Barnes & Noble

Despite the occasionally weak mainstream effort like For the Love of the Game, maverick director Sam Raimi still holds a special place in the hearts of cult film fans. This third installment in Raimi's anarchic Evil Dead series finds the always-mugging discount store employee Ash (Bruce Campbell) hurled back into the Middle Ages, where he mistakenly opens the legendary Necronomicon and releases the titular Army of Darkness -- several divisions of bloodthirsty skeletons. While Raimi's typically frenetic camera work is toned down here, the movie is rife with quick-witted comedy, bizarre anachronisms, and surefire catchphrases, such as "Give me some sugar, baby!" And Campbell's Ash, even in these strange environs, remains a bumbling if effective one-armed warrior. Tony Nigro

All Movie Guide

The third in director Sam Raimi's stylish, comic book-like horror trilogy that began with The Evil Dead (1982), this tongue-in-cheek sequel offers equal parts sword-and-sorcery-style action, gore, and comedy. Bruce Campbell returns as the one-armed Ash, now a supermarket employee ("Shop Smart...Shop S-Mart") who is transported by the powers of a mysterious book back in time with his Oldsmobile '88 to the 14th century medieval era. Armed only with a shotgun, his high school chemistry textbook, and a chainsaw that mounts where his missing appendage once resided, the square-jawed, brutally competent Ash quickly establishes himself as a besieged kingdom's best hope against an "army of darkness" currently plaguing the land. Since the skeleton warriors have been resurrected with the aid of the Necronomicon (the same tome that can send Ash back to his own time) he agrees to face the enemy in battle. Ash also finds romance of a sort along the way with a beautiful damsel in distress, Sheila (Embeth Davidtz), and contends with his own doppelganger after mangling an important incantation. Karl Williams

Product Details

• UPC: 025192019968
• Source: UNIVERSAL STUDIOS
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: DTS 5.1-Channel Surround Sound, Dolby AC-3 Surround Sound
• Editions: Special Edition, Subtitled
• Time: 1:21:00
• Sales Rank: 14,279

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