The Ultimate in Comedic Terror

Rating: 5/10 (24 September 2004)

Although Dead By Dawn is an amusing and often entertaining sequel to the classic 1992 horror film The Evil Dead, DBD pales into comparison when claiming it is "too terrifying" as one promotional poster did.
There are quite a few problems I have with this film. One is that it is referred to as a "sequel", which if you watch this film straight after you have watched ED, you will notice some major continuity errors, such as: the disappearance of Scotty, Cheryl & Shelly from the storyline. In fact at the beginning of this film we even see Ash (Campbell) and Linda (doing a terrible job is Blixler, who has replaced the wonderful Betsy Baker) arriving at the Cabin alone, and now the run-down almost empty cabin we saw in the first film is a fully furnished and deluxe cabin, with a fully done out kitchen. I know I'm splitting hairs here, but the fact is if you're going to make a sequel to a film, at least try and make sure everything makes sense.. I mean it really couldn't have been that hard for Raimi to re-watch the first film and get some of the continuity right. Also, another thing is why Ash stopped being a Deadite in sunlight? That didn't make sense at all, since there is no reason why light would affect the force of the ED.
The other problem I have with DBD is it's decent into mass commercialism. One of the great things about ED was that it was an independent film, and had such a freaky atmospheric feel to it. DBD has none of that, it's like mass marketed film made for all the eye candy horror-wannabes who wanted to see Ash return to fight the big bad evil. And instead of getting a great sequel to a great horror film, we have gotten a horrored up version of Ash doing an I-Love-Lucy smashing kitchen plates on his head, and going completely crazy.
Now that I have said the negative, let me go on to say that as a stand-alone horror film, apart from ED. DBD is actually quite a good film. It mixes comedy, with horror(although once again the Deadites in this film, are more like Hollywood zombies than those seen in ED), and has some quite hilarious scenes such as Ash battling Knoby's now Deadite wife Henrietta (played brilliant by a young Ted Raimi), and the laughing deer & lamp in Knoby's study, which added such weirdness to the film. The ending which falls into the next film in the ED Trilogy, Army of Darkness, is also quite well done.
All in all, don't watch DBD straight after ED, in fact look at DBD as a remake, rather than a sequel, because then you will enjoy it much more.