Retro Review: Army of Darkness

I saw an article a few weeks back perpetuating the cycle of "will Bruce Campbell and Sam Raimi ever make Evil Dead 4, or will they just remake it?" where Campbell had been interviewed for something he's doing with Burn Notice and he casually mentioned that he'd read the screenplay for the ED remake. The person writing the article included some commentary about how they'll eventually "wake up" and realize that people want Evil Dead 4 and not an "idiotic redo."

The argument has been going on since a remake was announced some seven years ago, and the great "will there be an Evil Dead 4" has been kicking around since 1993's Army of Darkness, but really kicked into high gear when the director's cut arrived on DVD around 2000. This is not actually another editorial about the relative merits of ED 4 vs. ED: R, but instead will dance around elements that consistently appear in said arguments, based on the 18 year history the Cap'n has with Sam Raimi's third journey into the battle between Ash and the Deadites.

I wasn't allowed to see Army of Darkness in February of 1993, and it wasn't because the News and Observer panned the film - it was that pesky "R" rating. It was the same reason I couldn't see The Crow a year later, and why the 14 and then 15 year-old Cap'n had to wait for my Dad to "check them out" to see if they were fit for consumption*. After Dad laughed throughout Army of Darkness, he told my mother it was "too silly" to seriously corrupt my already corrupted mind**, and I was allowed to begin watching The Evil Dead films in the opposite order.

Yes, I saw Army of Darkness first; then Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn; then, eventually, The Evil Dead. I'd been aware of the other two thanks to Carbonated Video, but if you think they had trouble letting me watch the tamest, least horrific of the three, just imagine if I'd tried to rent anything from the "horror" aisle.

As I've mentioned before, horror comedies were my gateway into harder edged films of the genre, well beyond the Universal Classic Monster films that populated my youth. The violence in Evil Dead 2 is so extreme, so impossible to take seriously, it ceases to horrify and instead induces laughter.

Similarly, the blood geyser in Army of Darkness (anyone familiar with the film knows exactly what I'm talking about) became the great ice-breaker in high school - just throw on Army of Darkness in the dressing room during plays and watch as every single cast member shifts their focus from last minute line memorization to Bruce Campbell involved in skeleton-related slapstick. The film (which is honestly harmless in just about every measure you'd gauge "horror" by) was a great introduction to crazier movies, not only Raimi's other films, but Peter Jackson's gross-out trifecta of Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, and Dead Alive.

Now I've mentioned that Army of Darkness has a Director's Cut, and that it had a VHS and DVD release in '99 / 2000 (respectively), but the funny thing is that I already knew it existed well before it came out. Though I cannot recall why or how I found it, clips of the original ending were already available on the internet in 1997, albeit in postage stamp-sized Quicktime files that took hours to download on a 28.8 modem. This, coupled with the launch of BC Central - the original version of Bruce Campbell's official website - allowed the high school era Cap'n to pursue more information about the "two" Army of Darkness's.

When I say "original" version of Bruce Campbell's website, I don't mean this. That's what BC Central became (the original domain name is now up for sale, I just checked), but in the beginning, Bruce recorded .wav files that were embedded into the page and shared personal anecdotes (many of which ended up in If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor). He also had an email address to send questions to, and back in those early days of the "internet," Bruce Campbell would respond personally to your email (things were different back then, you see).

Logically, having seen the original ending where Ash oversleeps and finds himself in a post-apocalyptic London, I thought I'd be the clever fellow who emailed Bruce asking why they'd changed the ending. While the email is lost to time, I still remember what he replied:

"We didn't change it - the studio did. Cheers, Bruce Campbell"

That's all; I didn't say he wrote long responses, but he did respond, and in all fairness Bruce Campbell did answer my question, which was poorly worded to be sure.

Okay, so the Director's Cut was out there, including on a bootlegged VHS tape we had a copy of in college from a video store that no longer exists but still doesn't have to be "out-ed," and it entered the rotation with the likes of Clerks, Cannibal! The Musical, and Pecker***.

Over the last 15 years or so, I've had a copy of Army of Darkness in just about every iteration you can find: the 1996 VHS release, the Universal DVD, on Blu-Ray, and even on HD-DVD. Oh, and then there are the numerous Anchor Bay releases, of which I only didn't have the "Bootleg" edition, in part because I still had the "Limited" edition with the Theatrical and Director's Cuts. You'll find pictures of all of them scattered around this Retro Review.

With time, I've come to prioritize my Evil Dead preference in the opposite order I saw them: The Evil Dead is a relentless, disturbing, graphic horror film that I enjoy more every time I see it; Dead by Dawn is basically the same movie but with the disturbing replaced with some seriously wicked black comedy, a more enjoyable experience but hints at the direction Raimi was going in; Army of Darkness is essentially a series of one-liners with a dash of Ray Harryhausen "horror" in the guise of an adventure film. There's nothing scary about Army of Darkness, and one will find the 90% of "Ash-holes" prefer the Ash from the third film to the other two - he has the better catchphrases. I watch Army of Darkness less than the other two, but the Cap'n still appreciates its role in dragging me back into horror.

As to whether a remake or sequel happens (or, more likely, doesn't) I must admit I don't give it much thought. Drag Me to Hell was by and large as close as we're going to get to an "Evil Dead" -type film from Sam Raimi, and to be honest, I'm happier with that than a continuation of the "give me some sugar, baby" that closed out the Ash saga.




* The issue for The Crow was the "raped" part of "criminals rape and kill the hero's girlfriend before killing him." ** Long time Blogorium readers are already aware that the Cap'n had been exposed to Blade Runner, Downtown, Aliens, and Animal House at a much younger age. For that matter, they would take me with them to see the much harder "R" Alien 3 later that year...
*** Sorry, I know we had to watch more than those movies, but for the life of me I can't think of one right now and I know we DID watch Pecker at least once...