R Rating Ep9 - Army Of Darkness (1992)

[00:00:00] Speaker A: In 1992, Ash Williams is violently tossed back into the medieval times with nothing but a chainsaw, boomstick, and a broken down 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88. He must journey into the unknown to obtain the Necronomicon for any chance to make it home and finally prove himself a hero of legend or a fool of all time. [00:00:24] Speaker B: Mongoolie's movie madness. It's a sight to behold. Mongoolie's passion. Passion for films never closer. From classics to new releases. Let's start the show. Hello, everybody, and welcome back to our rating the show where me and two of my friends get together, take a movie franchise, break it down by movie, give it an overall score and see where it lands on the board. This month we're talking about the army of Darkness. Sorry, we're talking about the Evil Dead. This week we're talking about army of Darkness. And I'm joined by both Will and Brian. Let's jump over to them and see what they've got to say. So now you guys have both seen and loved these movies significantly more than I have. Brian, what is your history with the Evil Dead franchise and army of Darkness in particular? [00:01:29] Speaker C: So I saw this, the advertisement for this, when I was a young man when it. When it hit theaters, and I really, really wanted to see it in theaters, but I think I was too young or my parents wouldn't let me or something, I don't remember. But I didn't get to go see it in theaters. But as soon as it made, I think, VHS at the time, I came flying after it and watched it and was instantly in love with it. And that's what took me back to Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2, because I wanted to see everything that was related to the movie. However, after, you know, so many years of watching it as a young man, and then apparently I took a break for quite some time. Coming back to it recently, I didn't have quite as much fun with it as I remember having. And maybe I'm just a little too old for the splatter humor kind of thing going on, the. The slapstick stuff. Or maybe I listened to Dan complain about that slapst humor and it rubbed off on me last week, but I kind of didn't have the love that I used to. That being said, however, there was a lot of room for love and still very much enjoy this movie. It's a movie that I still recommend to people and would still recommend to people. I. I definitely enjoyed this. So, yeah, we'll get into it. [00:02:53] Speaker B: Nice. Brian, you're saying you saw army of Darkness first? My friend who's in love with this franchise has been since like high school, also said that he saw army of Darkness first, then went back and saw the other ones. I saw Evil Dead first and worked my way up to army of Darkness. I wonder if that's the secret is you start with army of Darkness, you know what you're getting yourself into, and then you kind of backtrack. How did you discover this franchise? Will? [00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I believe I was an army of Darkness first as well. It was more the kind of things we watched growing up, kind of fantasy adventure type and comedic and hilarious and what have you. And then I believe I went back and saw the Evil Deads afterwards. Much like Run. I. I grew up watching this movie with friends and it was super fun. Every time we'd get together to watch this and just have a hoot. It's like super quotable. It's super goofy and silly and yeah, I don't know, it's just, it's. It's very Three Stooges, so I'm sure Dan hated it. [00:04:00] Speaker B: Sounds like both you grew up watching this you've seen a bunch of times. Probably not in a while, Ryan's saying, but he has seen it a lot. This is only my second time ever seeing this. So, like back in high school, maybe early college, I watched all three of these back to back with a buddy, like over the course of a week, not literally in the same day. Didn't have anywhere close to the same love he had for them, and I just kind of wrote them off and being like, they're not for me. And I moved on with my life. Watching these a second time, I will say that I had a much better appreciation for Evil Dead than I thought I did. Didn't really care for Evil Dead 2 and then approached army of Darkness really trepidatiously, if that's a word, and actually found myself having a much better time with it than I thought I was going to have. Unlike Brian, who says he came back to this as an adult and was kind of like, yeah, I came back to this, maybe with the right mindset of just being like, don't expect very much from this. And I actually was pleasantly surprised. I didn't love it, but it was more fun than I was anticipating having. [00:04:53] Speaker C: Will what. What makes army of Darkness such a hit for you? [00:04:58] Speaker A: So again, I always go back to loving movies that I experience with the right group of people. So I would watch this movie in a friend's basement with my Brother. And we would have, you know, snacks and good times and just