25 Years Ago This Month: March 1987

The Iran-Contra Scandal occupied much of the White House's time. Rebels moved into Nicaragua armed with American aid. The U.S. and the Soviet Union continued talks on the spread of nuclear missiles. U2 released The Joshua Tree. Disney CEO Michael Eisner reached a deal with French PM Jacques Chirac to purchase land for the construction of Euro-Disney and AZT was approved by the FDA for use in AIDS treatment.

Cult Classic Movie Review: Army of Darkness

This is my BOOMstick!

This review is based on the Director's Cut DVD I own, a disappointingly poor transfer with additional and alternate scenes, most of which don't match film grade, spliced in.


Army of Darkness is the end result of what happens when a group of friends makes a marginally successful cult film and then a major studio gives them a serious budget for a sequel. It is the sequel to Evil Dead II, itself more a remake than a sequel of Evil Dead. It is what happens when a series of sight gags mostly inspired by "The Three Stooges" get stretched too thin until it lies gasping for air on the floor. Okay, I'm exaggerating to an extent, but I found myself a little bit bored through most of the final half hour.

It more or less follows on from where the previous film left off – with Ash (still portrayed by the dashing, self flagellating Bruce Campbell) being thrown back to the Middle Ages where he is prophesied to deliver the kingdom from evil.

Cult Classic Movie Review: Evil Dead II

If you go into watching Evil Dead II with anything other than the desire to laugh, you’re likely to be disappointed. Director Sam Raimi and his collaborators, high school friends Scott Spiegel (who co-wrote the screenplay with Raimi) and Bruce Campbell, who stars in the film, set out specifically to make a horror comedy.

In a nutshell, the story goes something like this: Raimi and Campbell make a low-budget horror film called Evil Dead. It’s a standard group-of-friends-in-a-cabin-in-the-woods, supernatural evil, genre film. It’s by no means an inept film, but the seams are visible, the acting is poor and audiences respond with jeers and laughter. It achieves a bit of cult status. They decide to ‘remake’ the film, but as a comic send up of low-budget horror flicks, and call it a sequel.