however when
watching this you miss out on the extra scenes.
Although the disc is not marked as THX certified,
and it has a different menu system to the THX
theatrical cut of the movie, the picture is in
deed comparable which is interesting. This disc
might not have been submitted for THX
certification and if it did not have the DTS
soundtrack then it would be from what I can tell,
identical to the other (bar the menu system).
There is a lot of dirt present on the camera lens
at times so while the transfer has been touched
up, getting rid of dust and sand is another thing
altogether. Comparing the feature to the trailer
shows what hard work has been done with the colour
reproduction and removal of artefacts which is
commendable. The Director’s cut on the second disc
is a slightly cropped transfer as can be seen from
the Video
Comparison I did, and is a lot softer with the
colours appearing quite bleached in places but
then if you can put up with it, you can see the
alternative ending as well as a few extra scenes
(totalling at around 15minutes). So it is a toss
up between extra footage and quality. If this was
a review of two separate packages then making a
choice would be hard (especially since the first
disc comes with DTS!) however fortunately since
they are bundled together there is no need to make
this decision. If you want the extra footage then
watch disc two, and if you want the theatrical cut
with the happy all American ending then watch disc
one. There is also a 4:3 theatrical version of the
film on the first disc however if you chose to
view this, you cannot get the DTS sound and since
the 4:3 cropping of widescreen movies is one of
the worst things that can happen to a film, I did
not even access it however I would imagine the
video quality is the same. To be honest, who
cares! No-one with any sense would go near it
anyway.
Audio
Again, I will have
to divide this into two sections. The theatrical
cut on disc 1 features something which will make
the owners of the two disc Region 1 set very
jealous – a 6.1 DTS-ES soundtrack! However let me
first start with the audio mix. I found the audio
mix to be reasonable, with the rear speakers being
used a lot for music and background noises. But a
lot of the dialogue is front, nay centre speaker
only which disappointed me a little especially
since during such scenes as in the castle
courtyard there is a lot of background chatter and
amusing one liner quips thrown in by the peasant
population which would have given the soundtrack a
little more depth. I found some of the speech a
little soft at times, even on the clearer and
better defined DTS track. As I said, it is mostly
the music and sound effects that make the best use
of the surround speakers and this does work well.
The audio, obviously only recorded in stereo
originally, has been turned into a surround track
and at times it seems quite expertly from the use
of the surround sound field. It is not a fantastic
sound mix, some of it is muffled and a little
subdued but it is good enough at times to make me
smile.
The DTS soundtrack is a fair bit
better than the Dolby Digital one. It picks up a
few more of the background noises and is
significantly louder than its competitor. Some of
the explosions are more defined and the music
improvement certainly does affect the perception
of the films music making it a lot more
enveloping. There is also a Dolby Digital 2.0
soundtrack present for people without the
necessary equipment to get surround sound, or who
want to listen to the film as it was originally
presented (however you’d have to be mad as the new
surround track is pretty great!).
The
second disc is the director’s cut and is presented
with a Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtrack. This is a
shame as to get the full audio effect it means you
can only watch the first disc. This was probably
done this way so that it was not necessary to
create a surround mix for the extra scenes and
what with the poorer quality of video on this disc
it really would make you wonder why it was
included after all. The reasons are simply this:
you get extra scenes and more importantly, a
commentary. However I would imagine that a casual
viewer would just plump for the first disc
whenever they were interested in watching it. The
soundtrack is a little scratchy at times but as
2.0 soundtracks go, it is average to slightly
above average. You won’t be using this disc as a
demo of your sound system that’s for sure, but you
do get to say to people that the soundtrack is how
the film was originally presented so for
completeness sake, it does work out.
_fichiers/piper.jpg) |
| Nevermind that it has no lungs to
blow with, it can still pipe a mighty fine
tune |
Extras
For
people with 4:3 televisions, who don’t like those
black bars on their DVDs the first disc comes with
a 4:3 option. I didn’t watch it as I don’t believe
in 4:3 presentations if the film was originally
intended to be shown in widescreen. If you want a
little more information on this then check out
Chris’ article entitled “Why
Widescreen?”. Anyway, if you select the 4:3
option, you can’t get the DTS soundtrack so there
is no way I am going near it. Also on the first
disc, is a behind the scenes featurette entitled
“The Men Behind the Army” narrated by the
charismatic star, Bruce Campbell. This is a great
19 minute featurette which really goes into the
way the monsters were created. Again, this is the
sort of thing fans will lap up. Some of the ways
they created some of the monster suits in
particularly the flying banshee which was created
with two sets of arms with space for the woman
inside the suit to switch between which sets of
arms she was controlling depending on the scene
are really ingenious. Again, there is more talk of
how much pain Bruce Campbell has to go through to
get a scene finished. There are also some Talent
Bios which just show you what other productions
the cast and crew have been involved with, as well
as the Theatrical Trailer.