laugh our asses off late into the night. Watching this movie, quoting this movie, it's just like all fun and all popcorn and it just, it just hit all the right notes with the right group. Right. So that's, that's what kind of like nostalgia. Nostalgia, Listically. Is that a word, Dan? Absolutely holds true to me and will probably curve this a little higher rating than it probably deserves out of. Out of my final ranking here. [00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I watched this with a friend Monday, so just a couple of days ago, and I've got to say that is probably the only way you could watch a movie like this. Watching this by yourself, I just don't imagine it would hit anywhere close to the same. Like watching it with a friend where you can kind of like pay attention but also chat a little bit and just kind of have a good time with it. I did find this to be pretty fun because I kind of knew what I was expecting and I kind of got what I was expecting. And I feel like that's how the first one worked and this one worked. It was really Only Evil Dead 2 where maybe I wasn't anticipating the right movie or it didn't quite give me what I was anticipating. I don't know. The second one just didn't really hit for me at all. Where 1 and 3 are actually both of them coming out better than I anticipated, better than I would have thought going into this month at least. [00:06:40] Speaker C: I, I think that after watching two and being so critical about it and seeing that slapstick humor and everything, and it was, it was entertaining and done well, but much like you, Dan, it, it doesn't make me laugh so much. As in number two, it felt like Ash was being brutalized and that was part of what we were. We were witnessing this, this, the, the, the demons tormenting him. And in three, three in army of Darkness, I kind of realize that this is the humor that they're going for. And knowing that it's supposed to be funny didn't. And it wasn't funny for me kind of made me almost bored. In those sequences when he's like, like the skeleton hands are grabbing him and punching him and everything like that. That was silly and everything, but it wasn't super funny. And I kind of felt myself just waiting like, oh, when are we going to get to the next one liner? Because the one liners in this movie just has me busting a gut laughing, you know, give me some sugar, baby. Or, you know, she says, oh, you Found me beautiful once. And he's like, honey, you got real ugly. I just die. And laughing at these things that he's saying. And that progression of his character from one all the way to army of Darkness has me cracking up all the way at the very end when he's like, I'm. [00:08:01] Speaker B: How. [00:08:01] Speaker C: I'm Ash Housewares. These, they're. They're so good. They're bringing a smile to my face right now, just remembering them. And those are the highlights of the movie that I really liked. It had more of the claymation from Number two that I didn't enjoy. It was done better in this movie. It was a better grade of that kind of claymation stop motion. I'm not sure what they used right there, but it was done better. It looked a little better than it did in N2, but there was. There were just some. Some features of two that were carried over into army of Darkness. And I remember when. When we. When we were talking about two, that one kind of hit me as like, oh, I don't remember two being this bad. Not bad, but less than I imagined it. And. And the first movie had a great feel to it. And the second movie, I was a little bit let down coming into it critically. And then watching Number three, I was like, okay, there's a lot of stuff from two that carries over into army of Darkness. And those are the things that just don't really get me going anymore. It's the one liners that happens, the overall story, making a robotic hand that crushes a cup. These kind of cool things that I did enjoy. Still had a great time with the whole film. [00:09:12] Speaker B: I definitely will agree. The one liners in this, the quotable moments in this were incredible. It's funny, though, because this movie came in, what, 93? And I want to say Duke Nukem 3D came out like 94, 95 or something. And that's where I knew most of these lines from, because I didn't know this movie from back then. But a lot of these are in Duke Nukem and probably other pop cultural ones. But, like, things like Groovy, I'm totally blanking. But there's definitely like three of them because I was quoting them the other day to my friend and I was just like, yeah, I definitely know that. Like, I'm pretty sure Duke Nukem says that. I'm definitely gonna think of this in like five seconds when the, you know, camera's not directly on me, but there's a bunch of them which are just like, fantastic. When they happen. And also maybe the, the actual, like the skeletons coming out of the ground. Like some of the, some of the claymation. Some of the practical effects in this looked really, really good or at least passable, and some of it looked really bad. And