On this, the second day of October, I’m feeling pretty great. I’ve watched The Exorcist, I’ve enjoyed a little candy corn, and the air outside is nice and cool. And what better to watch in this giddy mood than a nice comedy horror?
Today, I’m watching Sam Raimi’s Army of Darkness. You may be asking, why not The Evil Dead or Evil Dead II? Well, my friends, because I’m in the mood for some quality cheese. I love to watch Ash (Bruce Campbell) battle the skeletons and his evil self and his mini-selves and the Pit Bitch. Let’s face it, the movie is so stupid that it’s amazing.
To break it down for you, in The Evil Dead, Ash goes into the woods to stay in a cabin with his friends. When they stumble upon and listen to some recordings from the basement, they release demons that possess the living and the dead. One by one, his friends all die until there is no one left but Ash.
In Evil Dead II, we find that Ash has to cut off his own hand when the evil gets into his arm. This is how he gets his chainsaw arm. At the end, Ash is sucked into a portal which takes him back into the past, around 1300AD.
This is where Army of Darkness picks up. Ash starts out as a slave who has been mistaken as an enemy. His skills at fighting, coupled with his chainsaw and shotgun, prove him to be prophesied to find and read from the Necronomicon in order to destroy the evil. All he has to do before grabbing the book is to say these three words: Klaatu, Barada, Nikto. Of course, Ash doesn’t remember the words and his failure to do so raises the army of the dead.
You can always count on Raimi for horror laughs and Army of Darkness never disappoints.
