MovieChat Forums > Army of Darkness (1993) Discussion > Rewatched this, after two decades...

Rewatched this, after two decades...

posted 8 years ago by ralph_2ndedition
37 replies | jump to latest

I saw this when it came out... Had an illegal copy with so-so picture quality (at the time it wasn't banned per se in my country, but it would be quite a few years away from being released).
I was a real fanboy who simply could not get enough Evil Dead in my life, so I just sucked this one up like it was liquid gold!

A few years later I ditched the crappy vhs-copy I had, and never really got around to aquire it again, and thusly I haven't seen it since......until tonight, when it suddenly became available on Netflix!
Me and the missus sat down to watch it - me for the first time in 20 years, she for the first time ever.
About 15 minutes in she simply said "You know what, this is really, really bad!".
"Uh, ok... You want me to turn it off?" said I.
"No, you go ahead and watch, I'll go do something else."

So, she clicked around on her computer, while I watched the rest of Army of Darkness, trying my absolute best to really get in to it, enjoy it and get that feeling again.
Alas, it just didn't work. I couldn't get over how most parts of this movie felt like a comedy - and not a good one, a really, relly BAD one! The jokes fell flat, the action (what little of that there was) felt stupid and it couldn't even pick the odd point for costume or sets.
During those first 15 minutes she was still watching it, the missus asked me if it was a movie or a tv-series, and while watching the rest of it I really got why she had asked. Because that what Army of Darkness feels like to me now. A cheap tv-series. The really bad kind, that you definately will turn off after the first episode, if you even sit through that one.

It's a bit sad that age and maturity (my own) kind of "ruined" this one for me.
Still love part II though, and the often played tin-can edition of it sits proudly on my shelf. :)

[–] sONOMArEturns (1253) 2 years ago

I wouldn't call it a bad movie, but I see what you mean. I just finished watching an Evil Dead trilogy marathon with some friends and we all at least kinda liked the first two. I certainly did, and Evil Dead 2 is a 10/10 movie for me. This one, though, is by far the weakest of the trilogy. It's well made, and thank god Sam Raimi directed it, because his zany style and cinematography is pretty much what makes the film good.

No gore, rarely any fun violence, it feels like it could've been rated PG. The third act of the movie is really fun, and that ending in the supermarket is awesome, but it's especially that second act in the windmill and the graveyard that REALLY drag the film down. The film feels so neutered, so childish, so censored. Even the slapstick in ED2 (like Ash getting his head hit on the window seal) was funny and fit the film. Here, the movie straight up stops for 20 minutes to give us a really lame Three Stooges routine; Ash swallowing boiling water should've been a lot more funny and painful than it is, but he instead just kinda brushes it off. What a wasted opportunity. The part in the graveyard where Ash is getting slapped by skeleton hands goes on for way too long, and the only part that makes it funny is the idea of evil zombies being more annoying than hostile. Most of that scene isn't funny though, and it feels like it was made for 8-year-olds.

Thankfully, the last 25 minutes save the film, and Sam Raimi's clever filmmaking techniques make it watchable. And thank god our DVD had the ending in the supermarket and not the cave. It's a 5/10 or maybe a 6/10. I'm sure plenty of nerds are going to rip me apart and call me an idiot, even though I praised the film for plenty of things and gave ED2 a 10/10. Ah well.

[–] Scape (504) 2 years ago

I never cared for “Army of Darkness”.
I always loved “Evil Dead” I & II but the over the top comedy in this movie killed it for me.