like the skeletons coming out of the ground, I was just like, this is not doing it for me on any level whatsoever. And then you had some of the skeletons walking around where they were clearly like people in black bodysuits with skeleton stuff on top of them. I was like, that works really well. Like that gets the point across. They're dead. So be it. I, I like that. And then they have like the drawbridge scene where you've got like claymation skeletons moving aboard. I'm like, why this? No, this just looks so drastically different from the scene before it and after it that it really takes you out a little bit. I found you're talking Will about this being very like sword and sorcery. I found this had a really strong like Hercules, Xena from the 90s vibes. Is that something you also grew up with watching and did you also get those kind of vibes or. [00:10:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I actually, yeah, this came out, I think just a, or before those, right? [00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I would assume before. [00:10:52] Speaker A: And I believe Sam Raimy worked on some of those as well. But I actually kind of, for me, the, the stop animation claymation stuff, I, I, I don't mind it. And maybe it's because I grew up doing like watching those like Sinbad movies, like the Adventures of and Bad with and it's got like the claymation monsters and things like that throughout it. Like I watched all of those types of movies as well growing up. So like this is just kind of fell into place for me because it was like, better than those. So it's like, you know, we're trending forward with, with technology and, and so it got better. Sure. You know, does it hold up? Maybe not as much nowadays, but for what it was, it, it lets an army of darkness rise. And you know, you could go all in seeing a mass amount of skeletons running amok, getting blown to pieces and just having, having a ball and they're like. Even though the skeletons one liners getting diced and chopped up is just so funny to me. It's just like the writing in this is very witty as far as I'm concerned. And I, I like it a lot. [00:12:05] Speaker B: The one skeleton at the very end when they're all getting blown up. Let's get out of here. That's literally the only thing I Remembered from the movie. The only thing that stuck with me for the last, like 25 years. Just that one skeleton. Let's get out of here. Yeah. I don't know why my brain just works weird like that. Yeah, the. The castle, I thought, actually looks really decent. Like you see the castle for the first time when they're coming over the hill. I'm sure it was a model, but like, that looked really okay to me. There are some other scenes look pretty okay. And then you got like him getting sucked through the vortex where you're just like, oh, okay, maybe a second take on that. [00:12:44] Speaker C: But okay. [00:12:45] Speaker B: I don't know how to make it look better. I'm not a movie maker like that. But you think they could if they wanted to. Unless maybe that was just the vibe they were going for. Like they just save a couple of bucks here. Just make it look as low key as possible and just have a good time with it. I don't know. [00:12:58] Speaker A: I think part of it is the choice because, like, you know, they're coming from Evil Dead, which was legitimately a B horror movie. And I feel like they tried to stick with that style throughout all three movies. Sure, things got bigger, grander, more exaggerated, but I feel like they stay in that vein. And again, you can kind of live in that slapstick stick world and have these like, over the top, silly, stretched out body features and things like that as well. So I think it's like, if you can buy into it, you're great. If you can't, you have no soul. [00:13:40] Speaker B: I guess I'm soulless. [00:13:41] Speaker C: Somewhere, somewhere along the line, I lost my soul. [00:13:44] Speaker B: I think I didn't even know it was a ginger. [00:13:47] Speaker C: The special effects were hit and miss, but overall, overall they did improve from Evil Dead 2. However, the thing that I missed the most is there wasn't any of that gory, gooey stuff in Evil Dead 2. There weren't many of those scenes. We had one guy who fell into the pit of evil at the very beginning and they geysered the blood out, then disappeared in the next scene, by the way. And there weren't any of these eyeballs exploding or green goo or chopping up a body scene. He chops up his evil ash, he chops him up. And we don't even really get to see much of that. It's just a little sequence, little montage sequence. I kind of missed that from number two and I definitely missed that from number one. [00:14:34] Speaker A: Yeah. I believe they were trying to make the movie PG13 and not for the first time get like the rated R, which I think they were trying to in Evil Dead 2 prevent to get the R rating and they failed in that. So I think they went further that way and leaned more into the comedy elements. [00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I