Review of Army of Darkness (1992) by Spangle — 24 Feb 2017

Objectively, two things are true about Army of Darkness. One, it is definitely not very good. Two, I totally screwed up. I had no idea this was a follow-up to Evil Dead and Evil Dead II. Who would guess it, but I had never seen either. Whoops. Mea culpa on that one. Fortunately, I get the feeling I did not miss much plot-wise. 81 minutes long, Army of Darkness is a fast-paced, stupid, and incredibly fun horror comedy. From director Sam Raimi, Ash Williams (Bruce Campbell) reclaims his chainsaw, witty commentary, and need to kill the evil dead in this conclusion to the trilogy (apparently). While hardly perfect, it is impossible to deny that Army of Darkness is really stupid fun.

Due to its runtime and focus on action, the film largely forgets its plot, which stands as the biggest issue. Dumped into the Middle Ages after seeing the Book of the Dead, Ash must fight his way out of various situations and then awakens an army of the dead in the process. Otherwise, it is just chainsaw goodness and women with large breasts serving him. There is not much meat on this bone and very little to digest. Mind you, the film surrounding the plot is fun enough to make you forget there is no plot, but it is a flaw nonetheless. Towards the middle, when the plot can continuously repeat itself with its silly action and jokes along the way, the lack of plot is really felt.

That said, Bruce Campbell is born for this role and hysterical. Charismatic, cool, calm, and collected, Campbell's Ash delivers each punch line to perfection. He is the core of this film and is what it is riding on. He has terrific fun in this film with all the silly gags and seems to derive great pleasure from kicking zombie ass. On that note, Raimi also has a ton of fun here. With bad special effects and low-bar jokes, Army of Darkness is a goofy and entirely tongue-in-cheek affair. He knows it is dumb and outlandish, but that is exactly why he is doing it. This reason is mainly why the bad effects are excusable because it is partially due to limited technology and mostly due to Raimi's own cheesy intention. Bad effects are the perfect backdrop for the quip-ready Ash who has his own special brand of machismo that makes him a truly unique action hero.

On that note, Ash definitely fits some of Yvonne Tasker's definition of a male action hero in the 1980s and apparently early 1990s. Putting his male body through torture via cutting off his own hand, being against the system (defends the middle ages people to save a girl), and saving a damsel in distress, Ash is the quintessential male action hero, though his body does not necessarily become spectacle and suffer from constant torture, aside from the hand the pixie that breaks into his body. In that way, he is a bit of subversion of this and shows Raimi's satirical inclination in the film with even the action hero and action he performs being tongue-in-cheek representations of competing action films of the time.

Funny, subversive, and flat out stupid, Army of Darkness has literally no plot, but is fun because of its bad effects and Bruce Campbell. While I wish I had seen the first two entries in the trilogy first, Army of Darkness is entertaining and fun in its own right, separate from the other Evil Dead films.