Army of Darkness Review

Movie: Army of Darkness
By: Kries Tyfus
Date: June 15, 2011

Hail to the king, baby!

Army of Darkness is the third chapter in the Evil Dead trilogy by Sam Raimi. Those who have seen the first two, will remember the great amount of blood and gory effects. Although, this third instalment is not as gory and violent as the previous films, the comedy-bar is raised much higher instead. This makes Army of Darkness not just some kind of horror movie but it can also be reckoned as a dark comedy, with a little of Raimi’s own personal recipe for slapstick humour.

The first two Evil Dead movies were very well received by movie critics and horror fanatics. The first Evil Dead was graded with 4 stars here on SlashingThrough.com. Now let’s see if Army of Darkness can be praised a cult-following as well.

Army of Darkness starts with a short introduction of what previously happened to Ash. This takes us back to the ending of Evil Dead 2, where Ash gets sucked into a dark hole. After that the story continues where Evil Dead 2 ended. Meanwhile, Ash is being brought to Medieval England in the year 1300. Leaving him with his ‘boomstick’, his car and his trademark chainsaw tight to his arm. He soon realizes he’s far away from home, while being surrounded by Lord Arthur and his knights. To see what he’s made of, Ash gets thrown into a pit where evil awaits. Once again he’s fighting the ugly dead, defeats it and climbs his way back up. From this point, Ash is praised a true hero.

One of Lord Arthur’s men, the Wiseman, tells Ash there’s a way to get home. All he has to do is to find the Necronomicon, aka the Book of the Dead, down at the cemetery. The Wiseman also tells to speak up the words “Klaatu Barada Nikto” before picking it up. With this being said, Ash begins his journey, hoping to get home the sooner the better. But once Ash has reached the cemetery and is willing to pick up the book, he can’t seem to remember the exact words. Then he says the first two words right, but then just mumbles something that would sound like the missing word, hoping it’ll work. But unfortunately it doesn’t. He grabs the book from the cradle and rushes back to Lord Arthur’s castle as soon as possible. From that moment, all hell breaks loose.

Like I said, Army of Darkness is less gory comparing to the first two movies, but it’s filled with perfectly performed slapstick humour. The first Evil Dead had a few funny parts, the second one had a little bit more of it and with Army of Darkness Sam Raimi raised the comedy-bar to the fullest. This was a decision by Universal Pictures, who wanted the movie to get a PG-13 rating to reach a bigger audience. However, the movie ended up with an R-rating instead. Nonetheless, Army of Darkness is quite a masterpiece even after the many cuts Raimi had to do in order of the production company. It may be less gory and it may lack the level of violence that we’re familiar with from the first two movies, that doesn’t mean Army of Darkness is a bad product overall. The slapstick humour is just great and really adds something to the movie, which is a good thing of course.

Despite the fact that Raimi had to do a numerous of cuts and outtakes just to satisfy the people at Universal Pictures, it’s nice to see that the entire movie involves the Necronomicon again and it’s nice to see Ash being chased again by a supernatural force, leading up to fast-paced camera action like we’ve seen before. I could tell you all about the comedy parts, but I won’t. Simply because Army of Darkness is a must-see and you have to experience it yourself. All I can say is that laughter is guaranteed. Just when you think Raimi couldn’t top himself with the first Evil Dead and its sequel, I have to admit that Army of Darkness is even better.. in his own special way.