Evil Dead II Special Edition Blu-Ray Review

Studiocanal has FINALLY re-released Evil Dead 2 : Dead By Dawn on blu-ray with the release it deserves. It has previously been released barebones during their shitty period of barebones releases of 80s cult films like Escape From New York and the 2 sequels to Evil Dead. This re-released is obviously timed for remake (or shall we say re-imaging) of the original Evil Dead which comes out later this week and if early reviews are to be believed… shock… Quite good. Anyhow onto the best film in the whole series.

Ash, (Bruce Campbell) the sole survivor of the Evil Dead Takes his girlfriend Linda (Desise Bixler) to a secluded cabin in the wood where he plays back a professor’s tape recorded recitation of passages of the book of the Dead. The spell calls up an evil force from the woods than turn Linda into a monstrous Deadite, and threatens to do the same to Ash. He is forced to single-handedly battle the legions of the damned as the most lethal – and groovy – hero in horror movie history. (Taken from the pr)

The first film certainly had some comic laughs but in Evil Dead 2 brings the humour much more to the forefront. The film soon becomes an absurdist acid trip of “horror film” which literally has blood running down the walls of the cabin. Sam Raimi was as influenced by The Three Stooges as he was by let’s say The Night of the Living Dead and it shows. The film is chock a block full of slapstick humour even during it’s more “horrific” moments like the eyeball scene. Bruce Campbell is very much like the horror version of Buster Keaton and like Buster he did many of his own stunts in the film due to budgetary constraints probably.

The film’s initial release had little to no fanfare despite some positive reviews from mainstream film critics like the recently deceased Roger Ebert it fared poorly initially at the box office. It opened in only 300 theatres in the USA but due to word of the mouth it made a small profit within a month. It has since gained a enormous cult following due to it’s manic blend of slapstick and gore and rightfully so. It’s cult following is partly due to the rise of home video in the 80s and 90s and eventually dvd where it has been milked to hell with various different editions.

The new re-release (which is actually a port of the US Blu-ray that has been out for a while) has a new documentary which is actually longer than the entire film and some other supplementary features + previously released stuff like another doc and the hilarious commentary from Raimi, Campbell and co from earlier releases. If you’ve never seen Evil Dead 2 you’re in for treat and if you have Blu-ray capabilities it’s a worthy upgrade. Groovy…

Ian Schultz

★★★★★

Rating: 15
BD Release: 15th April 2013 (UK)
Director:Sam Raimi
Cast:Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks
Buy:Evil Dead 2 On Blu-ray