definitely got the feeling they were trying for more of a PG movie. I don't think there was much or any real swearing in it either. It was just kind of, I mean, relatively clean for the movie that it was. And it's unfortunate because like the makeup was so much better in this one than it was in the previous ones I found. So if they wanted to gory, they could have really done it up nicely. [00:15:14] Speaker C: Yeah, I, I thought they had some great characters in this movie too. We had a character that represented the army of darkness or the evil entity, which was evil Ash, you know, his equal and opposite or whatever. And it was a cool character played. Played by Bruce. Bruce Willis. Campbell. Bruce Campbell. Thank you. I, I, I liked that character. He was pretty cool. I would have liked to see him a little bit more badass. He kind of got the crap kicked out of him at several occasions, but he had his own funny one liners. You know, they burned the flesh off him and he's like, I've got a bone to pick with you. And I was chuckling myself over that. [00:15:54] Speaker A: Silliness, you know. [00:15:58] Speaker C: So the Sheila, yeah, whatever. I could have done without her. But she made for that great line of honey you got real ugly, which was such an epic line in the movie that if her, if that was her only part was to make that happen, it was worth it. But the little sub characters, the men at arms in the background, Henry and, and his counterpart Arthur, those were really kind of really cool characters. They, they weren't super dynamic, but especially I like the guy who was like Arthur's guy at his, his right hand man who had the, like the whip. And he's always like telling people what to like. Arthur would say something and he'd order. [00:16:41] Speaker B: The people to do it. [00:16:42] Speaker C: Like he's just following him around all the time. He was a character and I think Sam Raimi played like three or four. [00:16:47] Speaker A: Characters in this movie. [00:16:48] Speaker C: You see them all hidden throughout it and stuff. It was, it was kind of cool. [00:16:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Bubba Hotep in chat is saying Ted Ramy actually played like, okay, Ted Raimi. [00:17:01] Speaker C: They one's a skinnier version of, of himself and I don't remember which one's which. [00:17:05] Speaker A: Yeah, they're brothers, right? [00:17:06] Speaker C: Okay. [00:17:07] Speaker A: Yeah, they look the same. They're the same. I think they did a good job just like creating the world like, okay, you can buy into this is like, you know, the medieval times and, and then like the super unrealistic, you know, he, Ash has got a chemistry book and he's just like making explosives and getting his metal hand all jigged up. And it's like so over the top, but it's like so funny. I, I, I don't know. I, I enjoyed it. I loved, I love and hate Ash's character because he's not really a good person. No, definitely interesting. [00:17:43] Speaker B: Well, he's been through a hell of a weekend. Like that's kind of one of the things. This has been a three day or two to three day journey. Which when you think about the fact that he fell in love real quick after killing his girlfriend for the third time at the beginning of this movie, it's like, wow, he kind of fell out of that and fell back into her real quickly. That was interesting. But also the one thing that I really laughed at that was at the end of the movie she was a deadite and she gets cured. It's like you killed your girlfriend and chopped her up into little pieces. Like how much is that gonna mess with you knowing, like, oh, I, I could have healed her. [00:18:18] Speaker A: I don't think he's gonna think about that at all. [00:18:20] Speaker C: I thought about it at the very end of the movie. He moves on to the next woman again. [00:18:24] Speaker B: So he moves on quick. [00:18:26] Speaker C: Can't keep him down. [00:18:28] Speaker A: So that, that leads me to just a question for both of you. I'm guessing Dan hasn't, but maybe. Brian, have you seen the director's cut ending? What? What was originally intended for the ending of the movie? [00:18:40] Speaker C: No, I didn't know there was one. [00:18:42] Speaker B: I had no idea. [00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a few different, different edits of the movie out and around. But the director's edit, the main difference is when he goes, takes his little potion and goes to sleep for 600 years or whatever, he takes an extra drop and oversleeps and he bash wakes up in like a post apocalyptic world. And the world is this like he comes out of the cave, he's like, oh yeah, technology. I see, I see because there's like cars and stuff around him. And then he looks out and like all the buildings of the city are demolished and like broken down. And he's like, no, no. And he's just like left in this post apocalyptic world. And it's, I think it's supposed to feel like he's not a really great character. So maybe he shouldn't be redeemed in the