Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (USA, 1987)
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Danny Hicks, Kassie Wesley
Much of Sam Raimi's early work is tied up in his relationship to the Coen Brothers. After Joel Coen served as editor on The Evil Dead, the Coens utilised Raimi's techniques of creating short films to get money for their directorial debut, Blood Simple. Where Raimi had made Within the Woods, a 32-minute short which became The Evil Dead, the Coens created a fictional trailer for Blood Simple and played it in theatres. The trio collaborated again on Crimewave, a live-action comic-book romp which flopped due to studio interference.
While the Coens weathered the storm and went off to make Raising
Arizona, Raimi was faced with the knowledge that another flop could
curtail his directorial career. Eventually he gave in to pressure from
acclaimed producer Dino DeLaurentiis and signed on to make a
sequel to The Evil Dead. And it's a good job he did, because in Evil
Dead 2: Dead by Dawn we have what is arguably his best film - a film
that was not only treated better by the censors, but which is darker,
scarier, funnier and more thrillingly demented than the original.
There has been much debate among fans of The Evil Dead as to whether Evil Dead 2 is technically a sequel or a remake. There have been many sequels to successful films which have retained the setting or scenario while inserting new characters, but the film is so similar to The Evil Dead in terms of plot and character development that it has to be a remake. The best way to think of the film is through the comic book principle of retroactive continuity, otherwise known as retconning. We are seeing a familiar storyline relayed with new additions and new emphases, to take account of the larger budget, Raimi's maturity as a director, and acknowledging the knowledge and interests of the original movie's fans.
The guiding principle for Evil Dead 2 is to remove all the bad stuff
and make the good stuff better. To be fair there wasn't an awful lot of
bad stuff in The Evil Dead, but the film immediately benefits from the
lack of another tree rape scene. The make-up effects are more
ambitiously gross, the camerawork is more kinetic, the slapstick is much
better integrated, and the ending is a lot funnier.
The first instance of this principle being put into practice is the
first five minutes, which effectively recaps The Evil Dead right up to
the point where Ash was possessed by the demon running at him in the
famous final shot. All the important elements in the original story
remain - Ash and his girlfriend Linda making out, the tape recorder
reciting incantations, Linda becoming a deadite and Ash becoming
possessed. But while the original was a take on the final-girl scenario,
where Ash emerged as the hero by being the only one left, Evil Dead 2
recognises that Bruce Campbell was the best actor and had the best
character, so the focus shifts much more onto him.
The shift in character emphasis also has a positive impact on the
tone of the film. The Evil Dead was immensely terrifying because it how
unrelenting it was: the nameless Lovecraftian force was contrasted by
the number of protagonists, any of whom could be attacked and
subsequently prey upon the others. With the sequel, we are forced to
focus on Ash until the archaeologists arrive in the second half. There
feels like there is more at stake because he has no-one he can turn to
and we have no hope if he gets killed. While The Evil Dead functions
like a supernatural slasher movie, Evil Dead 2 is like a slasher movie
that's been started twenty minutes before the end. It's the equivalent
of doing Alien with only Ripley on the Nostromo, or The Haunting with
only Nell in the house.
Raimi has a habit of putting his stars and audience through the
mill; in the scenes where characters get punched, bashed or covered in
blood, he's often standing just off-camera pressing the buttons and
throwing the dangerous objects. By having the focus on Ash, the amount
of pain and misery concentrated on the character becomes intensified to
absurd degrees, and this absurdity in turn makes the film much funnier.
Because Campbell is a great physical actor, he takes all this punishment
in his stride, knowing exactly when to laugh and when to scream.
There is no better example of this then the sequence of Ash battling
his possessed hand. Having tried to drown it in the sink, the hand
starts bashing Ash over the head with plates and punches him in the
stomach until he slumps unconscious into a pile of smashed crockery. On
top of the initial absurdity (his hand being possessed and not the rest
of him), the hand then proceeds to drag Ash's body towards a meat
cleaver lying on the floor. We get a 'hand's-eye view' as it inches
closer, only for Ash to stab it, and then cut it off with a chainsaw
screaming "Who's laughing now?!". Having delivered the perfect blend of
horror and slapstick comedy, Raimi gives us a cracking punch line, as
Ash puts the hand in an upside-down metal bin, and weighs the bin down
with a copy of Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms.
