Evil Dead II

Rating: 4/10 (17 June 2005)

The first film is considered a funny and over the top gory "video nasty", and I remember watching this "sequel" once before, a second time was a good idea, from director Sam Raimi (Spider-Man). Basically the film opens just like the first film, only it's just Ashley 'Ash' J. Williams (Bruce Campbell) and girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) going to a cabin in the woods, the tape recorder with the Professor reciting the words from the Book of the Dead is read, along with some flashbacks of Professor Raymond Knowby (John Peaks), and the Evil Dead is unleashed. Linda turns into a zombie like monster intent on torturing and killing Ash, before he decapitates her with a spade, and he buries her body in the soil, and the last bit sees something coming towards him. Imagine now the film is continuing, except the Book of the Dead isn't burned, Ash briefly turns into a monster himself, and is back inside the cabin defending himself from the evil forces. Meanwhile the Professor's daughter Annie (Sarah Berry) and her research partner Ed (Richard Domeier) are returning to the cabin with some copies of the book's pages to get the rest. Ash is slowly going insane with the evil forces trying to get in, take over his body and trying to kill, he even cuts his own right hand off when it becomes possessed, and it crawls away. When Annie and Ed arrive, along with guides Jake (Danny Hicks) and Bobby Joe (Kassie Wesley DePaiva), they soon realise the danger they are in, and just as before, one by one are taken over by the evil forces to become zombie like murderous monsters. After Ash has attached a chainsaw to his severed right arm, Annie and he read the words from the book to get rid of the Evil Dead once and for all. In the end, while Ash's possessed hand stabs Annie to death, a large portal starts sucking all the evil in, but it also takes Ash with it, and he is praised as a hero when he guns down a winged creature in the medieval world he has entered. Also starring Ted Raimi as Possessed Henrietta and Lou Hancock as Henrietta Knowby. I was really disappointed that the story didn't just continue from the previous film, it is just a complete rehash of events, and not even much of a proper sequel. When it does get to the original material it is still both horrible and funny at the same time, so while not all great, a not too bad follow up horror comedy. Okay!