end. You know what I mean? [00:19:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:19:35] Speaker A: It's a much shorter ending and not as hilarious as the S Smart freaking gunfight. So it's like I have a toss up between which one I like the most. Like character. Arc wise, the director edit makes a lot of sense. But fun wise, the S Smart hardwares is just so funny. So they're both very good endings, I think. [00:20:02] Speaker B: I'm not gonna lie. I would have really let you have seen that version and maybe I'll see if it's on the DVD or not. Like, is that where you. Where you've discovered it? [00:20:10] Speaker A: Actually, when I was growing up, I always had seen because we had a copy of it and I always saw the theatrical release. But if you'd watch it on TV sometimes or you catch it on like a TV station, they would play the director's cut. And that's where I saw it first. I was like, what is happening right now? And then I looked into it after I watched it and I was like, okay, this, this makes a lot of sense. [00:20:31] Speaker B: That'd be so confusing if that's the first and only time you ever saw the director's cut. And then every other time after that, it's a totally different. I was like, no, I swear, I swear there's another ending. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Like, yeah, it's like clue, right? You get different endings depending on when you watch it. Could. [00:20:42] Speaker C: Could they have turned that apocalyptic ending into a fourth movie the way that they kind of ended the second one? [00:20:50] Speaker A: That was. I think originally the plan is they were going to do another movie and that the. The director's cut was the ending, but it didn't screen test well. So the producing company was like, no, we have to change the ending. And so that's what they swapped it into. And then the fourth movie never happened. But they got a lot of traction. Like a lot of people still enjoy the movies and so they made Ash vs the Evil Dead TV series in lieu of the movie. And that kind of leads more into the story after the S Smart. And I think I haven't watched it all, but I believe and goes more towards the ending of the director. Cut of the I've watched a few. [00:21:36] Speaker C: Episodes of that and found was entertaining and I enjoyed it. But at the time there were better things on TV to watch. [00:21:46] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:21:46] Speaker C: And I kind of had my fill of that version of Evil Dead. And I say that version of Evil Dead because. Tune in next week. [00:21:59] Speaker B: Spoilers. The TV show is not good. Zager says, I. I like the idea because my understanding is that the TV show starts off exactly where Evil Dead army of Darkness ends. Right. So like each one of the movies literally leads into the next one or the next project, I guess. I like the idea of that. I kind of want to go and watch like the first episode at least just to see how they do tied in. [00:22:19] Speaker C: But don't they bring Xena into the show? Not the character Xena, but the actress. [00:22:24] Speaker B: My understanding is Lucy Lawless is in it and she does not wear any clothing. If my buddy is to be believed. [00:22:30] Speaker C: I might need to circle back to that show. [00:22:32] Speaker B: Yeah, no, I. I believe for reasons passing understanding. [00:22:35] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I believe the show picks up after the movie. But I don't think it's like direct. [00:22:40] Speaker C: Because I don't remember being direct. [00:22:42] Speaker A: He's older. Much older. [00:22:43] Speaker C: He's aged. [00:22:44] Speaker B: Yeah, okay. I knew that his job, but he's older. [00:22:49] Speaker A: Yeah, no, but I think they've kind of like joke about that in the show being like, oh, he's older, he's out of shape. He's like wearing a girdle. A girdle strapping up to get into the action. Once the Evil Dead kind of start showing up again, I want him to. [00:23:05] Speaker B: Put the girdle on and have it just be a series of like extreme close ups as he's doing like every little latch. That was one of the things I was looking at. I'm just like, wow, they're really going all in on this. And then like it was one of those like, you know, Family Guy does that like comedic torture where the longer they do something it kind of gets funnier. Or at least that's the idea behind it. It was kind of feeling like that where they just did like extreme close up after extreme close up after extreme closeup. And eventually you're just like, okay, this is just ridiculous. They know what they're going for. And you got me. You're both looking extremely confused, like you have no idea what I'm talking about. [00:23:39] Speaker A: I know what you're talking about. I just despise Family Guy. But that's just me. That's just me. [00:23:43] Speaker B: I was. I just using an example because that's where the. I first understood the term comedic torture. [00:23:47] Speaker A: Where you first saw it. Yeah, sure. [00:23:50] Speaker C: So