Bloody Good Time

Rating: 8/10 (1 November 2012)

"Evil Dead II" is a gory horror movie for people who don't like gory horror movies. That's not entirely true, as some splatter-film aficionados love it, too, though others protest the Three Stooges-style comedy that predominates after the ten-minute mark. For me, it's a marvel of story-telling economy, suspense, and sustained momentum that manages to be really funny, funny enough that you don't know whether to laugh or scream when director Sam Raimi uncorks his next surprise. Which is a large part of the fun.
Amorous Ash (Bruce Campbell) takes his girlfriend to a cabin deep in the woods. Unfortunately, the cabin was occupied previously by a professor studying the Necronomicon, a book of ancient and dangerous lore. Soon all sorts of terrors are forcing their way into Ash's world, chanting "Things that were shall be again!" and turning the cabin into a blood soaked shambles. Ash works single-handed, first figuratively, then literally, to stop the ghoulish invasion.
Blending comedy and horror was old hat when Boris Karloff was introduced to Elsa Lanchester in "Bride Of Frankenstein." But the two genres were never commingled so directly until "Evil Dead 2." Nor, before ED2, did you get much comedy in gore sequences. "Evil Dead II" would seem an unlikely place to introduce this concept, as it is the ostensible sequel to a movie that was grimly serious about much of the same situation.
Is "Evil Dead II" a true sequel? Technically, yes, though tonally it plays very different. The key to that is Campbell, who reprises Ash from the prior film but plays him here with an array of silly faces and mouth-agape stunts that would have impressed Buster Keaton. His firm jaw and big teeth are played for magnificently kooky effect whenever there's an opportunity for blood splattering, grinning insanely as he takes a chainsaw to his lover's head or his own wrist.
"That's right...who's laughing now!"
Well, you are, most of the time. The violence is often shocking, but never in an ugly way, things always progressing in cartoon-like fashion. Raimi keeps the camera in motion for episodes of thrilling humor, like one sequence early on when the lens chases Ash through every room of the cabin, with doors whipping and crashing so fast you never see the joins necessary to make it play on screen. "Evil Dead II" was made on the cheap, it even looks cheap at times, but it never plays cheap.
The film does have weaknesses. There are substandard performances by the supporting cast or a woolly ending that leaves things up in the air (for a sequel that would wind up being a mild disappointment). None of that diminishes the energy rush one gets watching a film that is as unrelentingly clever as "Evil Dead II", so clever it actually gets funnier, if not scarier, with multiple viewings. It's a wonderfully twisted example of the magic of cinema.