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Evil Dead II ~ Film Review
Let me preface this review by saying I love, love, love the original Evil Dead. It is one of my favorite horror films of all time, and it rocked my world. It was creepy, original, and to date, the goriest film I’ve ever watched. I love every moment of it. Much to my (and likely the world’s) surprise, I wouldn't say I liked Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. This film is nothing like the first, and it turned the franchise into something I wasn’t expecting.
Evil Dead 2 picks up literally exactly where the first left off. Ash is stuck in the cabin, still fighting the evil spirits. The beginning of this film is actually super disorienting. A “revised recap” of Evil Dead is shown initially, reminding you what happened in the first movie, but not really because it didn’t happen quite that way. From that point on, you’re just tossed into the mess that is Evil Dead. Much like Halloween II, there’s no prep in this film. There’s no lead-up to mayhem; it is mayhem from the first credits. Ash is alone in the cabin for most of the film, left with just the evil dead and his own madness. Eventually, he is joined by four others, which adds to the chaos. I won’t lie; for most of this film, I was trying to catch up. I felt lost and frazzled from the beginning, a feeling I never quite shook even as the film went on.
Evil Dead 2, in my opinion, isn’t anywhere as scary or gory as the first film. Sure, there’s gratuitous…
