Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn (1987)

Rating: 5/10 (6 May 2009)

Sam Raimi's 1981 masterpiece, The Evil Dead, is a seminal film in the horror genre. It was extreme for its' day, pervasively atmospheric, unpredictable, wild and original, inventive, sharp, scary... It's the kind of film that you know was going to breed a sequel at one time or another. As every successful film in the genre seemed to have a sequel to it by the mid-80's, and Sam Raimi had too much talent and ingenuity to let sit idle. So, the old team decided to reunite a second time making a feature. Well... while many fans will try and convince you that this film was magic, to me it felt more like microwaved leftovers from the first. There are many reasons I'm sure that this film was so disappointing. One I'm told, was the result of controversy the original stirred over audiences being shocked by the scene in which a female character is sexually violated by a tree. It remains a sole flaw in the original, it went too far for pretty much no reason at all. It personally never disturbed me, but that's because it looked so silly and wasn't even recognized by the music score (unlike similar scenes in something like, The Last House on the Left).
Another reason is that some people had a problem with the graphic mutilations and gore in the original. But one of the things that made that film so great was that it mixed terror with large quantities of gore. And it was good-looking gore, too. Even where some of the makeup designs of the zombies was primitive, they're still a lot scarier than what we get here. For this sequel, it appears Sam and company thought they could generate the same level of terror by trimming down gore and doubling on the wacky, speeding camera-work, and admittedly very freaky editing. This I think backfires. Now, the editing is the only thing that generates any scares and the camera-work is the only impressive thing about the movie. Although this sequel hired more skilled special effects technicians, the zombies look terrible. The best thing here in fact, is how creepy they make objects in the cabin look. The film's best scene features the inanimate objects altogether erupt in a spontaneous bout of laughter. Which brings an unbelievably creepy deer head on the wall to life. In the original, the zombies were the scariest thing (other than the creepy woods, but that's before you saw any zombies) and they knew it. Here, they don't seem to know how scary that deer head is. Why couldn't that have attacked someone?
Next, I've heard Bruce Campbell go on about how upset audiences were that the film begins with a short re-do of the original's plot. They had plans to just edit-in clips from the original but couldn't get the rights to them because New Line was being stubborn (and I always got the idea that they were really generous with horror filmmakers). So they shot a new prologue, which retells the original story as though it were only Ash and his girlfriend Linda who went up to the cabin, instead of them and three friends. I could accept that, if Raimi hadn't decided to play up the character of Ash. This sequel is more a personality showcase for the crazy guy Bruce Campbell was cultivating than a terrifying movie, like the first film was. There's a lot more emphasis on his facial expressions, physical comedy routines, and one-liners than in the original. In fact, what one-liners did he even have in the original? This is another big problem. In the original, he wasn't a hero. He was just another victim, one who managed to survive the longest. It's not the fact that it's different that's a problem. It's that it isn't nearly as good. Like the third film, Army of Darkness, Dead by Dawn exists more for Campbell to show off than to really scare people.
People have already said this functions more like a remake than a sequel. But, considering it as a remake- why remake it? You should never mess with perfection. This film is too different from the original. For example, part-way through the film, they add four characters out of nowhere. Seemingly just to have more potential victims to slaughter (not that I'd call anything to happens to the victims in this movie slaughtering). And if three of them aren't the most annoying characters in any horror film I've ever seen before- I'll go out, buy a hat, and then eat it! Now, I would say "especially the backwoods, redneck hicks; the ignorant, overall-ed, black-toothed, most likely inbred, banjo-baby Jake and his bratty, whorey, too-pretty-for-him girlfriend Bobby-Joe," but there is actually someone three times more annoying. Annie the archeologist's daughter (she might be one too, I don't know). The movie does make us like Bruce Campbell (what's the point in calling him Ash anymore? He's really just playing Bruce Campbell), so it's a waste of time to do this whole sub-plot of her walking into her father's cabin, her father being missing, and her assuming Bruce killed him, so she goes psycho and wants vigilante-styled vengeance.
The movie does have a few creepy or cool moments. Particularly- anything involving the deer head, the intro narration about the 'Book of the Dead' with some very cool animation, and a short sequence where Bruce talks about the woods and what he thinks is going on out there. Oh, and there's a little thing about a glowing spirit that warns them about something- I liked that quite a bit. And the sequence where Bruce goes into the basement to "find" Henrietta. It's scary for about a minute. The silliness of the movie really does kill it. And you know something? 1986's House was silly enough to take care of my "silly horror" fix for almost the rest of the decade. House also feels a lot more original than this does.