Best movie in the history of the universe.

Rating: 8/10 (9 November 2005)

I wasn't able to get into the Evil Dead trilogy at first because I watched them all out of order. I was put off by the over the top juvenile humor in Army of Darkness, but I now realize it was just an extension of what Sam Raimi was perfecting here. This is an awesome black comedy featuring some of the sickest slapstick I've ever seen in a movie, and loads of dry humor (example: horrible demonic noises start coming from behind a bedroom door. Girl points to door and says, "It's in there").
The first half is basically a one-man comedy show starring the amazingly talented Bruce Campbell, who makes an idiot redneck into one of the most memorable movie heroes ever. In fact, when other people finally reach the cabin, it slows the whole thing down. That's my only complaint: the movie is too long. It would have worked better as a short. For example, they could have done without the tiresome sequence of the girl running into the woods and the others coming after her (and no shock factor like in the first movie's version). I'm not watching this to see a damn search party, for heaven's sake, I'm watching it to see Bruce Campbell fighting off possessed body parts with a chainsaw and saying things like, "You're going down!"
If your idea of a good movie is black humor combined with old-fashioned slapstick, this is the movie for you. It's a shame Sam Raimi abandoned stuff like this to make trendy crap. I'd rather watch insanity like "Evil Dead 2" than the Spiderman movies any day. 8/10.