Evil Dead II (1987)

Official trailer

Evil Dead II is Sam Raimi’s 1987 American horror-comedy film operating as part remake and part sequel to his 1981 The Evil Dead, depicting Ash Williams returning to the Tennessee cabin and battling escalating demonic forces with increasingly absurd practical-effects violence. Bruce Campbell plays Ash Williams. Sarah Berry plays Annie Knowby.

Dan Hicks plays Jake. Kassie DePaiva plays Bobby Joe. Richard Domeier plays Ed Getley. Denise Bixler plays Linda. Sam Raimi and Scott Spiegel wrote the screenplay.

Renaissance Pictures and Rosebud Releasing produced and distributed the film. It opened in March 1987 to strong reviews and modest box office, and it confirmed Raimi’s directorial reputation.

Few straight comedies make me laugh as hard as Evil Dead II, and it still manages to gross me out. Raimi throws everything at the wall, Campbell takes every hit, and I love watching a movie this unafraid to look ridiculous. My only complaint is that the plain terror of the original mostly disappears, and I miss it a little.

Where the 1981 original played it straight, this one commits to slapstick and gore in equal measure and keeps both going for the whole running time. That choice reshaped the franchise for good. I think it’s the gutsiest move a horror sequel has made, because Raimi risked alienating everybody who loved the first film for its scares. Bruce Campbell’s lead performance becomes the franchise’s defining element through this film, with Ash Williams emerging as the cult-horror character that later franchise entries would extensively develop.

The Tonal Reorientation

Raimi’s decision to make Evil Dead II horror-comedy instead of straight horror was a real commercial risk in 1987. The Evil Dead’s reputation rested on its terror content, and reorienting the sequel toward comedy could have alienated the original’s audience. Raimi’s craftsmanship and Campbell’s commitment made the tonal shift work, with the comedy adding to the horror instead of replacing it.

The film’s tonal balance comes from extreme practical-effects violence delivered with comic timing. Ash’s possessed hand attacking him, the geyser of blood from the cabin walls, the demonic-laughter Three Stooges-style room shaking: every horror element is staged for both shock and laughter. The cumulative effect is a highly distinctive viewing experience within 1980s horror. The possessed-hand fight is my favorite scene in the film. Campbell battles his own hand like it’s a stranger who broke in, and I laugh every time the hand wins a round.

Bruce Campbell’s Physical Performance

Bruce Campbell gives a lead performance in Evil Dead II that ranks among the most physically committed in horror history. The character must absorb sustained physical abuse across the running time including extended self-fighting with his possessed hand, eyeball-into-mouth ingestion, repeated falls and impacts, and the famous chainsaw-attachment to his right wrist following the hand’s removal.

Campbell’s commitment to physical performance under makeup, prosthetics, and stunts gives the film its distinct identity. The actor’s willingness to be abused across the production established him as the franchise’s defining element and the cult-horror lead-actor reference for later generations of independent horror productions. His Ash Williams is a highly distinctive horror protagonist.

Campbell is the reason this sits at a 9 for me. I can’t picture anybody else selling a chainsaw for a hand with a straight face and a wink at the same time, and he never lets the gag make Ash any less of a hero.

The Practical-Effects Escalation

Raimi’s makeup-effects team led by Mark Shostrom delivered sustained effects work across the running time that escalates instead of recycling. The opening flashback’s compressed restaging of the original film, the possessed-hand sequence, the blood-geyser cabin assault, the cellar-dweller revelation, the closing-act dimensional-tunnel finale: each major sequence introduces effects techniques that later productions have repeatedly imitated. The blood geyser is the moment I’d point to whenever somebody asks why practical effects matter. It’s gross and silly and physical, and I can feel the mess landing on Campbell. The considerably increased budget compared to the 1981 original gave Raimi resources for sustained effects work that the first film couldn’t afford. The cumulative effect produces a horror-comedy production with practical-effects density that contemporary horror productions rarely match. The film’s visual signature has shaped later practical-effects horror for decades.

Is Evil Dead II as good as people say?

A 9, and very close to the top of my scale.

Raimi’s gamble on comedy paid off, Campbell gives the most punishing physical performance I know of in horror, and the practical effects are messier and more inventive than anything a computer has handed us since. What keeps it from a 10 is that the dread of the first film gets traded for laughs, and I’d have kept a little more of it. Strongly recommended.

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