The Shrine

Very fun to watch all three together. For some reason they don't all really connect together smoothly even though there is little reason why they shouldn't; ie. No mention of the other three people in the flashback to Evil Dead 1 - the Knights hate Ash in Army of Darkness instead of love him (as they did in Evil Dead 2).

This is actually the first time I have seen Evil Dead 2 (at least the entire thing, and despite owning a copy of it on VHS -somewhere- for the past 15+ years). Army of Darkness had a better setting, but I didn't realize before that Army of Darkness was as recycled from Evil Dead 2 as an Austin Powers sequel. Evil Dead 2 is essentially a better version of Evil Dead 1 (in most ways) with more deliberate comedy with one liners. I am very sorry I didn't watch this one sooner =)

Anyway, despite the recycling, watching all three seems to work fairly well; there is a continuous story that links up fine if you ignore the intros. I rank them: Evil Dead 2, then Army of Darkness, then Evil Dead 1; although I could have possibly ranked AoD higher had I not seen it many times before.

It seems like you can get away with watching Army of Darkness without bothering with the other two. Sam Raimi has his moments, but he fucks up, recycles, or dumbs down just as much as he shines.

Take the Legend of the Seeker series. At this point, he dry humping the books into the grave, just as he fucked up Greek mythology in his Hercules series. It had a good start, and is even enjoyable at times, but the plot holes, cliches (even above and beyond the books), and poor storytelling has been a direct cause of his decisions to veer from the source material. All of that has caused the series to be barely watchable, even worse than the worse season of Heroes.

Army of Darkness sums up the first two movies in about 2 minutes. Sure, you can watch it as a standalone but that doesn't mean it's not better as the third in a trilogy.

I highly recommend watching Evil Dead 2 before Army of Darkness; it explains why Ash has the attitude he does by Army of Darkness. In Evil Dead 1 he was a regular guy.... In Evil Dead 2 after being trapped and tormented in that haunted house, he is dragged down the path of insanity and becomes the Ash we know and love during Evil Dead 2, and continuing into Army of Darkness. Despite being repetitive, this is a very funny and entertaining trilogy; everyone should watch Evil Dead 2 and Army of Darkness at least once =)


Two scenes from Evil Dead 2 that I feel define the humour in the Evil Dead trilogy:

Heh, young Bruce Campbell.