Evil Dead II

Any movie that has our hero, The Chin, fighting with everything he has to remove a disembodied head with chompers deeply embedded into his hand while giggly with demonic glee is certain to get the seal of Scarecrow's approval. I mean he's slamming this severed head of what was once his lovely girlfriend across walls, bashing it with a book, trying his damnedest to get that head to free its grip from his aching hand (for extra pop, we hear the sound effect of a crunch, ouch!). Just before this scene, her corpse had pulled itself from the homemade, freshly dug grave, did a little pirouette, the head spinning, dancing into the night, returning to torment The Chin.

Well, he does rid himself of the head, placing it in a vice and taking a chainsaw to her, with director Sam Raimi getting his chance to splash blood on a hanging light bulb so that the room will take on a red hue. You see the reflection of The Chin leap from a mirror to inform our hero, grabbing him around the throat, demonic grin, acknowledging to us that all is not okay and that the night was only to get a hell of a lot weirder and demented. That's where The Chin must deal with the demonic "poisoned hand". How else can I describe it? The hand just takes on a life of its own, causing our hero a whole lot of pain.

"Who's laughing now?1?!"

This is quite a physically demanding performance in that it asks for Bruce to really throw his body into the action. There's a scene where his possessed hand has its way with him. His head is bounced off kitchen counters, plates are broken over his head, and eventually flips him onto the floor! The Chin has to put this to a close so a knife and chainsaw divorces his hand from the rest of his body with lots of sprayed blood and screaming (and the token agony/madness expressions that The Chin has down to a science even at this point in his career). The inspired use of a book, "A Farewell to Arms" just adds to this wacky bit of business.

"Look what's in my fruit cellar! Someone with a fresh souuullll!"

A Candarian Demon is what an archeologist who was staying at the cabin calls the evil unleashed from the passage read inside the Book of the Dead, his voice foretelling a nightmarish set of events in a recording that his daughter, her beau, and two locals from the area listen to. He buried his wife, who was possessed herself, in the cellar...the very cellar that now has a beaten Chin (the four thought he was responsible for the murder of her parents, seeing the bloody chainsaw and all). So The Chin will now have his hands full with a second demon possessed corpse...the poor guy takes it hard down the cellar steps onto an unforgiving wood floor and will have to endure another dangerous corpse.

"It felt like someone just walked over my grave."


Because this joker moves at such a pace (a pace that kills, Mooowwuuuuahhhh!!! Sorry about that, got carried away....), you get the rotted cellulite of Mama corpse in the cellar (this move defines, in my opinion, the horror staple, "What evil lies in the cellar?"), a face contorting from corpse face into one ugly ass demon, a cellar door popping an eyeball into a screaming open mouth, a room that laughs, the body of a hillbilly lifted off his feet by a newly possessed human (hurled into a light bulb that breaks), a really weird sound effect along with a strange visual of bent lens projecting what The Chin considers the demon of another world trying to enter ours, Bobbi Joe (the redneck chick who chews tobackee) performs the "stoopid acts that stoopid characters do" when she flees from the cabin in terror only to be "taken by the forest" (how else can I possibly describe demonic trees using their barbwire branches to take possession of her?), and ultimately her hick-in-overalls-boyfriend forcing The Chin and archeologist's daughter to accompany him outside to look for her. The Chin is possessed again, Hick-in-Overalls is thrust head-first into a tree (actually causing a break in the wood, ouch!), and Daughter-of-Archeologist must use a badass tribal knife with a skull-head handle to use to kill the evil inside the possessed (I guess.). Before long, Hick-in-Overalls gets it in the gut with tribal knife, but is even worse treated when Mama Corpse drags him into the cellar, a geyser of the poor fellow's blood showering Daughter-of-Archeologist.

"Let's go down into that cellar and carve ourselves a witch."

This is where we get the classic montage of quick cuts showing the harness and weaponized chainsaw fashioned for the stub that is now The Chin's hand-less arm. The battleground is the cabin (never has so much mileage been used out of a cabin in the woods, every bit of that building and its insides are used to optimum effect), the surroundings are literally forming to give The Chin and Daughter-of-Archeologist every kind of fight, and let's not forget the severed demon-possessed hand--its use has not ended. Any conclusion that has "mad trees" (with actual expressions on them!!!), including a giant monster head that is sort of a spawn of the environment engulfing the cabin peeking into the front door, its massive hand trying to grab The Chin as Daughter-of-Archeologist reads passages from select pages cut from the Book of the Dead, can't be all bad...in fact, for me, it's "groovy". Come on, how could I resist?

One of my favorite scenes is when Bruce, in full demonic make-up (Man, are the boys dealing the goods with such a limited budget!), being able to overcome the possession and regain control of his body. Thanks to the necklace of his taken love. The demon head "springing" with a neck extending from the corpse of Mama Corpse and making that bird screech is just really the straw that broke the camel's back in regards to all-out, let's-go-for-broke insanity...if the outbreak of laughter from books on the shelf, mounted deer head, curtains, and lamp didn't already establish that Raimi and company had no qualms opening the floodgates of total lunacy, that is.

Since this isn't about the first film, I won't dwell too much on it, but because The Evil Dead was such a big hit with me as a kid, I couldn't wait to see the sequel. Boy howdy, was I in for a surprise! It really is just a rollercoaster that doesn't let up. It doesn't catch a breath. I so wish I could have been with an audience in a theater or at a drive-in to see Evil Dead II, because I imagine it was a big hit with horror fans. It's a ride, wild and unpredictable. Really, Bruce Campbell goes all out and you see why (if the first film didn't already tell you) he'd become such a cult icon in this sequel. While I thought the first film got under the skin and was scarier and creepier, the sequel is just exhilirating entertainment. It is the first film on steroids, zanier and crazier. I couldn't ask for much more than what is supplied here. It is a riot. I actually think the second film has more of an influence on the genre after it was made than the first film, especially in regards to the make up of the faces of the possessed, their eyes, the deepened voices of the demons articulating to the humans through their kidnapped hosts the desire to capture more souls. I think this film will always have a home with horror fans old and new because of its efficient balance of comic hi-jinx, special effects, theatrical performances, and horrific imagery. An 80s classic and horror standard. Not to be missed and certainly essential viewing for around Halloween. I'll definitely say this: no horror movie quite utilizes a severed hand gag quite like this movie, especially when giving the finger.