EVIL DEAD II: DEAD BEFORE DAWN

LOTS OF SPOILERS DOWN THERE, SKIP TO THE BOTTOM IF YOU JUST WANT THE REVIEW AND NO SYNOPSIS!!!

Evil Dead II is, obviously, the second series in the Evil Dead trilogy. Directed by Sam Raimi and written by Raimi and Scott Spiegel, it was my introduction to the series and really turned me on to watching b-movies and straight to video horror movies at a young age.

The movie begins by recapping the previous event from Evil Dead. Our hero Ash  and his girlfriend are staying in a remote cabin when he finds a recording of an archaeologist reciting passages from the Necronomicon Ex-mortis. This apparently opens the flood gates to hell and releases all kinds of nasty spirits to torment and possess our friends in the cabin. Ash's girlfriend becomes host to an evil spirit and he promptly decapitates her and burries her, and this is just the beginning of the movie!

A bit of light reading always puts the mind at ease!

Here is where the movie continues the story. Ash has just buried his lady and is mourning  over her grave when he is knocked into a tree, drug through the forrest, and thrown face first into what can only be described as an extremely large puddle of mud and filth. He lays there for a moment, appearing to be unconscious, and then this happens...

You got something on your face there, no other side....you know what forget I said anything!

Oh dear things aren't looking too good for our hero, first his girlfriend and now him, fortunately whatever Ash released is scared off by the sun rising and it leaves his body.
After this encounter Ash decides it is time to get the hell out of Dodge and hops in his car, unfortunately the bridge he cam in on is a mangled wreck and completely impassable. After wailing like a banshee for a few seconds Ash begins to notice something is amiss, the sun is going down again! Once again turning to his trusty car, Ash floors it back to the cabin, and we are treated to a nice scene of the evil spirit chasing him through the woods! Upon reaching the cabin once more, Ash tears through the front door and the demon is hot on his heels, an absolutely hilarious chase ensues and Ash eventually loses his pursuer.

At this point we are introduced to Annie and Ed, what a pair. Annie is the daughter of the archaeologist from the recording at the beginning of the movie and Ed is his associate. Unable to contact her father, Annie and Ed beat a hot path towards his last known location, the cabin. They eventually reach the destroyed bridge and meet our other duo, Jake and Bobby Jo! Being locals, Jake and Bobby Jo naturally know a way around the bridge and offer to show Annie and Ed.

The movie then cuts back to Ash in the cabin, the next sequence is one of the most memorable for me. Staring out a window into the woods, Ash's girlfriend is reanimated and performs a ballet routine and even rolls her own head down her arm and back onto her neck, BRILLIANT! She eventually attacks Ash and his first reaction is to run to the tools shed and throw her head in a vice...no really, pretty awesome! He turns to grab the chainsaw but all that is there is a chalk drawing of one, did you hear me, a chalk drawing! Ash looks at the wall quite puzzled when his girlfriend's body comes charging through the door with the chainsaw in hand! After a brief struggle Ash obtains the chainsaw and takes the body down. He then approaches his girlfriends head still in the vice, and goes to work!

  That was good but could you grimace harder, PERFECT!

Ash returns to the cabin after his battle with his undead girlfriend, and so begins my favorite part of the film. A rocking chair in the living room begins to rock on its own, Ash cautiously approaches it knowing it is probably a trap. He reaches out to stop the chair, but just before he reaches it the chair stops on its own. Attempting to gain his composure, he looks in a mirror on the wall and tells him self everything is fine, but you and i know better than that. His reflection lunges at him through the mirror, reaching out and grabbing him while making a few smart ass remarks about Ash's situation before vanishing.  At this point Ash is beginning to completely lose his marbles, and just when the situation seems to be under control, his hand falls victim to the evil spirit lurking about! His hand begins attacking him and it is obvious to Ash what course of action is required. Pinning his hand to the floor with a knife he starts the chainsaw and begins to slowly lower it onto his wrist while howling and screaming at his hand and no doubt from the sheer pain!
 

Ash playing a show with his death metal band The Wretched Boomsticks!

Are you still with me? I know that last paragraph took a lot out of you but if you can believe it, it gets even better!

Ash traps his hand under a pail, and of course it escapes with relative ease. Ash begins firing his shotgun wildly into the wall attempting to locate and kill his newly demonized appendage. Eventually it appears that Ash has finally hit his mark as blood begins to trickle from a hole in the wall, he approaches the wall and hears his hand shrieking and dieing. The blood flow begins to increase from the hole and Ash is just left staring into the void in the wall, when all of a sudden...

HOLY SHIGWARBLFHLARGEBLIGMDALGAMRF!

