A Horror Movie That Backfired And Still Got The Point Across

Rating: 10/10 (25 January 2007)

Army of Darkness qualifies itself, at least to what I believe, to be at the beating heart of all cult fanaticism. This legendary movie, equal yet still somewhat separate from the Evil Dead movies before it may seem to be nothing more than an outdated film with excessive amounts of cheese now, but beneath that lies a message that's actually innocent and light-hearted; not to mention, the years of horrible horror movies to follow the Evil Dead series would make Army of Darkness into an accidental parody, as well.
As the story goes, it follows Ash, played by the now endeared-to-a-generation Bruce Campbell as the sole living survivor of an attack by demons and darkness, "deadites", on a cabin in the secluded woods. As he thinks he's safe, the darkness of the necronomicon - a book of evil incantations and summonings bound in flesh and inked blood - returns to pull Ash back into the middle ages amidst a somewhat confused war during the increasing gravity of the evil and deadites on their land. However, instead of being treated as a saviour or wizard, he's instantly bound and thrown into battle with a deadite in true Roman arena fashion. Of course, he has a chainsaw for a hand, man. And he's Ash. He defeats the deadite and in Indiana Jones' manner, pulls himself from the pit he's thrown into, and the hilarity ensues: "...Shop smart. Shop S-Mart. YOU GOT THAT?!" It's one-liner after glorious Ash/Campbell one-liner as he ventures to retrieve and hold the necronomicon away from and invading horde of deadites and skeletons, as well as an evil Ash.
As amazing as the plot sounds, and the fine points in between that progress the story, watching the movie is a completely different experience. I only wish I wasn't five at the time so I could've enjoyed it in the all-encompassing encapsulation of a theater. You can tell from the first few minutes re-summarizing the nights before that this movie is no modern-day Matrix. The DVD featurettes say the movie was filmed with a revolutionary film technique called Introvision, but referring to the movie, you'd probably just laugh again, however it's actually one of the strengths of the movie. With modern-day horror films, there's a tremendous over-doing of "deaditting." Cutting and chopping a movie to make it appear scary but shoving in loud and obnoxious sound-bytes of single or few-frame splices of a catastrophe, or a contorted face, or... you get the picture. This, in and of itself, was actually one of the accidental parodies I was mentioning earlier. Whereas now, the somewhat dated special effects definitely appeal to the atmosphere of the movie, it's become sort of an inadvertent shot at the lackluster horror movies of today, but manages to add in insult by having such a sense of humor with such an original storyline.
And of course, no actor could've pulled the part better than Bruce Campbell. The Hollywood cult-extra, he's appeared in so many things as a usually arbitrary character that you don't seem to notice him. However, no one else could've done Ash like Bruce Campbell did. He bleeds personality and there's not a single moment of the movie that isn't funny in some way, shape or form, and it's largely due to him. Not only did his facial expressions and idiosyncrasies seem almost pre-destined for this movie, but the Bruce Campbell voice is just unmistakable and his delivery defines deadpan. Simple one-liners had me on the floor just because of the amazing delivery.
And of course, underneath all that's going for this movie lies its beating heart, which most people don't seem to get up-front. It's a message that the 90's, dawn of apathy in America, still has a heart that can be as light as the days that people were young. Sure, not all of the humor is all-audience, but the same token, it's not in the same league comedies like Airplane! and Top Gun were. It was more exposing the beating heart underneath the dead skin by going back to a more slap-stick and motional style of humor. When Ash is in the graveyard getting the Stooges treatment by the skeletons, it's impossible not to laugh just because of nostalgia. It's one of the few movies where the humor is as much in how the characters talk and act as what they say and do.
As time goes on and horror movies get shittier, Army of Darkness embeds itself further as a gem amongst American cinema and cements Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell into movie history as a visionary and a genius.