Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn.

 
Even though I haven't got a remake to compare it too, I will still keep my reviewing cap kept firmly on.

Most know Evil Dead II as the fan favourite from the trilogy, personally it isn't my favourite and there are actually many who really dislike where Evil Dead II took the series.

The original Evil Dead is stuck in practically endless debates as to what is supposed to be, whether it was tongue in cheek or whether it just seems silly now in comparison. Evil Dead II's mystery however is whether this was intended to be a remake or not, with much of the opening half an hour made up of events from the final act of The Evil Dead and many of the most iconic moments following that being directly lifted from The Evil Dead as well. So at least for me, Evil Dead II is sort of The Evil Dead with a bigger budget and lots of slapstick comedy sequences slotted in to make Evil Dead II the horror comedy everyone thought Evil Dead was.

It came out six years after the original Evil Dead and had a second writer to help Raimi write it and although it was a great critical success, it didn't quite set the world alight in terms of money in quite the way the original did. However, like The Evil Dead, it grew a huge cult following and is now considered one of the best films of all time.

Raimi originally had no interest in working on a sequel, but the film he was banking on bombed and since his career wasn't doing fantastically at this point anyway, he couldn't really take many more failures, so Evil Dead II was basically his sell out move. Raimi's original plan for the sequel was the film that Army of Darkness became but he wasn't given enough money to make it a reality, even if he was given masses more money than he had working on the original Evil Dead, so he decided to adapt a script he had written quite some time ago.

This time it wasn't all shot on location either, there was some shooting in real woods but the actual interior of the cabin was a set built in a school gym. Plus since everyone working on the film were actually experienced now, it was far from the living hell the original production was. Although if you ask poor Ted Raimi, he may say otherwise.

Anyway, about the film! In terms of story...it is quite confusing what is actually going on in Evil Dead II. Ash is back with Linda, only now Linda is played by someone else...and you know, not dead. They are also back in a cabin but it isn't the same one from the first film. Ash still ends up discovering the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis though and plays a recording that unleashes demons and ends up having to kill his girlfriend. After all that we introduce an entirely new cast of characters as Ash is thrown into another battle with Candarian Demons in a much more direct transformation into a hero. 

In many senses Evil Dead II suffers from many of the same problems as when Hollywood remakes a European or independent feature, although there wasn't much meat to The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II still manages to feel so much more artificial and hollow. There is pretty much no plot or characters in Evil Dead II, other than setup for Army of Darkness, with basically the whole film functioning like one long transition.

However it also has all the positives of those remakes as well, in that everything is bigger, glossier and more epic. They had 4 million to make this which is a big step up from the peanuts he had to make the original film and as such it's almost an hour and a half of blockbuster set piece versions of all your favourite moments from The Evil Dead.

And so one of the biggest things that leaves me torn about Evil Dead II is whether I want to praise Raimi or shake my head at him. Most of what made Evil Dead memorable was happening behind the camera, as Raimi had to use his own imagination to achieve things that he couldn't just by throwing money at it. A lot of what he achieved is actually pretty primitive if you take away all he was doing behind the camera. Evil Dead II on the other hand, although not packed with a huge budget, still gave Raimi the money to do so much more in front of the camera with less effort placed behind it. And this hits the mark as often as it misses it.

Raimi has a lot of big ideas, but like a child with their action figures he lacks the focus to blend all of his big ideas into one cohesive whole, especially as his imagination grows more and more wild and the budget stretches to place it on the screen. And although the erratic, excitable nature of the film is fun for the most part, there are times where so much is being chucked at you, with such little time to settle in that it becomes nauseating and undermines its own effect.

I really miss The Evil Dead's terrifying and dense atmosphere, Raimi taught us in The Evil Dead that less is more and pay off is more satisfying when you've built things up, so I don't understand why all of that has been removed for the sequel. I think if he had blended the gratuitous nature of Evil Dead II with the style of the original, then this could have been truly great, rather than just okay.

The Deadite's are certainly much more iconic this time around though. Last time they were just thick contacts and face masks, now they really do seem like otherworldly horrors. Henrietta should be up there with the classic horror monsters. Plus they actually have actual motivations!

What I will say is I do like that a large portion of the film is dedicated to Ash descending into madness. One thing I disliked about the original film was the lack of reactions from characters to things, it made everything feel so much smaller and less important than it really was. Here actions feel like they have consequences because Ash is literally being driven insane by what is happening around him.

Ironically though out of the new characters, Annie is the one who reacts the least despite having the most happen to her. Her lack of reactions other than fear would have felt right in place in the original Evil Dead but here, a film where the characters have actual reactions around her, she feels out of place.

So do I recommend it? Although bigger and more memorable than The Evil Dead, in terms of narrative and characters Evil Dead II is actually a step backwards, which is pretty impressive considering how little there was to step back from in the first place. Entertaining and iconic? Certainly. A good film? Eh... Honestly, I think I kind of like The Evil Dead more.

Think About It!

-Locke, the world's worst film snob.

What would you rate, 'Evil Dead II: Dead by Dawn'?