Evil Dead 2 (4 Stars)

This is my fifth horror film in November, my designated horror film month for 2019. The first four films, which I didn't number in the posts themselves, were:

1. "IT Chapter One"
2. "Anna and the Apocalypse"
3. "The Autopsy of Jane Doe"
4. "Evil Dead"

I'll try to watch at least 20 horror films this month, to make up for only watching one horror film in October this year, but I'm not making any promises. Let's see how far I get in the 23 days I have left.

"Evil Dead 2", sometimes called "Dead by Dawn", was released in 1987, six years after the first film, but it takes place immediately after the events of the first film. In fact, it would be possible to edit them together into a single film to get rid of the awful recap of previous events.

The problem with the recap is that it's wrong. I believe the technical expression is that it's a retcon. In the first film, five friends went to a cabin in the woods, and only Ash survived. According to the recap, Ash and his girlfriend Linda went to the cabin as a couple, but Linda died, leaving Ash alone. The end result is the same, but we reach it by different paths. Linda is played by a different actress in the sequel's recap, but that's only a minor problem, because the two actresses look similar.

Was the sequel necessary? Not really. The first film ended with Ash's apparent death. It could have been left at that. The reasons for the second film were financial. In the years following the original release of "Evil Dead" it gained a cult following and made a lot of money in the process. It made good sense, financially speaking, to cash in on the first film's success. Unfortunately, "Evil Dead 2" was a box office failure, despite gaining high critical acclaim.

"Evil Dead 2" fills in the blanks and gives information missing from the first film. The man whose voice was heard on the tape was an archaeologist called Dr. Raymond Knowby. The old book was the Necronomicon, the Book of the Dead, which he found elsewhere and took back to his private cabin to examine in peace. This resulted in his wife becoming possessed by a Kandarian demon and killing him.

Now his daughter Annie, also an archaeologist, has discovered pages torn out of the Necronomicon, and she wants to deliver them to her father, accompanied by another archaeologist. Unable to cross the bridge, because it was destroyed in the first film, they pay two locals to guide them to the cabin from a different direction. When they arrive they discover Ash.

Ash has been possessed by a demon, but whenever he holds the necklace that he bought for Linda in the first film he's temporarily freed from its influence. The only part of his body that isn't protected by the necklace is his hand. He has to cut it off to stop it attacking him. At the very least, it makes the attacks less frequent. The hand runs around the cabin, walking on its fingers while Ash tries to shoot it.

Dr. Knowby appears as a bodyless spirit and tells his daughter that the only way to defeat the demons and stop them overrunning the world is to read the incantations from the pages she's found. These incantations send the demons – or is it just one demon? – back to the year 1300, and it also sends Ash back with them to continue the battle.

With the exception of the recap, this is a reasonable film, but it has a different atmosphere to the original film. "Evil Dead" is a terrifying film, but "Evil Dead 2" lightens the mood by using a lot of comedy. For instance, the running hand gets a finger caught in a mouse trap. I know that a lot of people prefer the second film because of its humour. I don't share their opinion. I have nothing against horror comedies as a genre, but in this case I think "Evil Dead 2" would have been better by omitting the comedy. Judging by the box office figures, most cinema-goers agree with me.

Success Rate:  - 0.3

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