Evil Dead 2, 8/10
After watching the original and the remake, this was a natural follow-up. Going to see Army of Darkness soon as well.
This is kind of an odd one. In certain respects it's essentially just the same movie again, but with a way bigger budget this time. But it also kind of feels like a bastardization of the original (and that's not a knock on the film), where it turns into basically a cartoon movie that's impossible to take seriously, and very surprisingly to me, is actually a lot more tame in the gore. It was a bit of whiplash for me because the original is genuinely tense in parts, only getting goofy in the second half, whereas this goes full slapstick right out of the gate. In a way this and the 2013 remake feel like the ends of two different branching paths that follow from the original: in one you play it straight, and emphasize the gore and horror elements, and in another you turn up the slapstick and goofiness.
The film itself took some time getting settled into. Since I was under the assumption that it was essentially a remake of the original, the speed at which it basically recapped the events of the first film was very jarring at first. "Whoa, this is going way fast! There's no characterization at all. Wait, he already decapitated his girlfriend? Slow dooooown!" The fact that it's at the same time a sequel and a pseudo-remake gives it a pretty strange structure, where the first 15-20 minutes feel like an ending sequence to another movie, and whatever little plot there is only starts when we see the couple at the airport.
After that initial hurdle the film was very enjoyable though. You can just feel the energy the filmmakers had when they were working with an actual budget, and could do all sorts of fun stuff. This movie oozes old school filmmaking charm: stop motion animation, miniatures, matte paintings and puppetry are all out here, and it's so much fun. Bruce Campbell feels like the final evolution of a decent starter pokemon here. He just radiates charm and charisma, and his physical slapstick acting is a riot. He definitely lives up to his last name, because he manages to hit the exact right register of camp needed to sell the more emotional moments.
One thing I feel conflicted on is how this movie is a lot more tame gore-wise than the original. A lot of the big moments are just straight up off screen, like Ash sawing his hand off. It doesn't necessarily detract from the film, but seeing as I've recently realized that I quite enjoy well done splatter, and the original is still quite shocking even 40 years later, I was definitely expecting it to be amped up more. One scene that definitely felt distracting was when the walls started gushing blood. It was so clearly just colored water, both in color and consistency that I felt kind of cheated. The blood otherwise looks very good, so to have it looking that fake in that one scene took me out of it a bit.
Overall though, this film was pretty much everything I could have expected and wanted out of a sequel. It's bigger, goofier, the effects and makeup have gone from okay to amazing and Bruce Campbell is a blast to watch.
On to Army of Darkness now.