Evil Dead 2 also cranks up the humour by taking all the jokes in the
first film to their logical conclusions. Instead of a small rickety old
bridge that gets destroyed, we have a massive bridge over a vast,
gaping chasm. Instead of sweet, awkward small talk between Ash and
Linda, we have a goofy line about opening the champagne. Instead of
simply wandering down into the cellar to get the pages of the book, we
have Bruce Campbell fitting a chainsaw onto his severed arm and fooling
around with a sawn-off shotgun. And instead of one pipe bursting and
covering Campbell in blood, the whole cabin fills with gallons of blood
when Ash shoots through the wall.
Evil Dead 2 also fleshes out some of the horror aspects which were
explored in the first film. The Book of the Dead is now officially
called the Necronomicon, in reference to H. P. Lovecraft's work of which
Raimi was a big fan. The evil force rising up in the woods feels more
malevolent, as it not only batters the cabin but manipulates objects in
side of it, such as the deer's head and the laughing lamp. Even the
zombies make a little more sense than the first film: not only do the
humans keep mistakenly seeing them as people they love, so some of the
monsters find their last remnants of humanity coming out, such as Annie
singing a lullaby to her possessed mother.
The make-up and special effects are also much better constructed.
This isn't too great a surprise, since the original effects had no
budget whatsoever and were done with whatever the actors could get hold
of. But the rubber effects in particular are brilliant, whether in the
distorted face of Ash as he emerges from the puddle or the grotesque
zombie torsos that are so intricately disgusting. The stop-motion
effects are better too, paying homage to the work of Ray Harryhausen
while still feeling scary in their own right. Proof of this comes in the
revelation of the evil force before it is sucked into the portal; it
could look ridiculous, being essentially a tree with a face, but even
after 25 years it's still pretty creepy.
As with the previous film, Evil Dead 2 just wouldn't work without
the performance of Bruce Campbell. It's fair to say that he did all his
own stunts, and looks for every moment like he has been put through the
mill, but still keeps coming back for more. Not only is there the goofy,
B-movie charm of the original Ash, but the film uses its jokes to show
the psychological trauma he is going through. One of the funniest
moments finds Ash is staring at his reflection in the mirror, and
mutters to himself: "I'm fine." Then his reflection comes out of the
mirror, grabs him and says: "I don't think so. We just cut up our
girlfriend with a chainsaw. Does that sound... fine?".
Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn is a horror-comedy masterpiece and the
pinnacle of Sam Raimi's career. Everything about the film is better,
darker, smarter, funnier and scarier than the original, with Raimi
marrying the horror and slapstick perfectly and avoiding any unnecessary
awkwardness. It's a fantastic crowdpleaser which just keeps on
delivering, with Campbell in his prime and the film firing on all
cylinders. And for those who said the original simply couldn't be
improved - well, "who's laughing now?!".
Rating: 5/5
Verdict: The ultimate horror crowdpleaser
Directed by Sam Raimi
Starring Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Danny Hicks, Kassie Wesley
Much of Sam Raimi's early work is tied up in his relationship to the Coen Brothers. After Joel Coen served as editor on The Evil Dead, the Coens utilised Raimi's techniques of creating short films to get money for their directorial debut, Blood Simple. Where Raimi had made Within the Woods, a 32-minute short which became The Evil Dead, the Coens created a fictional trailer for Blood Simple and played it in theatres. The trio collaborated again on Crimewave, a live-action comic-book romp which flopped due to studio interference.
There has been much debate among fans of The Evil Dead as to whether Evil Dead 2 is technically a sequel or a remake. There have been many sequels to successful films which have retained the setting or scenario while inserting new characters, but the film is so similar to The Evil Dead in terms of plot and character development that it has to be a remake. The best way to think of the film is through the comic book principle of retroactive continuity, otherwise known as retconning. We are seeing a familiar storyline relayed with new additions and new emphases, to take account of the larger budget, Raimi's maturity as a director, and acknowledging the knowledge and interests of the original movie's fans.
Rating: 5/5
Verdict: The ultimate horror crowdpleaser
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