BestMovieScenesOfAllTime - Yo She-Bitch, Let's Go!

And one more from Army of Darkness.



I just love these Sam Raimi's montage scenes :P

Ted Raimi singing I've Got A World That Swings

This is from a Xena convention back in 2008.
Here's Ted Raimi singing, as great as he is.
So epic!



Loved it! Quite badass how he was all James Bond-villain like! :D
And the part where the mic f***s up the song is also pretty funny. Well played Ted, you stayed perfectly in control of the situation!

BadassScene - Brisco County Jr

Brisco County Jr. was a pretty awesome, if short live, fun scifi/weird western show featuring Bruce Campbell.
It was pretty awesome and was full of badass moments like such:



Classic :D

Interview: Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi

"Where are they now??"

Funny parodic interview of Bruce Campbell and Ted Raimi. A bonus from the DVD extras of Xena - Season 4.



Gangsta Ted Raimi is teh bomb, yo!!

MR Army of Darkness

Hey! What's that you got on your face?

I kinda put this series review on hold for a while... but it is finally time to dig in the 3rd and last entry of the Evil Dead series!

This one's a bit special to me since it's one of my all-time favorite flicks!
Why?
How?
What did Sam Raimi turn this horror series into? Does Bruce Campbell still kick ass? Let's check it out~

Movie: Army of Darkness aka Evil Dead III, Medievil Dead or also Bruce Campbell vs. the Army of Darkness
Directed by Sam Raimi
Release date 1992-93
Genre Fantasy/slapstick comedy
Country USA
 
After the huge unexpected success of Evil Dead 2, a sequel was inevitable.
The follow-up would be continuing the adventure of Ashley Williams after the 2nd film's cliffhanger - an obvious move.

But first,
With that successful second episode, the original trio behind this series was finally able to make it into Hollywood.
Sam Raimi produced and wrote a couple of films. He appeared as an actor in some production and even directed the now cult original superhero/thriller Darkman in 1990.
Rob Tapert would launch several popular projects like the Hercules and Xena tv series during the 90s.
And the now cult Bruce Campbell became as popular as he is nowadays thanks to Evil Dead 2. He developed over the years a huge fandom, would star in hundreds of pictures, non-Hollywood-ysh mostly, including a ton of roles in science fiction B-movies or horror movies like the Maniac Cop series.

Bruce Campbell was now a part of the horror and slasher genre. You'd expect from another Evil Dead movie to follow in the footsteps of its predecessors, right?
But Sam Raimi liked originality, that's the way the orginals surprised the audience afterall. So instead of proposing yet another gruesome horror movie (like Evil Dead 1) or a more comedic slasher (like Dead by Dawn) the 3rd movie went outside the cabin and into a whole new genre and direction.

Time Traveler

What's the story so far?

After the incident of the cabin (Evil Dead), where everybody died and Ash had to cut his own hands to get rid of the evil in himself (Dead by Dawn), a giant portal opened up in the sky (remember?).
Ash wasn't able to destroy the book of the dead, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. And instead got sucked in the past along the book.

This epic tale opens up then with Ash falling from the sky in the 1300s, somewhere in England.
Ash finds himself trapped in a war between a certain Lord Arthur and a Duke Henry.
But worry not Evil Dead-fan, the Deadites tagged along for this story.
Soon a wiseman tells Ash he is the chosen one, the one who'll save the world from the evil Deadites. He must find back the book, destroy it before its too late and will be able to go back to his own time.

Long story short, Ash makes a big mistake, the problems get worse, the evil inside him comes out in the form of the coolest horror movie villain ever, Evil Ash, the so-called Army of Darkness rises...

Will Ash save the day once more? Will he get the girl, Sheila, as well? And more importantly, how does this story really ends???

Building The Deathcoaster

As you can see from all this, this last episode is nothing like the first movies.
But it was always the idea behind this conclusion. In fact much sooner in production, it was even supposed to already be the second part of Evil Dead 2, before a part of it became a remake of the first one.
Sam Raimi always wanted to take this series outside the cabin and even the forest.
When the budget was enough with the success of his series and other films (such as the already mentioned Darkman), he was finally able to make things bigger this time around.

And with the involvement of his brother Ivan Raimi, both co-wrote AoD has a big tribute and homage to the old classic epic movies.
As the original movies were tributes to the slasher/gore genre.

