The Evil Dead II (1987) Review

The Evil Dead II is of course the sequel to The Evil Dead, a fairly run of the mill 80’s horror film with a bit more spice (that spice being Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell) but on a higher budget of $3.6 million, making only $5.9 million at the box office. The film is about, yet again, a group of people trapped in an old cabin in the middle of a haunted forest, trying to survive the night from the undead.

I was significantly more impressed with this film than I was with the first Evil Dead, that’s not saying I didn’t enjoy the first I just didn’t find it to be the fun horror film I expected. Thankfully the second instalment in the Evil Dead Trilogy was a huge improvement from the first, exceeding on the fun scale. The higher budget shows with fantastic make-up and overall a much higher and noticeable production value. The film wastes no time with a long set-up, starting off with a great starting point that gets you interested and then thrusts you right into the action, only a sign of the fast paced rollercoaster to come.

It was a smart choice to mainly focus on Ash in this film, not only was Ash probably the most likeable character in the first film but having one character isolated in this creepy environment really added to the tension. After all in horror movies people die and if there’s only one character... But then they ruin it by adding in a group of pretty unlikeable strangers just to get killed off so Ash can live on in part three.

I wouldn’t mind it as much if it wasn’t for the fact that 1: the film completely looses momentum when focus is shifted from Ash to these characters and 2: because they’re hammy, overacting is sometimes just painful to watch. Bruce Gampbell was guilty of this as well but since he was so charismatic, likeable and funny he managed to make it entertaining, sort of like William Shatner. The others are just dull and fairly undeveloped, that being said in the last 10-20 minutes one of them was alright.

Back to the positives, the camera work was even more brilliant in this one in this one, with so many films just being close ups and establishing shots it was nice to watch a film that was genuinely interesting to look at. Techniques used were hardly used before and have hardly been used since which is slightly disappointing because the cinematography lived up the viewing experienced and separated it from the plethora of cabin in the woods films that over saturate the horror genre.

Another thing that stands it out is the humour, it’s probably what makes the Evil Dead films such cult classics and fun to watch, sure enough this time there is a lot of it; Slapstick action, comedic acting and writing and some very trippy, hypnotic sequences. I was howling with laughter at several points. This combined with the non-stop action made for a very enjoyable viewing experience.

But that’s not saying the film can’t achieve genuine scares and tension. There is still a great spooky atmosphere with several tense moments and even some jumpy scenes, after about 2/3rds of the way in the jump scares start to become repetitive and tiresome, what was a fun jolt of fear quickly became annoying.

As is with a lot of great horror flicks, the effects and make up was amazing, with a higher budget they did not hold back, the film was full of some stuff I had not seen before, the creature effects (and sounds) stood out as unique to me. That being said you had your usual gore but it is still fun to watch creatures and people be torn up and what not.

While I am on the subject of the monsters or “Zombies” as they are implied but never blatantly said, don’t have any clear rules. For the most part anything goes as every creature is different, half of me says this is a good thing which livens the film up but another part of me thinks that as the zombies become more and more developed as their own characters it would be nice to know why they can be so different from one another. At one point in the film a zombie started bleeding green blood which I don’t think has happened before or even in Army of Darkness.

All this topped off with a great ending which got me hyped to see part three, which makes me glad that I watched these films now and not as they came out because I don’t think I could have waited five years to see what happened next. Luckily I only had to wait one day!

Overall this film was one hell of a ride with all the scares, humour and gore which makes a great recipe and a great film. A vast improvement over the previous and a horror essential.

8.5/10