overall I still very much enjoyed the movie, but I think, you know, coming at these movies so critically has. Has kind of not ruined them, but maybe taken them down a notch. A movie that's silly like this, that you got to go into light hearted is a little. [00:24:14] Speaker A: It. [00:24:14] Speaker C: It took some damage from my approach this time. And I almost wish I could have not done it be and just let it live in infamy in my memory as this epic, epic film. That was one of my, like, top movies of all time. Now I kind of watch them. Like, it's still epic. It's still got some great lines. It was an amazing story. I loved what they did, and I recommend it to other people, but there were some parts where I was like, oh, could we just get through this? You know, it was just like, okay, this is more of this kind of stuff, and it's not doing anything for me. So. So, yeah, I like the scene that. [00:24:49] Speaker B: Really did do it for you. [00:24:52] Speaker C: It's. It's all the. The lines when he is talking to people. It's Ash's character in the way he react people. Like, you know, he comes back in from getting the. The book and he's covered with sweat, and he's walking in, he dumps a bucket of water over his head, and people are in his way. He's like. He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, Great, great. Okay. [00:25:07] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:25:08] Speaker C: Get the out of my way. Get the out of my way. Had enough? [00:25:12] Speaker B: You know, every. [00:25:14] Speaker C: Every little thing his character does cracks me up. But when he is being tormented by, like, three books instead of. Instead of one, his reaction to having three books is, wait a minute. Nobody said anything about three book. You know, his character's great, but, you know, the. The book sucking him in and the rubber face and the bat biting him and stuff, it wasn't that entertaining. It was just him being punished again. And I've seen that in two. And that kind of slapstick humor doesn't really do it for me that much. I would rather see it pushed and be more gory and more violent and him being a little more shocked, pushed to the brink of insanity, which we saw in the beginning of Evil Dead 2 and we saw at the end of Evil Dead 1. But they. They steer away from that, and instead In Evil Dead 2, he's breaking plates over his head, which was a cool scene. It was a good acting on his part, but I want to see a little bit more blood and gore, a little bit more of. Of what we. We left in one. And so, yeah, I agree with that to an extent. [00:26:17] Speaker B: I think that. I feel like Evil Dead 1 knew what it wanted to be and did a pretty good job of doing it. I feel like army of Darkness knew what it wanted to be and did a pretty good job of doing it. Now they're very, very different movies, and you kind of have two in the middle to be like that. Stop. Gap between the two of them. [00:26:34] Speaker C: Right. [00:26:34] Speaker B: And maybe that's why, for me at least, Evil Dead 2 suffered a little bit, because it's trying to be a little bit at one and a little bit of three and it kind of comes across not really knowing what it wants to be. Again, just my personal opinion, but I found army of Darkness did have an identity. Did know what it wanted to be. It didn't all work for me. The rubber face, like when he gets sucked out of the book and he's just. I'm like, holy crap, this scene can end anytime now. It just kind of felt like it. It wasn't even long. It was like 10 seconds. But it just felt like this is. This is not doing it for me. But you're right. Like the actual character of Ash, the one liners he's got, the way he interacts with people, all of that I actually enjoyed quite a bit. Even some of the. The fantasy elements to it. I thought they did pretty well. I didn't necessarily miss the horror in this one, personally. What about you, Will? Where'd you land on this? [00:27:22] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I feel like. I feel similar to you, actually, Dan. Like, I feel like they wanted to take number two in this direction, but they also were kind of like, oh, we have to remake one, so it still has to be a scary movie. So we are going to try to juggle both things. Whereas in the first one, they wanted to make a B horror movie and just go all out with it, and they did that. And in the third one, they wanted to make a slapstick comedy, they went all out and they did that. So, yeah, I feel like you're. You're not wrong. I still feel there's a lot more polish in the second movie just because of the. Them learning how to make movies and what works and what doesn't work compared to the first one. And I feel like number three, they just. It really is showing Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell's personalities on the screen. If you. If you're. If you dig it, then groovy, baby. If not, below. Right? [00:28:27] Speaker B: So Hell of a King. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Yeah. So it is. It is what it is. If it's not your taste, it's definitely not your taste. And that's totally okay. Totally okay. I won't. I won't judge you too harshly for it. [00:28:43] Speaker C: All right, let's rate this thing. [00:28:46] Speaker B: All right, I'm gonna withhold mine for now. I think I went first last week. Why don't you start us Off Brian, where do you land on army of Darkness? [00:28:58] Speaker C: Okay, so the. The plot for me notched it up a bit. We had a little bit more of a tale. Hey, here's what he has to do. Here's what's going on. We had a lot more structure with the. I like when horror. If this could be horror, it's not really we know. But I like when horror movies kind of have a structure to them instead of just Stephen King it, where it's just weird stuff happens as it goes on. So this one had a lot more structure to it. Let's get the book, say the words or don't fight the evil army, win and then get home kind of thing like that. So I did enjoy the plot more in this one. The acting stepped up a bit. Like I said, a lot of the sub. Sub characters and regular sub characters and Ash himself was amazing. So the acting went up a notch. As, as far as the direction of. [00:29:51] Speaker A: This. [00:29:54] Speaker C: After discussing it with you guys, once again, I kind of feel a little different than when we started this conversation. I think the direction was accurate for what they wanted to do. And I think I as a viewer have changed over the years and so maybe the holds up category goes down a notch for me. But the direction was still pretty solid in here. The special effects moved up from Evil Dead 2, but still weren't up to what I wanted to see. I missed out on some of the more gore and violent stuff. A lot of rubber suits in here that looked like rubber suits. Whereas in the first one there was some really gory, ugly stuff that looked ugly and gory. And this one just looked like everybody was just kind of wearing a rubber suit to make a joke of the scene. As far as sound effects and scoring and stuff, it was just on par with whatever has been happening so far. Maybe down a little bit more because we had the intro song and the drums. That happened a lot. It's felt like they played that song a lot and got a little repetitive, but other than that it was. It was fine. Like I said, I don't think this holds up as well as it used to. And we'll talk about more next week when we talk about holds up because, you know, next week is the remake of Evil Dead. As far as fun though, the characters and the dialogue and the story itself was super duper entertaining. Absolutely love that part. So for different reasons, I actually ended up liking this exactly the same as Evil Dead one, and I'm giving it a 79. [00:31:42] Speaker B: Very nice. All right. Yeah, I. I have similar Sentiments. I. I think that score is very high. But okay, I have similar sentence where. Sorry, I'm just actually putting the. The everything into our chat so I have it for later. I think that this movie knew what it wanted to be. More than two did, maybe even a little bit more than one did. One felt very much like it had an idea where it was going and it knew it pretty well. But this movie feels like. And maybe it's just the fact that it's Sam Raimi's like, sixth or seventh movie versus his first movie. May he just had a bit more confidence as a director. Just be like, no, this is what I want to do. And I'm just going to do exactly that. It felt maybe not laser focused, but very, very much intentional. And I. Not all of it worked for me. Some of the comedy didn't work for me, some of the slapstickness really didn't work for me. But once I kind of got into the groove of like, this is what this movie is going to be, Bruce Campbell's character works probably the best for me out of any of the army, sorry, Evil Dead movies. This is the one where I actually really, really liked him. This is the one that you're gonna find yourself quoting for the next, like, two, three weeks or longer with things like, yeah, baby, yeah, Decade. Hail to the king. Groovy. Like, there's just. There's a bunch to like about this movie. As far as his character goes. The slapstick of it, the. The three stooges of it, predictably, didn't really do it for me. That was a little unfortunate. And this one, you could say that it takes a bit of a ding in the wardrobe category because unlike army of Dark, sorry, Evil Dead 1 and 2, it's a period piece. So, like, everybody has to be wearing something completely ridiculous to try and fit into that period piece. Whereas, like, in arm, In Evil Dead 1, you're just in the 70s, right? Like, they could have just shown up to set wearing whatever they were wearing that day and they'd be totally fine. So I think it looks okay for what it is. Obviously it's not like Lord of the Rings production quality, but I thought the castle looks pretty good. I thought some of the suits looked really good. Even the rubbery ones, as you're discussing, looked okay. I think the makeup looked way better in this one. Like, I don't know what his name