Only this one turned out more comedy and fantasy and less horror. Though the horror influence is still here.
But after Evil Dead 2, it looks like a natural evolution for the series. The main character Ash (and Bruce Campbell) went through so much in the past that he couldn't continue to be reactive and had to turn pro-active down the line. That's why all of this movie seems based around the fact that Ash is now a total badass - the reason why there's a background storyline about his past days as a S-Mart employee to establish his old normal live long gone by now.

Night Court

The Necronomicon takes us in the past (and changed his look for this final tale - though the other 2 looks make an appearance at some point in a graveyard) and Raimi moves the series into new horizons.

This time the genre's definitively fantasy. Returning composer Joseph LoDuca makes an exceptional score, very medieval and epic.

The movie in itself is a work of love from the crew, Raimi & co worked up a lot of references in the movie itself and based it around old classic tropes and themas.

Klaatu barada nikto, with this line Ash is supposed to sell away the book of the dead, but mispronounce it which results in the final act of the film. It was also the famous classic line from the 1951 scifi classic B-Movie The Day the Earth Stood Still. The movie in itself is a big tribute to classic adventure stories like Gulliver's Travel, Sinbad, etc..
Even more, Sam Raimi had a lot of stop motion work done for the final, the last act is very much inspired and done similarly to Jason and the Argonauts. Which was pretty unusual for the "modern" 90s.

End Titles

Finally I'd say a lot of love was put into this movie, and it really shows. There's so much fun, energy...all the lines sound perfect, the action is great and Bruce Campbell is at his best.

It's a movie made for fans before anything else.
And it was quite a success to much surprise, I'm sure most producers wouldn't had expected it by then.
It became the cult classic it is today because it's a work of love where the creative team had entire control over it.
Sure, some hip kids might say the stop motion animation isn't the greatest, but it wasn't back then too. It was made old school, like in Jason and the Argonauts for a reason. There's so much style in the way they interact with the living Bruce Campbell facing the practical effects Evil Ash! So many things are going on at the same time in the climax!

Overall, a great movie!

Bruce, and Ash, badass and at his finest!

His over-the-top lines.. The way this guy who butchered his own hand in the previous movie continue to move on be it by using a chainsaw in its place or making a mechanical fully animated hand in medieval times... The way nothing seem to be able to stop him, like a sort of anti-slasher (like the opposite of a Jason or Freddy)..


A whole cult for the series was born after this movie! Perhaps even more so than Evil Dead 2 (didn't most people check back the past 2 flicks because of AoD, honestly?)

Perhaps not as loved for horror-fans, but better directed and constructed as a film.

Raimi was even able to get Danny Elfman score a track, the big final confrontation theme, the March Of The Dead. (whom he had on Darkman - him again yeah)

This time it's more like 80% comedy and 20% horror, but as an horror fan I'm perfectly fine with this choice!
It's really fun and shows how creative Sam Raimi was as a creator and director.

Over-the-top, perfect.
Ash is an invicible deadite killer, monsters, demons and zombies better fear him and hope they never cross path with him!

Sidenote: On most releases, the movie feature an alternate ending. A darker and less optimistic one. I'm sure a sequel would follow it. And don't worry if you don't see it, it's not like an Evil Dead never remade/reshot details of the previous one.
(this time, actual scenes from ED2 were used in the prologue..but for copyrights reasons they couldn't keep the "Evil Dead" title, so they tweaked a bit of the previous one ending)

Final word? Watch it! Rewatch it! Buy it! Have it in your collection!

I give it:

 3 / 3 Necronomicons!

MR Evil Dead 2 Dead by Dawn

This time, the second entry in this legendary horror cult franchise.
More slapstick-horror, more budget, more Bruce Campbell..this movie got it all!

Probably one of my favorite horror movies of all time~

Movie: Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn
Directed by Sam Raimi
Release date 1987
Genre horror/comedy
Country USA
 
Six years after the unbelievable success Sam Raimi had with his little movie called "The Evil Dead", he now had a good reputation, some real experience from a bizarre mix of comedy/horror/noir movie he did with for a studio in-between, Crimewave, and was able to do as he pleased.

So naturally, a follow-up to Evil Dead was made before it was turned into a franchise without his or Bruce Campbell participation, like many horror movies of the 80s ended up like.

With Rob Tapert still on the production and Joseph LoDuca returning on the music, the rest of the crew changed. He had some new FX guys with him, a much bigger budget, more experience and lots of ideas to put on film...

"We have to go back...Back to the mansion!" - Day of the Tentacle.

