[HorrorScience] The Army of Darkness - Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness (1992)

Reading time: 5 minutes

Qualification

Army of Darkness

Year

1992

Duration

88 minutes

Director

Sam Raimi

Distribution

Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Marcus Gilbert, Ian Abercrombie, Richard Grove, Bridget Fonda, Ted Raimi, Patricia Tallman, Angela Featherstone, Michael Earl Reid, Timothy Patrick Quill

Script

Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi

For the third time I dedicate this section to Evil Dead, the saga created by Bruce Campbell, Sam Raimi and Robert Taper, which despite having very humble beginnings, ended up gaining worldwide recognition and fame, thanks to the perseverance of its creators and the support of the public.

The first film in the saga, The Evil Dead, was filmed with the intention of being completely horror, a task that was left half done due to its low budget. Evil Dead 2, the sequel, continued with the bloody, macabre and horrifying style of the first, but seasoned it with high doses of humor (sometimes very stupid), thus creating a horror film full of jokes and impossible scenes and giving the protagonist, Ash, his marked “resourceful loser” personality.

This time we find the third part, Army of Darkness (The Army of Darkness) which is surely the most popular film of the trilogy, perhaps because it is the most comical of the three or the one that has left the most memorable phrases and scenes in the memory of fans.

At the end of Evil Dead 2, Ash was sucked into a portal that He transferred it to the year 1300 of our era, and that's where it begins Army of Darkness. Although the wise man (yes, that's what they call him) considers Ash to be the savior who will fall from the sky according to a legend, the strange appearance of our protagonist makes him be considered one of Red Henry's men (the leader of the rival army), so he is captured and taken to execution. As he moves towards his death, Ash will tell us his story and the events of the previous film (ideal for those who have not seen it).

After being booed, stoned, insulted and spat on by the townspeople, Ash is thrown into a well where several demons are imprisoned. Fortunately for him, the wise man throws his chainsaw at him, giving him the opportunity to engage in battle and emerge victorious. Now, armed with his trusty “fire broom” or “boomstick” (the shotgun) and his chainsaw, Ash stops being a slave and becomes an involuntary hero, Because he is the only one who can save them all from demons, something that he is not willing to do, because he is only interested in returning to his time.

[HorrorScience] Army of Darkness – Evil Dead 3: Army of Darkness (1992) — Pay attention primitive nuts, this is my fire broom

The wise man convinces Ash to go get the Necronomicon, since the book has the power to send him back to his year, but not before warning him that he must say the magic words Klaatu Barada Nikto, otherwise something terrible could happen.

During the trip, Ash will be stalked by demons and will experience tremendously strange and fun situations (like being attacked by an army of dwarf beings that turn out to be copies of himself), but despite the adversities he will manage to reach the book (or well, all three, because there are three books and only one is the good one). After lifting the authentic book and saying the magic words (well, more or less), Ash decides to return to the castle, but not before realizing that something has gone wrong.

THE army of darkness has been awakened and will not hesitate to destroy everything in its path. How will Ash get out of this? Will he be able to return to his time?

Army of Darkness It is by far the funniest and most entertaining of the trilogy, it is well paced and although it has flaws in the script (How does Ash get his shotgun after getting out of the well?) and one of the most forced romances I have ever seen, it is a great movie. The dialogues are hilarious, and the special effects are quite good (the army of darkness in stop motion is a tremendous homage to the skeletons of Jason and the Argonauts).

Fans of the previous two films may have been a little disappointed with this film for not being gory and straying far from the horror genre, but overall, The army of darkness gives us some of the best scenes of the entire series, and shows us the best Ash, cocky, unpresentable and tremendously incompetent in everything other than killing demons (or selling appliances, which was his original job)

Even with its flaws, this film offers us an hour and 20 minutes of pure and simple entertainment.

Curiosities about the film:

This film has two different endings, the “bad” ending was the one that Raimi wanted, but after a first screening, they decided to change it for a “good” ending that is the one known to everyone.
The magic words to say before taking the Necronomicon come from the movie Ultimátum a la Tierra (The Day the Earth Stood Still) de 1951.
Inicialmente se barajaron otros títulos para esta película, entre ellos Evil Dead III y The Medieval Dead.
La idea de ambientar la película en el año 1300 provenía de Evil Dead 2, pero no pudieron llevarla a cabo y se rescató para la secuela.