Army of Darkness Review

 

Army of Darkness is a comedy horror film, the sequel to Evil Dead 2, and the third film in the Evil Dead franchise. The movie was produced by Dino De Laurentiis Communications, Renaissance Pictures, and Introvision International and distributed by Universal Pictures. Army of Darkness was written by Sam Raimi and Ivan Raimi and directed by Sam Raimi.

The story is, after the events of the last movie Ash finds himself trapped in the medieval times. After a rough start, Ash soon takes the lead and agrees to help these people stop an army of deadites, while at the same time find his way back home.

• Negatives

My only real complaint with Army of Darkness is the lack of horror. Now this franchise is no stranger to genre hopping. The first film was straight up horror, and it's sequel was a horror-comedy. Here however it's a a fantasy adventure film, with some horror elements. If this happened to be a fantasy-horror film then I can definitely see this more in line with the horror genre as a whole.

• Mix

I've got nothing. So just keep scrolling.

• Positives

If there's one thing that's always been consistent throughout the whole franchise, is Bruce Campbell. I really don't know what to say that I haven't already said before. Bruce once again becomes the best and most entertaining aspect of the Evil Dead series.

Speaking of things I given credit to before, I yet again find myself loving the special effects. While I did have a slight issue with the stop motion from the last film, here everything's been improved. From the stop motion to the makeup, it's all just amazing and still hold up today.

Much like how Evil Dead 2 had comedy in it, this film is no different. Sometimes it doesn't work, but for a huge proportion of the runtime I was laughing. One scene I laughed at was when Ash was talking about what model his gun is, how it works, and where you can by it...to a bunch of people who are in the medieval times.

What I'm shocked by is how I forgot just how great the dialogue is. Ash has so many great lines that not only does it make even more of a badass, but how quotable the dialogue is. You've got "See this? This...is my boomstick!" It's a great line, such a great line that it  became a trope, but my favorite as always been  "You ain't leadin' but two things, right now: Jack and shit...and Jack left town." Oh how I love that line.

While there's a lack of true horror in Army of Darkness, there's a lot the film does to make up for it. Such as Bruce Campbell himself, great special effects, good comedy, and some really good dialogue.

My final rating is Good.

That's going to do it for me. Come back on Thursday, Oct 27th for my review of the 2013 version of Evil Dead. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.