Army of Darkness (1992) Review

Army of Darkness it the third and final instalment of The Evil Dead trilogy, directed and written by Sam Riami and staring Bruce Campbell. It was made on a budget of $13 million and went on to make $21.5 million worldwide.

Army of Darkness had a lot to live up to after how great Evil Dead II was, and while I feel Evil Dead II is the superior instalment I still thoroughly enjoyed this film for several reasons.

Straight from the get go we are greeted to another excellent score, starting right where we left off but since it had been five years since the previous film they had to do a re-cap so audience knew what the hell was going on (not like watching the first two would have helped much anyway). I feel this re-cap was unnecessary and especially annoying since instead of simply reusing clips from Evil Dead II they re-shot them which didn’t work at all. Yet for some reason it said that the clips were from Evil Dead II in the credits, but even though I watched Army of Darkness pretty much back to back with Evil Dead II I am certain that those clips were not from it.

What I did like was the drastic change of scenery, not only was it a breath of fresh air but was actually pretty brave of the film makers to change what I and II was completely and while I prefer the cabin in the woods environment I still applaud them for it.

Once again Sam Raimi uses the higher budget to its absolute fullest potential, filling the film with fantastic sets, costumes and monsters. It was great to see a log budget horror flick evolve into a huge blockbuster epic, which massive medieval battles against ranks of the undead.

While we’re on the topic of battles the action in this film is great, it’s entertaining to watch and the fights in the final big battle were really well done. There was some awkward and painfully fake action at some points but this remained at a fair minimum, for the most part though it was excellent and at some points funny throughout.

Which is a great segway into the humour of this film which was spot on. Hilarious dialogue combined with Bruce Campbell’s great comedic acting made for some hilarious moments, each joke was well delivered and got laughs from me, even if it was a tad bit Hollywood-ised.

The humour wasn’t the only thing treated to the Hollywood treatment (in a bad way), it was a shame to see after two great, independent low budget films to see this become (forgive my hipster language) too mainstream. It felt like any other action blockbuster that came out in the 80’s and 90’s at parts.

That’s not saying nothing that made Evil Dead II so great wasn’t here, while it was for the most part a completely different feeling film it still had the fantastic and unique camerawork, gore, make up and great practical effects, even if some felt a little dated (added to the charm), and the creature design was brilliant and crazy once again.

Unfortunately Army of Darkness didn’t improve the plot from the first two films, remaining its basic and linear storytelling, not only that but it was predictable and had its fair share of annoying plot holes.

The final battle against the army of undead was pretty damn epic and humour still wriggled in. It was a mixture of The Battle of Helm’s Deep (The Two Towers), Monty Python and the Holy Grail with a bunch of zombies and if that doesn’t sound like an amazing battle sequence then I don’t know what does.

In conclusion, Army of Darkness was a refreshing and fantastic end to a classic trilogy, heavy on laughs, light on scares. I was really happy with this film and can’t wait to get some friends around and have a three movie marathon.

It was groovy, baby.

8/10

This is MY boom stick!