ADD horror comedy

Rating: 6/10 (18 August 2008)

Ironically enough, I saw Army of Darkness before seeing this one. It's weird, but I don't actually like Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness quite as much as Evil Dead, and not nearly as much as most other people seem to do. I'm no stranger to camp cult classics, but Sam Raimi's particular brand of over-the-top pleasure always involves a sort of forcefulness, a kind of shouting, of the dialog and actions so that everything seems so frantic all of the time. Evil Dead still had this type of humor, but relaxed it and let it flow a bit... this movie pretty much shows off the scenes Raimi was interested in and which ones he just put in there for the story to connect. The beginning shoots by without a breath... the ending drags... some scenes or jokes are emphasized beyond their range, and other stuff is just shown and thrown away before the audience has time to really grasp it.
However, Evil Dead 2 is much stronger than Army of Darkness, mostly from its physical comedy. Ash's wrestling with his own hand is some pretty genius stuff, and the scene where the entire house becomes animated, starting with a deer's bust, is pretty much one of the most trippy and bizarre scenes I've seen in cinema--the type of thing that would have scared the crap out of me if the silliness of the rest of the movie hadn't bracketed it in.
I think the intention behind Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness was good, but I think Raimi could have stood to pace it down a bit and put less emphasis on being frenetic and hyperactive. If it wasn't for the fact that obviously these two movies took a lot of work (especially with the stop-motion animation and other special effects), I'd assume Raimi was having a prolonged bout of ADD during the filming of them.
--PolarisDiB