Beginning with a condensed recap of the
previous film then continuing almost directly where it left off, Army Of
Darkness starts with Ash trapped in medieval England in the year 1300
AD, where he is captured by medieval knights led by Lord Arthur. (This,
of course, directly contradicts the ending of Evil Dead II where the
knights hailed him as the “hero from the sky”). Arthur and his troops
have fought a long, bloody battle with Henry The Red (“lord of the
Northlands”, presumably meaning Scotland), who lives in the hills with
his men; but both camps fear the Deadites which roam the nearby woods.
Ash is taken prisoner, along with Henry and his
men, and taken back to Arthur’s castle. Upon proving himself and
setting Henry free, Ash strikes a deal with Arthur and his Merlinesque
“Wise Man” – in return for Ash going into the woods and retrieving the
Necronomicon (which has the power to banish the Deadites), he will be
sent back to his own time via one of the incantations in the Book.
Meanwhile, Ash begins a tentative relationship with Sheila, a maiden at
the castle.
After being pursued by the Evil Force in the
woods, Ash retreats to an abandoned windmill where, he is beset by evil
tiny versions of himself that emerge from the shattered remnants of a
broken mirror. One of the tiny Ashes manage to climb down Ash’s throat
and painfully emerges from his body as a fully grown doppelganger. Ash
blows his double away with a blast of his trusty shotgun and retrieves
the Necronomicon – but in doing so bungles the recitation of a passage
intended to calm the book, setting the evil spirits free to descend upon
the castle. Desperate to return back to the present, Ash refutes
Arthur and the Wiseman’s request for help, but soon changes his mind
once Sheila is kidnapped by none other than the revived Evil Ash, who is
leading an malevolent army of skeletons towards the castle...
You can read a PDF version of the script below.
This is the original shooting script not a transcript so there are some
sections & alterations you can read that didn't make it in to the
final film. Its formatted as per the original script and was written by
Sam Raimi & Ivan Raimi together completed February 2, 1991.
You can also download a higher quality PDF
version of the script via the link below, you'll need Adobe Acrobat 5.0
or higher to open it. It's 85 pages long, and is sized to print on
standard A4 paper.
The idea that an energetic low-budget indie
splatter flick like The Evil Dead would be followed two sequels and ten
years later by a studio-backed medieval fantasy action pic seems
inherently absurd, but in retrospect Raimi’s concern with both Evil Dead
sequels is not continuity, either in tone or in keeping up a regular
mythology. Rather, each film is a pure expression of Sam’s evolution as
a filmmaker, and his increasing ambitions.
At the time of its release, Army was
decried by many old-school fans who sorely missed the blood and guts,
and many in general theatre audience were left confused by the
combination of genres. Now taken in its proper context, it was extremely
unlikely that Sam would have wanted to follow it up with another
claustrophobic horror film (albeit with strong comedy elements) having
just hit the top of the box office with 1990’s Darkman. He has made no
secret of the fact he is an unashamedly populist filmmaker; whilst the
lighter, largely blood-free tone of Army is partly down to intervention
from Universal Pictures, it is also the result of Sam’s desire to
communicate to as wide an audience as possible.
Today, the film has been heartily
embraced by a new generation of fans who have no problem with the
broader emphasis on slapstick humour or the remolding of Ash into a
quote-spouting action hero (albeit a much put-upon, rather foolish one,
another of Raimi’s subversive trademarks). Though many of its effects
have dated, and it can be somewhat incoherent depending on which version
you watch, as ever the film succeeds through Raimi’s sheer enthusiasm
to throw every trick in the book at the audiences to entertain them.
Bruce Campbell lives up to every challenge (and torment) thrown at him,
and is supported by an able cast largely playing it straight.
Though again not a box-office success, the film
has had a sustained afterlife on video and DVD, having been re-released a
seemingly record amount of times. Its influence can not only be felt
in the numerous video games that have stolen Ash’s one-liners, but even
in films like The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, where Peter Jackson
has ackowedged that the battle of Helm’s Deep was inspired by the
climactic battle in Army.
