Groove is in the heart

Rating: 8/10 (27 November 2017)

So, Jaws started the whole summer blockbuster, commercially successful US horror movie shebang with its dose of tense thriller action, socially relevant drama, gruesome horror and likable, down to earth heroes. Now take that satisfying horror formula, add a dash of Looney Tunes and lace it thoroughly with PCP and you might get a glimpse of what Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn has in store. The unhinged second chapter in the bizarre saga of Ash Williams is a true sight to behold.
After the chilling gore-fest that was the first Evil Dead film, the question of escalation was surely on the production crew's minds. In comparison to the preceding two movies, the original was a fairly grim affair, one of those morbid low budget Gorenos that can make even the most callous horror-hound wince. So instead of upping the amount of bodily fluids being more or less willingly spilled in the next movie, they evolved the movie in an entirely different manner. The concept already was pretty absurd, so let's try to make a horror flick where people laugh with the weirdness instead of at it. The idea itself wasn't as novel, since there already were a number of successful horror comedies like Young Frankestein and Re-Animator, but the majority of them were nudge- wink genre spoofs or happy accidents when the humour is a result of the crew's over-exuberance or tenuous grasp on film-making. Evil Dead 2 is different in its zaniness, because it knowingly embraces its extreme violence and uses it as a method of furthering the story in its own disturbed way.
The Setup? Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) takes his girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) up to a cabin in the middle of a forest for some romantic R&R. Things would have been peachy had it not been for the Sumerian demon haunting said cabin. You can guess what happens next, relationship milestones get set back due to demonic presence, heads get chopped off and one's grip on sanity becomes ever twisted. The cause of all the mayhem is the Necronomicon Ex Mortis, an ancient tome that contains spells to open portals to the demon realm. The previous tenant, an archaeologist, unearthed the book and by reciting a number of passages aloud, unknowingly released the demons sealed within. So far - so typical. There is also a B-plot where the archaeologist's daughter tries to return to the cabin and befriends a pair of yokels along the way, but it's not particularly riveting when compared to the rest of the movie.
While the story itself isn't exactly memorable, the execution is where the movie shines. Structurally, the movie is like a hellish cauldron in which a veritable treasure trove of set-pieces and ideas are left to brew. One minute, the movie can be a kinetic collage of short bursts of violent action, only to become a tense panoramic scan of the environment the next. A paranoia inducing tracking shot will be followed by an athletic Buster Keaton-esque gag. Anything goes in Evil Dead 2 making this movie a rich cornucopia of filmmaking techniques. Impossible camera angles and skewed crane shots are frequently used to give the movie an often vertigo- inducing sense of immersion. Every scene has its own tempo and visual style giving the movie a busy, almost euphoric sense of style. This movie champions the use of special effects as well, and a whole pallet of different techniques is used. Whether it's stop motion animation, deranged muppets, atmospheric matte paintings or room-sized latex monstrosities, Evil Dead 2 finds smart and hilarious ways to integrate special effects into the movie without feeling overbearing.
All of these disparate elements might spell doom for a movie if there was nothing to pull the audio-visual madness together, but luckily the editing in this movie is something of small miracle. All of the movie's flights of fancy are miraculously blended together by applying a scare-a-minute approach to timing. The breakneck tempo of the movie is smartly balanced by interweaving the disparate horror styles into a cohesive whole that actually manages to streamline the traditional slasher-movie fare without feeling bloated. The second third of the movie is a prime example of that - focusing on the main character's slow descent into madness, the story just hones in on a singular continuous action scene that efficiently conveys both menace and humor. All of the scenes related to the possessed hand are cinematic gold, especially if you consider the fact that it's just Bruce Campbell with a little makeup on throwing himself into the furniture. And how could we forget the arguably single best moment in the movie â€“when Ash stabs his own hand with a knife and delivers the half victorious, half plaintive cry of Â„Who's laughing now?".
Much can be said of Bruce Campbell's acting. It's a genuine treat to witness this hero with a soap opera heart-throb visage go, quite literally, insane. Campbell delivers manic energy by the boatload, and even manages to land all of the exhaustive physical comedy. And, of course, this man was born to deliver one-liners. The rest of the performances in the movie are par for the course when it comes to horror flicks, but it's hard to not get the feeling that this is Campbell's one-man show. The last third of the movie unites Ash with the rest of the cast, and at this point the movie does seem to slack a little bit. Or to be even more precise, falls into a rut of predictable slasher tropes. Group infighting, misunderstandings and forced tensions rise to the forefront, and stand as a stark contrast to the earlier, more unique parts of the film. This rut fails to derail the experience, but it can induce whiplash after the more intense middle part.
In the end, Evil Dead is beyond recommending. This movie is deservedly a horror classic, and is absolutely worth revisiting time and time again.