The best of a very uneven series . . .

Rating: Null/10 (18 September 2014)

There is a smile attached to viewers who have the understanding of what 'Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn' is all about just beneath the surface. It takes on the guise of a gory, overwrought vomitorium but anyone familiar with midnight movies knows that it doesn't strive to be like it's contemporaries, it strives to fun in a bizarre way.
A group of people have found their way to a small cabin in the woods. Their they discover the book of the dead, THE book of the dead and reading a passage invoke an evil spirit which seems to take over everything in the house. It resides in the basement, in the walls, in the doors and in the trees outside and in sometimes in the limbs of the characters. Director Sam Raimi edits the film with a wild jerky breakneck style just enough so that the film is chaotic but still makes sense.
What strikes me most is how much fun Raimi seems to be having coming up with all kinds strangely hilarious new ideas. At one point the creature zips through the woods toward the cabin at a relentless speed, tearing through the brush, then suddenly gets lost and stops. Another point: The hero's hand becomes possessed and he has to hack it off. This only makes things worse because now the hand is running loose inside the house trying to kill him.
I have an affection for movies like this. Horror is a genre that recycles itself over and over and over. It is refreshing when someone does something new. Horror comedies by their very nature breed bad taste which 'Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn' is but its not dumb. The movie is handled with a lot of hyper-kinetic energy and a lot of style. Its smarter than the 'Return of the Living Dead' but no less gory. Like Mel Brooks, Raimi strives to rise below vulgarity.
There is gore galore here. The movie is an orgy of guts, eyeballs, severed limbs and blood, blood, blood. If you know your horror films then this is the movie for you, if you don't this probably isn't the best place to start.