Sadly for Raimi's team, he discovered while starting the sequel he didn't had the rights of the first movie anymore... Errors from a young director due to his lack of experience back then.
This means he couldn't use images from the first movie as a recap in the beginning.
How to make a much larger-scale sequel, for a bigger public, if he couldn't explain what the deck happened until this point?

"Dead by Dawn", as this sequel is subtitled, starts by retelling the events of the first movie...altered.
You see, they simply reshot various scenes from the original movie.
The first 10 minutes of ED2 remakes simply the whole 1st Evil Dead. But because it was more expensive to have a big cast for such a screentime, they made some little tweaks to the story.

Ashley J. Williams goes on a little vacation to a cabin within the woods with a girlfriend of his, Linda.
There, he plays a recording found there, from a professor who was studying the Book of the Dead, the Necronomicon Ex-Mortis. It awakes the "dead", possesses the trees and the woods, attacks, possesses and transforms Linda into an undead Deadite. Ash gets beaten, kills her, goes outside at sunrise...when suddenly it is finally able to possesses Ash!!!

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

This is were Evil Dead 2 picks up for real.
The sequel's pace is pretty fast this time around.
Sam Raimi stills films on the super-8 and plays with a lot of tricks he picked up along the way. Zooming and travelling plans, angular shots...

The movie is all about all the pain in the world being inflicted to Bruce Campbell's Ash character.
The Deadite try to corrupt him by several occasions, he gets beaten, bitten and worse!

Ash briefly transforms into a deadite in the beginning and let show a view of what he might end up like if he doesn't escape from this nightmare by the end of the movie.

Also, we get a brief glimpse into a future foe from the next sequel and expanded universe stories. If the Necronomicon can't turn Ash into one of them, he can surely make another like him. The Evil Ash first appears in a reflection and then, after "spreading" is able to turn Ash's hand into "pure evil"...

Come and get some!

Ash is a survivor, Ash never gives up.

The movie kinda parodies horror and slasher flicks of that time, it's full of blood once again, but used in a more slapstick way, something that Sam Raimi catched on his last movie. There's blue blood, and green and many more colors depending on the situations.

The special effects are quite impressive this time around.
Decapitations, hands mutilated, explosions, more stop motion and puppetry...
The deadites makeups are quite gross and fantastic.

If Evil Dead 1 surprised and set up a bar for horror movies, Evil Dead 2 exceeds all the expectations and then some.

Hail to the King, baby!

Evil Dead 2 is a violent gory and fun ride.
Hardcore horror fans may prefer the original, but I like my "entertainment" with fun and humour.
The mix of over-the-top one-liners delivered by Bruce Campbell (of which he has become a master of since then), black comedy and gruesome horror is pretty original, not a lot of movies have been able to truly present this odd composition.

The movie is full of great memorable sequences and an amazing rythm.
Ash is turned from a frail frightened  guy into a badass anti-slasher. The movie is full of creatures but only one "main" character. He's the one after those demon's butts. He's a reverse horror movie monster. You know from the start nothing will stand in his way and he will come out victorious in the end. Those deadites better count their time left!

It never stops and will have you glued to your seat to the last minute.

The movie ends surprisingly (at the time) with a crazy unexpected cliffhanger...that is if the next movie would follow it exactly unlike the transition from Evil Dead to Dead by Dawn...

Overall, an awesome badass movie, on top with the other 80s and 90s badass movies such as Terminator 2, Predator or Robocop. Only, the badass character here is a normal guy in an unnatural world.

If the original Evil Dead was a 100% pure horror movie, perrfect exemple of an 80s product of the genre, Dead by Dawn is more like 60% horror and 40% comedy. Mostly slapstick humour all thanks to Bruce Campbell's elastic expressions!

The film has some surprises along the way, develops a bit more the Necronomicon's background and what it does exactly. There's some hints of what Sam Raimi had in mind at the time for part 3 in the plot. (which it didn't ended up exactly being like)

The movie, being made on a much confortable busget, spends a lot more time making everything fun and look great. There's even some easter eggs to find here and there (such as Freddy Krueger's claw hidden in a basement, no meaning story-wise).
Also, Ted Raimi, Sam's younger brother, started his long-running career of cameos in this movie. After a little uncredited part in Evil Dead 1, he has this time a much bigger role as one of the Deadites!

Anyway, it's a great movie I've already saw so many times...
A must watch/per year! Exactly the kind of movie that you'll only like more the more you see it~
Great, fun, gruesome, terrific...
The legendary Bruce Campbell at his best in the defining role of a lifetime!

I give it:

 2.5 / 3 Necronomicons!