Army of Darkness (1992)

Happy Halloween! Please click the links to read my reviews of: Ed Wood, Plan 9 From Outer Space, Angel Heart, Friday the 13thPart II, Lost Highway, Blue Velvet, Jacob’s Ladder, Flatliners, American Psycho and One Hour Photo. 

Halloween Movie #5 

Synopsis: It’s essentially an hour and 21 minutes of Bruce Campbell getting physically abused, punctuated with snappy one-liners. 

Blurb From the VHS Jacket: “Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.” 

What Did I Learn?: Klaatu Barada Nikto... Klaatu Barada Nikto... keep repeating those words until you have them memorized! 

You Might Like This Movie If: You feel the need to watch all of Bruce Campbell’s work.

Really?: Army of Darkness is both a black comedy and a horror/sword-and-sorcery fantasy, so it might not be entirely fair to judge it in terms of its credibility. Ok, maybe I can overlook Ash (Campbell) somehow constructing a mechanical hand for himself using medieval technology, but come on – why does the landscape of England, circa 1300 AD look so much like the Southern California desert? And why do the “Deadites” kill the other humans, but insist upon duking it out with Ash, one fistfight at a time? 

Rating: Army of Darkness is the third film in the Evil Dead trilogy (don’t worry – you don’t need to see the first two in order to follow the plot, although I watched them years ago) by Sam Raimi. While the film is light on plot, and some of the special effects are a bit sketchy, Army of Darkness (mostly) works because it never takes itself too seriously, Ash’s quips are often quite funny, and Campbell delivers a tour-de-force performance as a seriously pissed-off ordinary guy who’s ready to kick some undead ass. 7.5/10 stars. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106308/?ref_=nv_sr_1