Gallon upon gallons of blood begin spewing from the wall, engulfing Ash in a tidal wave of goopy red mess! After a few more seconds of being bombarded with gore the blood is sucked back into the wall from which it came. It is at this point that any grain of sanity is stripped from Ash's mind and he really begins to lose it. Ash falls backwards onto the afore mentioned rocking chair and breaks it, the deer head mounted on the wall begins laughing wildly with a very creepy expression on its face! The furniture in the house springs to life joining in and all having a good laugh, even Ash is in a fit of laughter!

The deer says, "LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLO!"

The laughing stops all at once when Ash hears a noise at the front door and fires off a shot through it. Turns out its the quartet from earlier arriving and Ash has grazed Bobby Jo, after seeing all the blood and the chainsaw Annie assumes Ash has murdered her parents. Ed and Jake subdue him and thrown him into the cellar, which will prove to be a very bad idea!

After discovering the recorder and further listening to it our party discovers it was actually the evil spirit released by Annie's father originally reading from the Necronomicon that killed her parents. Apparently Annie's mom(Henrietta) first became host to the demon and her father was forced to kill and bury her...in the cellar. Henrietta's possessed body the attacks Ash as he desperately tries to free him self from the cellar. He is eventually freed from the cellar and Henrietta is locked in the cellar once again. The demon pokes its head through the crack in the cellar door and begins to sing a lullaby as the human form of Henrietta to Annie. Ash stops her from freeing her mother, but unfortunately the spirit decides Ed's body looks much more hospitable and possesses him. Ash seems to be getting the hang of this killing thing and makes short work of ol' Ed with an ax!

The gum disease known as gingivitis!

Then Annie's father appears to the group as a spirit telling them that Annie can defeat the evil spirits using the pages from the necronomicon! NO WAY!!! Bobby Jo is holding Jake's hand but his grip is a bit to firm for her, she realizes that she isn't holding Jake's hand but actually Ash's possessed hand from earlier and runs screaming out of the cabin. After a brief jog through the forrest she becomes a victim of the trees, that's right, the trees kill her, with their branches and vines! Jake then demands Ash and Annie out the door with a shotgun, and throws the pages of the necronomicon into the cellar after Ash tries to convince him that Bobby Jo is dead. The group make their way into the woods but the path is gone and they are soon attacked by the demon again with throws Jake off into the woods and posses Ash once more.

"You got some 'splaning to doooooo!"

Annie runs back into the cabin and grabs a dagger made of bone that apparently accompanied the pages of the necronomicon and waits for Ash to make his move. Unfortunately, Jake decides to try and make his way back into cabin and Annie ends up stabbing him instead, she drags his body inside but he's a bit to close to the cellar door and Henrietta gets ahold of him, oops! Ash decides it is an opportune moment and attacks Annie but manages to regains his body after recognizing her necklace he ripped while attacking her. Ash and Annie then agree to put a stop to all this evil nonsense once and for all! They head out to the tool shed where our hero is finally put into full form! Ash connects the chainsaw to his severed hand and fashions a holster for his shotgun, and while he completes his image he admires his handy work and delivers quite possibly the most amazing line in cinematic history...

"...groovy."

GROOVY! What exquisite perfection! After that little montage the pair return to the cabin for the final battle. Ash makes his way into the cellar to retrieve the pages Jake had thrown in earlier and sure enough Henrietta is waiting for him! The two fight their way out of the cellar and Ash seems to be on the winning end until Henrietta transforms into a truly horrific monster and begins beating the crap out of Ash. Annie distracts what used to be her mother by singing the lullaby her mother used to sing to her, Ash takes the opportunity to cut that things head off with his chainsaw and finished the job by popping off a shot into its head!

"I'll swallow your soul! I'll swallow your soul!"

Annie then begins reciting the passages from the necronomicon and a large vortex opens up outside the cabin and begins to suck everything into itself, including the evil. As Annie is finishing the final words of the incantation Ash's possessed hand has it final revenge and stabs Annie in the back! She manages to mutter out the last bits of the spell, and Ash is sucked into the vortex before it disappears. When then cut to what appears to be a dessert and Ash is falling from the sky along with his car, he looks up and is surrounded by medieval knights who appear to be prepared to kill him! A large demonic creature swoops down from the sky and the knights run in terror, but Ash knows how to handle this problem and blows the things head off with his shot gun! The knights all cheer him and as the camera pans out our hero shakes his head in disbelief and gives us one last guttural scream...

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

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BOTTOM LINE:

This is one of my favorite horror movies and it holds a very special place in my heart, I was lucky to have it as one of my first horror movies as it set me up to appreciate the b-movies just as much as the big studio ones. If you haven't seen this movie yet SEE IT! And see the first and third ones too, they are all great! They gave us the iconic character of Ash and so many classic one liners like "Groovy!", "This is my BOOMSTICK!", and "Give me some sugar baby!" its just impossible not to like these movies, even if its just a little bit. You won't regret watching this trilogy and you will thank yourself in the end, trust me!

VERIFIED