The groovy, grue­some lega­cy of Evil Dead 2

Most mon­sters in hor­ror films tend to be moti­vat­ed by some form of ani­mal­is­tic instinct. Say the per­pet­u­al desire for brains that ani­mates zom­bies, the thirst for blood that prompts crea­tures like the shark in Jaws and the Xenomorph in Alien to kill, or the pure bio­log­i­cal incli­na­tion that instructs par­a­sites and virus­es to wreak hav­oc in films like The Thing and Inva­sion of the Bodys­natch­ers.

But no such com­pul­sion appears to affect the malev­o­lent force in the Evil Dead films, which pos­sess and turn its vic­tims into grotesque ​‘dea­dites’. When they attack, they do so while glee­ful­ly laugh­ing at their prey, as well as mock­ing and play­ing tricks on them. There’s no indi­ca­tion that they wish to cre­ate more dea­dites to mul­ti­ply and sur­vive, and nor do they ever feed on their flesh – rather, their sole moti­va­tion seems to be to torment.

Indeed, the glo­ri­ous 90 min­utes of vir­tu­oso blood-drenched hor­ror-com­e­dy that is Evil Dead 2 essen­tial­ly boils down to Bruce Camp­bell being tor­ment­ed by evil forces. Occu­py­ing a tonal sweet spot between The Evil Dead’s dark­er scares and the total aban­don­ment of hor­ror in Army of Dark­ness, the sec­ond film best rep­re­sents what it is the series’ cult fol­low­ing adores most about it: sub­lime prac­ti­cal effects, scenes that are as grotesque as they are hilar­i­ous, and Campbell’s inim­itable reac­tions to the mad cas­cade of hor­rors that over­whelms him.

At the start of the film (which is more accu­rate­ly described as a reimag­in­ing of The Evil Dead rather than a sequel, giv­en the lack of con­ti­nu­ity), his char­ac­ter Ash is vis­it­ing a remote cab­in in the woods with his girl­friend Lin­da (Denise Bixler). Upon inju­di­cious­ly play­ing a tape record­ing found inside of an archae­ol­o­gist read­ing out a spell from the so-called ​‘Book of the Dead’, Ash inad­ver­tent­ly sum­mons an evil force that pos­sess­es Lin­da and pro­ceeds to both men­tal­ly and vio­lent­ly taunt him for the rest of the film.

Although oth­er char­ac­ters join him in the cab­in lat­er (estab­lish­ing a sce­nario more sim­i­lar to the orig­i­nal film in that there is an ensem­ble that each get picked off one by one), it’s these ear­ly scenes of Ash being forced to fend off the mis­chie­vous forces of evil by him­self that pro­duce most of the best moments. The dea­dite Lin­da mocks him by mim­ic­k­ing her pre-pos­sessed state, only to lat­er attack him with a chain­saw; inan­i­mate objects in the cab­in man­i­cal­ly laugh at him in uni­son, only for Ash, in typ­i­cal unhinged fash­ion, to join in; even his own hand harass­es him when it is pos­sessed, prompt­ing some extra­or­di­nary phys­i­cal act­ing by Camp­bell as he lit­er­al­ly beats him­self up.

The whole thing would be sadis­tic (at anoth­er point he’s forced to cut to pieces the sev­ered head of his girl­friend) were the tone of the film not so out­ra­geous­ly sil­ly, ampli­fied by an iron­ic score, cheesy one-lin­ers (‘groovy’ being the most famous) and car­toon­ish sound effects.

The film’s glee in putting its lead char­ac­ter through hell, and Bruce Campbell’s appar­ent­ly masochis­tic rel­ish for such treat­ment, is mir­rored by the off-screen rela­tion­ship between Camp­bell and direc­tor Sam Rai­mi. Both are life-long close friends, hav­ing grown up togeth­er in Michi­gan, and their rela­tion­ship was (and is) a kind of class clown dou­ble act, with Rai­mi fre­quent­ly explain­ing in inter­views how much he enjoys tor­tur­ing his part­ner in crime, and Camp­bell how he is hap­py to degrade him­self in the name of entertainment.

As kids, Rai­mi would stab his friend with pen­cils in class; now as adults mak­ing a film togeth­er, he dous­es him in fake blood and pokes his injured ankle with sticks. In this sense, the famous point of view shots of an unseen foe chas­ing after Ash works at a meta-lev­el – it’s as if the cam­era itself, with Rai­mi behind it, is chas­ing and tor­ment­ing his hap­less victim.

It’s this sense of juve­nile fun and play-fight­ing that makes Evil Dead 2 such a deranged joy to watch, not in spite, but because of the tra­vails its hero is put through. Iron­i­cal­ly for a film series so syn­ony­mous with the moral pan­ic of the ​‘video nas­ties’ and its poten­tial dam­ag­ing effect on chil­dren, Evil Dead 2 is a film made by ami­able ras­cals who nev­er grew up.