| Product: |
Army of Darkness (DVD) |
| Date: |
30.03.02 (58 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: see review
Disadvantages: see review
Its funny isn’t it, you watch one movie and it reminds you of another, often infinitely superior once. I recently watched Black Knight, a supposed medieval comedy starring Martin Lawrence which offered up about as many laughs as the average funeral and was reminded of two infinitely better movies - Monty Python and the Holy Grail which I’ve seen more times than I can remember and Sam Raimi’s final movie in the Evil Dead series, Army Of Darkness which prompted me into another rental - and naturally a review because its so damn good!
Obviously this isn’t a movie which is going to be to everyone’s taste, a strange hybrid of zombie horror, Excalibur and The Three Stooges probably isn’t something which is going to entertain everyone at least on paper but once the reels start spinning its strange how the ludicrousness of it all manages to draw you in and hold you for the entirety of the running length. Effectively this is Evil Dead 3, Bruce Cambell returning as Ash one last time to kick a little ghoulish butt, but its by no means necessary to have seen the other 2 installments in the series. Know that the house he visits is the scene of many ghoulish goings on in the previous 2 movies and thats all you need before he is whisked back in time to medieval days to save the locals from an upsurge of undead nasties. Admittedly the undead nasties are his fault after he bungles the words from a spellbook and unleashes an army of skeletons into the world but save them he will anyway. The locals see him as the 'promised one' from prophecy so armed with chainsaw and shotgun its time to send the dead back to their graves once more...
Thats your premise and thats all you need to know, this movie is hardly heavy on plotline or character development and to be honest it doesn’t need to be. Army Of Darkness is a linear rollercoaster ride of ghoulish comedy of the most outrageous kind which after a brief introduction moves
along at lightning pace to its bloody conclusion. its pure cheesy, campy entertainment from start to finish and its plays upon this raising as many “ewwww” moments as it does moments of sheer laugh out loud comedy. The dialogue is attrocious and the movie knows it is, it has no qualms about poking fun at a genre which is overladen with cheesy movies, packed with even cheesier dialogue and lame special effects. Army of Darkness has all this and more, and it has it on purpose because its a rich picking ground for cheesy fun.
The gags do not exactly come thick and fast but you’ll laugh more at this than any other movie released so far this year I promise you. Much of it is very ‘Three Stooges’, right down to the eye-poking and comedy whizzes, zings and pops, but this time the protagonists and victims are zombies, ghouls and reanimated skeletons dripping with blood and gore. Its as bizzare as it sounds yet for some reason it works wonderfully. A number of movies come under Raimi’s almost spoof treatment here including of all things Gulliver’s Travels, although the special effects here are so awful you begin to wonder if this was done on purpose to attack another movie with equally bad effects...I can’t think of one. Apart from this scene the zombies ghouls and other nasties are rather impressively portrayed, gloriously gory and ready for Cambell’s chainsaw.
Like I said, its not something which is going to appeal to everyone but this series is undeniably one of the classics of the horror genre and well worth checking out even if you are not a fan of such movies because it does seem to be more universally appealing than most others in the zombie-type category. Its not as funny as something like Peter Jackson’s Braindead in my opinion, but it is certainly more pallatable and easier on the stomach. Army of Darkness is unashamedly filmed to be purely entertaining and nothing more. Its a stripped
back production which gets right down to that business of being entertaining and does so for its entire 81 minute running length. Good stuff indeed, well worth checking out for fans of the horror genre and non-fans with a stomach for it aike. Much better than Black Knight anyway!
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