ARMY OF
DARKNESS
CAST
Bruce Campbell, Embeth
Davidtz
DIRECTOR
Sam Raimi
YEAR OF
RELEASE
1992
Unforgivably bad third
installment of the ingenious and incredibly
entertaining Evil Dead series was a bad move
from the start- it started out with the title
"Medieval Dead" which would have been a much
cooler title than the lame title it was stuck
with. Army of Darkness is a comedy, which
will be stuck in the horror section because
it is the third Evil Dead, although even that
is not exactly obvious to first time viewers.
The movie makes first a parody of horror,
then sword and sorcerer-type films, then
ultimately becomes a slapstick (urgh) living
dead fest that turns my stomach. In the
movie, Bruce Campbell reprises (or should I
say remakes entirely) his role of Ash from
the previous films. This time Ash has been
sent to medieval times to defeat an Army of
the Dead that plagues an english province. It
has none of the trapped-in-a-room feel that
made the other Evil Dead films scary. It has
comparatively little gore, and has many of
the same gimmicks (Ash fights himself,
chainsaw hand humor). I have to admit that
some of the parody was funny, but the movie
sucks on the whole, especially since it is
the unfortunate third installment in a great
series. I mean c'mon- remember the first Evil
Dead? Would you expect three-stooges-esque
eye poking from that same main character?
Evil Dead was fantastic, Evil Dead 2 carried
it on perfectly, why does Evil Dead 3 have to
suck so bad? It broke my heart to go see this
in the theatre and other people in that
theatre had never even seen the first movies-
leaving them confused with what must have
been, to them, a rushed and holey storyline.
There are two endings to Army of Darkness-
I've only seen the one you'll probably see-
the ending that brings Ash back to the
present and is K-Mart job. The other one
supposedly involves a 1000 year sleep or some
trash. Anyways, skip it. Go re-rent the first
two movies.
SHOCK/SUSPENSE
1
GORE
1
CAMP
4
OVERALL
1
