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over 1 year ago

Army of Darkness

a review by Filipe Manuel Neto

A perfect "trash" movie.

When I saw this movie a few hours ago, I didn't know it was a sequel to “Evil Dead”, a movie I haven't seen yet. I generally like to start the franchises in the right order. However, and as far as I was reading, this film is the one that most differs from the antecedents, not least because the action takes place in the medieval period, and revolves around the possession of a book, the legendary Necronomicon.

Contrary to what one might think, the Necronomicon was not an invention of Sam Raimi, or any of the elements in the film. The book was created by the writer H. P. Lovecraft, and the idea came to be used for the film. Raimi is a creative and original director, and it's not surprising that such a bizarre film came out of his head. Basically, what we have here is a simple warehouse employee who, after handling the book, is teleported to the year 1300. And of course, to return to our time, he will have to find the book there, and overcome dangers of various order, starting with the medieval nobles themselves, at war with each other.

Bruce Campbell is the only actor who deserves mention in this cast of vast names in which there is no one who stands out positively. The cast is really one of the weaknesses and uninteresting of the film! And even Campbell is so irritating and arrogant that I didn't sympathize with his character at all, even though I know he's the hero and will somehow end up saving the day.

The film is corny, it's quite cheap (we only need to look at the poor quality of the stop-motion animations and visual or special effects to see that) and it's so absurd that it's hilarious. There are scenes that seem to be taken from a satire, or a school play. It is impossible not to laugh at such a film, a perfect “trash” film.