Simon's Movie Reviews

What do you get when you mix buckets of fake blood, creative camera operators, the humour of the Three Stooges, and a man with the most recognizable chin in Hollywood? You get Evil Dead II (1987), the horror classic that somehow manages to remake the original in the first 15 minutes and yet feel entirely original. Even though it is mostly set in a cabin in the woods, that staple location in the horror genre, it feels like a roller coaster ride. This is especially true once the film's hero, the scrappy Ash Williams, embraces the madness by arming himself with a sawed-off shotgun and attaching a chainsaw where his hand used to be. "Groovy" indeed. This gore-soaked franchise has had a long run, starting off with one low-budget movie directed by a young Sam Raimi and then growing into two sequels, a remake, comic books and a TV show with three seasons. My starting point was the third entry, Army of Darkness, which moves the action to the Middle Ages with the same ...

I imagine sometimes it must be great to be Bruce Campbell. Sure, the man has made so many cheesy fantasy movies he ended parodying himself in “My Name is Bruce,” but in the late 80s and early 90s he starred in one of the funniest horror comedy series of all times: The Evil Dead. The first “Evil Dead” was a straight horror film that told the old story of kids being haunted in a cabin in the woods. “Evil Dead II” essentially remade the first movie but with a healthy injection of humor and upgrading Campbell to full-fledged action hero equipped with a chainsaw. “Army of Darkness” closes the loop with a bigger budget as Campbell now finds himself stuck in the Middle Ages with his BOOM STICK! I actually watched the entire trilogy in reverse, starting with “Army on Darkness” when it was playing on the ScyFy channel (of course), then “Evil Dead II” at the film club I attended at the University of Sherbrooke and then renting the first “Evil Dead” at the video store. As with mos...