evil-dead-28. Evil Dead II (1987; dir. Sam Raimi) – If Charlie Chaplin had ever decided to make a horror movie (and I’m excluding Monsieur Verdoux), it would probably have been a lot like Evil Dead II. Of course, this is part of a trilogy, and while the first Evil Dead has the unique charm of a group of friends heading into the woods aiming to make the coolest low budget horror movie ever and Army of Darkness has the spunky attitude and zingers that made Bruce Campbell a cult icon, Evil Dead II is the most assured film of the bunch, employing camera techniques and narrative devices that foreshadowed Raimi making one of the finest superhero films this side of  The Dark Knight with Spiderman 2.

As Jack Black’s character Barry says of Evil Dead II in High Fidelity: “…it’s a brilliant film. It’s so funny, and violent, and the soundtrack kicks fucking ass.” And yeah, that pretty much sums it up. The three movies that have appeared on this list thus far have a particular splatter element to them, and of those films, this is probably the most enjoyable for its unique sense of style. Remember how crazy the camera moved during the scene where Doc Ock becomes Doc Ock in the hospital in Spiderman 2: the odd, slightly askew angles; the quick schizophrenic jump-cutting; the zooms to close-up of surgical instruments and terrified faces? Well, that all has its genesis here in Ash battling the Deadites (see, for example, the clip below).

The main event, however, is the way that Raimi uses all these elements to really just brutalize Bruce Campbell…er, rather, I mean, tell the story. The story, much to our benefit, just so happens to put Ash through the ringer. Recapping the first movie in five minutes time (but eliminating three of the five characters), Raimi gives us Ash and his girlfriend Linda in the cabin, Linda gets possessed by the evil, forcing Ash to decapitate her and then the evil comes for him, at which point the fun really begins.

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The evil pushes Ash face down into a muddy puddle, knocks him through the windshield of his car, and then possesses his left hand, pulling him across rooms and breaking dishes over his head Buster Keaton slapstick style. Eventually, the natural progression leads to Ash cutting it off with a meat cleaver and trying to shoot it as it runs around on its fingers like Thing from The Adam’s Family. Yes, there are other characters and yes, there’s a plot, but we’re really just watching to see copious amounts of multicolored blood sprayed in Bruce Campbell’s face.

If you have the time, as I did on Sunday, sit down and watch the trilogy straight through. It’s a lot of fun, and it’s interesting to watch Sam Raimi’s development as a director.  But if you only have an hour and a half to spare, you should pick the best of the bunch, and that’s this one. It’s horror as art now, baby! For real, for real.