On the second
disc, the fun continues. First up is a commentary
from Campbell, and both Sam and Ivan Raimi. This
is essential listening for any of the fans out
there and it is both funny and informative. Poor
Bruce really does take a beating in this film
(actually Sam mentioned in the Spider-Man
commentary that he wanted a way to somehow hurt
Bruce a bit more in the film of the wall crawler
but they couldn’t work it in – you can read my
review of that here).
They talk at length about the way shots were
filmed, the acting of the extras and which were
their friends and which part of a scene Universal
wanted cut from their version of the DVD release.
Basically, you have to listen to it. There are
four deleted scenes included which are listed as
“Never Seen Before Deleted Scenes” which is a kind
of truth. I do not think they have been available
officially in the UK before, but they are on both
of my other copies of the director’s cut DVD
(Region 1) on which they are again listed as
“Never Seen Before”. I think it is more of a poke
at the DVD industry and their often inclusion of
such labelled material, however they are quite
good and come with a full commentary which is
always useful to have on a deleted scene.
Particularly strange is the different take on the
opening scene, which was supposed to tie in with
the deleted ending which is on this disc.
The Storyboards extra is interesting as it
is linked into the actual film. So when watching
the movie, the relevant storyboard is presented on
screen at the same time. An interesting way to
present this but it is a shame that these cannot
be accessed separately. The Creature Concept
Designs are a gallery which is just a selection of
pictures for the monsters. Some are pretty gross
actually. All the menus are animated as you would
expect and they are accompanied with relevant
screams and music.
_fichiers/storyboard.jpg) |
| To give you an impression of the
Storyboard
feature |
Overall
Fans
will have had this on pre-order for a while I
would imagine, but perhaps some of the rest of you
should have a look at it. It is not in the same
league as it’s prequels in terms of horror or
scare factor but it is a lot more fun with
excellent forever quotable one liners. Listening
to the commentary will make you aware of the
suffering Raimi puts Campbell through when they
make a film and I truly believe that Bruce
Campbell is the King of B movie Actors. The next
time you meet a nice girl, try asking her to “Give
me some sugar, baby” and see what happens.
Apparently you get a sensual kiss, but I wouldn’t
bet on it.
NB: The running times for each
feature are 81 and 96 minutes respectively. Also,
it is not released with region coding information
- hence if you can play back video in a PAL format
it would work on any DVD
player.
Reviewed by David
Barta | | |
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| Movie |
Video |
Audio |
Extras |
Overall | |
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_fichiers/armyofdarknessr2reviewcover.jpg) |
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Suitable only
for persons of 15 years and over |
| Region:
2 |
DVD Release
Date:
11th November 2002 |
| Run Time:
81 minutes |
| Aspect
Ratio: 1.66:1 |
| Anamorphic:
Yes |
| Color:
Yes |
| RCE
Protection: No |
| Video
Signal: PAL |
| Number of
Discs: 2 |
Disc
Type:
Single side, dual layer |
Genre:
Action, Adventure, Comedy,
Fantasy and Horror |
Soundtrack:
Dolby Digital 5.1
English, DTS 5.1 English, Dolby Digital 2.0
English |
Subtitles:
none |
Extra
Features:
Featurette - The Men Behind the
Army, Original Ending, Trailer, Biographies of Sam
Raimi and Bruce Campbell, Deleted Scenes with
optional commentary, ful llength commentary with
Sam Raimi, Bruce Campbell and co-writer Ivan
Raimi, Storyboards, Creature Concept
Drawings |
| Easter Egg:
No |
Director:
Sam Raimi |
Starring:
Bruce Campbell, Ted
Raimi, Embeth Davidtz |
Related
Movies:
Evil
Dead II (R2)
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