EVIL DEAD II

'''EVIL DEAD II: DEAD BY DAWN. Sam Raimi, dir., co-script.''' USA: Renaissance (prod.) / Rosebud (dist.), 1987. Bruce Campbell, star, co-prod.

Comic-horror sequel to EVIL DEAD and predecessor to ARMY OF DARKNESS (1992). The reel-to-reel tape-recorder from the first movie is recycled, still in conjunction with a book of the dead. The tape-recorder has the dangerous sentimental voice of the female lead's father; the book can bring Evil into our world, but also help expel it. The Evil Dead are associated with the woods which they can possess, and both are fraught with the aid of Bruce Campbell's Ash's prosthetic replacing the hand he was forced to sever: the chain-saw. Cf. and contrast the SF motif of vegetable nature gaining motility (or animal nature gaining size or power) and running amok, countered, sometimes, by science and technology. Noting that the chain-saw prosthetic is a sick joke, cf. and contrast The Hand of Rotwang from METROPOLIS, recycled through at least ARMY OF DARKNESS, where the chain-saw is augmented by an improbably high-tech late-medieval metal hand.

(RDE, 20/05/00) RDE, Title, 21Aug19