Army of Darkness

(Demon/Medieval/Time Travel/Hero)      8********skulls

*Blood* *Violent* *No Strong Language* *No Nudity* *No Sexual Situations* *Not Particularly Gory*

1992/Color/81 Min./MCA Universal Home Video & Dino Delaurentis Communications and Renaissance Pictures/Rated R

Director..........Sam Raimi* (Darkman, Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2)

Screenplay....Sam Raimi & Ivan Raimi

Music.............Joseph LoDuca

Producer.........Robert Tapert

Executive Producer.....

Special Make-up Effects by Kurtzman, Nicotero & Berger EFX Group

Dramatis Personae

Ash...................Bruce Campbell* (Evil Dead & 2, Maniac Cop & 2)

Linda...............Bridget Fonda (Frankenstein Unbound, Single White Female)

Sheila..............Embeth Davidtz (Schindler's List, Sweet Murder)

Arthur...............Marcus Gilbert

Wiseman..........Ian Abercrombie (Curse IV, Puppet Master III)

Duke Henry.......Richard Grove

Blacksmith.......Timothy Patrick Quill(Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except)

Gold Tooth.......Michael Earl Reid

Possessed Witch..Patricia Tallman

Cowardly Warrior.Theodore Raimi (Lunatics: A Love Story, Evil Dead II)

Critique: The pace in the beginning of this movie is blistering, and special effects and slapstick fans will love it. Ash's disgust with the "primates" will raise a chuckle. He and his '73 Oldsmobile and a few pages of Lovecraftian "necronomicon ex mortis" demon resurrection passages result in a fun tour of "S Mart" employee smarts, Goethe's "Goetz with the iron Hand", "The Day the Earth Stood Still" (klatu berata nicto) with a touch of Gulliver, Frankenstein, and of course the Three Stooges, lots of fake Shemps in this one. Now for some nitpicking: but the demons start to blend together. In addition, the mix of camp and horror gets a bit too heavy on the camp side. The campy stuff from part II worked much better. Rather than just spending on more and better demons (some are outstanding), some original text and dialogue would have been helpful. In part II, Ash's apparently unfounded self confidence in the face of frightening predicaments made for a believable, stupid, character. In this one, he simply becomes an action hero, and his camp pronouncements fall a bit flat. Also, the supporting actors don't interact with him. Why isn't it mentioned that Ash had seen a picture of the chainsaw wielding deliverer who fell from the sky in an entry in the book of the dead dating to Ashe's present predicament? Surely that would have been worth a flashback.

Plot Summary: Ash picks up where he left off (England of 1300 A.D. as best he can figure) where he's a slave, captured mistakenly in a clan war as a soldier of Duke Henry and taken to "the pit". Ash recounts how his normal life was interrupted when he and his friends took a trip to the mountains. He is transported to 14th century. The holy man sees him and wonders whether Ash is the one written of in the necronomicon who will deliver us from evil. In a clan war, Ash is mistakenly taken for one of lord Henry's men, hence his enslavement. What evil has befallen this land? Ash is thrown into the pit, and does battle with some demons who emphasize the traditional punch. When Ash gets the chain saw from the holy man, beheads a demon and shoots up the place a bit, he becomes unquestioned king of the roost. He has a chain saw, a 12 gauge "This is my boomstick", and practical demon fighting experience. To get home, he must seek the necronomicon, which holds the secret to his original time travel and to defeating the demons. He battles demons in a rife with nods to Moe, Larry, Shemp and Curly. All he needs to do is say the words "Clatu verratta nicto" (The day the earth stood still) Any S-mart employee would recognize that. Unfortunately, sneezing through the last syllable isn't adequate, and he inadvertently awakens all the dead. Ash convinces the men of the castle who are intelligently in the process of bugging out to stay, and with the help of the high school chemistry book moldering in the back of the '73 Olds cutlass supreme, gives the living a modern edge against the army of darkness. The converted Olds makes a splendid war machine, but it too is overcome. The skeletal host of enemies is simply too numerous. Will Henry the red (beholden as he is to Ash) come to the aid of the besieged castle?