is, but, like, the. The Evil Ash, I thought, actually looks pretty cool in most of the scenes, especially when he has helmet on. I was like, that Actually looks pretty all right with me. I'm pretty down with that. The sound effects were ridiculous in some parts where they were supposed to be like, again, the extreme close ups. Whenever he's like hooking something to a door, it almost sounds like he's cocking a shotgun or something. Like, it's just this ridiculous. Like whenever he's just doing something, like, okay, fair, like, you're clearly trying for something, you're going for it. It's just silly and fun. I watched this with a buddy and we were, you know, not rolling on the floor laughing, but like, we had some good serious chuckles. I was actually, like, guying, as it were. I, I liked it. I didn't love it. I don't know if I'm going to return to it anytime soon, but I liked it more than I thought I did. [00:34:34] Speaker C: And I gave it a little bit. [00:34:35] Speaker B: Higher score than I gave the first one. I gave it a 62, nowhere close to a 79, but better than the original. I, I, I. If I was to rewatch one of the three of them, this would probably be the one that I rewatched. What about you, Will? [00:34:50] Speaker A: Looks like I have to bring this movie up. Holy moly. No, I'll say this. I grew up with this movie. It's nostalgia galore for me. I can watch this movie alone and bust a gut every time. Just hearing the delivery of the one liners, I, I just bust out. I can't help it. Even the part where he's like, burying bad ash or evil ash, he's like, hey, that's how you got on your face. He's like, huh? And he just dices him with a shovel full of dirt. It's just like, I just can't help but laugh. It's so funny. To me, the timing, the comedic timing in this movie for a lot of the deliveries and specifically the dialogue, it just, it just hits me on all the right notes. That being said, is this the greatest movie of all time? Absolutely not. Does it have its issues? Absolutely. Does it stand up to the test of time? Yeah, it's a little, it's a little dated. You know, as far as, like, 90s movies, it does still come across as a little budget. And whether you can just like ignore those things and still have a good laugh or not, if you're a fan of the physical humor in this movie, you know, those are things that are going to be make or break for this movie. And I completely understand that now. I try to rate without bias, but I know this one does a Little bit come through. Overall, I feel like if I'm still laughing at this movie 30 years later, they're doing something right. And that's. That's what they're going for. You know, this is. This is a full on comedy. They. They tossed the horror to the side and I was okay with that. So overall, I hit this with an 82 out of 100. It's not perfect, but I would say it's probably my favorite Sam Raimi movie. And mostly because I think Bruce Campbell is just like the American Jim Carrey and who never really got much aside from these movies. And. And I'm kind of saddened by that. [00:37:04] Speaker B: He's in pretty much every Sam Raimi movie, but, yeah, not a whole lot outside of Sam Raimi. [00:37:09] Speaker C: I like him in Burn Notice. [00:37:10] Speaker A: He's not. He's not super star in all of these movies. Right. Like, he's got side bit characters in most of the Sam Raimi stuff. The freaking. His car is in more movies than Bruce Willis is. [00:37:25] Speaker B: Bruce Campbell. [00:37:27] Speaker A: Sorry. Yeah, you said Bruce Willis earlier. [00:37:29] Speaker B: No, I didn't. Run did. Don't. Don't put that. [00:37:31] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, sorry. [00:37:31] Speaker B: Sorry. Don't you put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby. [00:37:36] Speaker A: No, yeah. But I. I do think, like, it's super funny that Sam keeps his friends close and his car closer. I think it's like a hilarious director choice to like, ensure this stupid 88. 8 is in like. Or whatever it's called in all of his movies. Even like an old western movie. He broke the car down to the chassis and built a wagon around it just so it could be in the movie. It's like, so weird to me. [00:38:03] Speaker B: Nice. [00:38:03] Speaker A: But I. I can. I can do nothing but appreciate that because it's all about enjoying what you're doing and putting in those fun jokes to make. Make your job as fun as possible. [00:38:13] Speaker B: Very cool. All right, well, that has been our rating of army of Darkness gives it the an Overall score of 74 for us, which puts the average so far for the franchise at a 68. Now we still have two more movies to go. We've got the remake as well as Rise. Not sure if that's going to raise up, if Rise is going to raise the score of this franchise or if once Sam Raimi departs from the franchise, some of the magic will go with it. Tune in next week as we discuss Evil Dead, the remake, and see if it holds up and it can raise up this franchise or lower it down to hell. See you, everybody. [00:38:52] Speaker A: Sa.