Evil Dead 2

Alternate titles : Evil Dead 2 : Dead by Dawn

Tagline : "Kiss Your Nerves Goodbye."

Ash (our hero from the first film, played once again by Bruce Campbell) has a new girlfriend (Lynda, which by strange coincidence is the same name as his girlfrind from the first film) and decides, in all his wisdom, to take her away for a romantic weekend at the old cabin in the hills, where the events of the first film took place.

Of course this proves to be not such a good idea as the forces of darkness re-emerge once more, Lynda is killed (again) and Ash is forced to spend another night in the cabin, fighting off demonic creatures all over again.

The film is perhaps less of a sequel and more of a remake, comprising of re-filmed sequences and rehashed footage from part 1. But with the comic ante upped considerably. It seems that as the first film was too ridiculous to be taken seriously. Riami and Tapert decided to make this second effort a total farce.

There are some genuinely funny scenes, particularly where Ash's hand becomes possessed and he has to cut it off with a chainsaw, only to spend the rest of the film chasing s it round the house with his shotgun. Not to mention the scene where he slams one of the ghouls heads in the cellar door and its eye pops out and flies across the room!

Can Ash defeat the Evil Dead a second time around, and why didn't he just take Lynda to Centre Parks instead? This is a really fun film, different from the first, but equally enjoyable. I've found it best viewed extremely late on a Friday or Saturday night after consuming a vast amount of alchohol!

Overall Marks : 7/10.

Terrifying Trivia

• The initial UK release was passed almost uncut by the BBFC. All the blood and gore was left intact, but they trimmed the scene where Ash was kicked in the head whilst lying unconscious. The film was passed fully uncut in 2001.
• Producers Dino DeLaurentis agreed to finance the film after being persuaded by horror author Stephen King, who was a huge fan of the original.
• The film's budget was $3million.
• The ghoul character Henrietta was played Ted Raimi, Sam's younger brother. He also helped out on the production of "Evil Dead" and can often be seen making appearances in horror and fantasy pics. He also appeared in the "Hercules" and "Xena" TV shows alongside Bruce Campbell.
• A replica Freddy Kruger glove can be glimpsed hanging on the wall near the stairs in the cellar. This was in response to the original "Evil Dead" being shown on the TV in "A Nightmare on Elm Street".
• Professor Knowby says on the tape that Ash finds, that his wife (Henrietta) is in the fruit cellar. This was a reference to "Psycho".
• The exteriors were filmed at a purpose built cabin, constructed in woods on a farm in North Carolina, rather than using the previous location, which had since burned down. The interiors were sets constructed in the gymnasium of a nearby school, which had since closed down.
• The knight at the end of the film who lifts up his visor and shouts "Hail he who has come from the skies" was director Sam Raimi.
• There are a number of deleted scenes that didn't make the final cut. Some of which can be found in the extras on various Special Edition discs. These include a gorier scene of Ash battling Evil Ed and a scene were the old woman (Henrietta) becomes possessed after her husband, Professor Knowby, recites passages from the book of the dead.

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