Parents' Guide to Army of Darkness

The third in a trilogy, this over-the-top horror-adventure may displease fans of the earlier movies—and newcomers won't know what to make of it—but it's tons of zany, exuberant fun. Army of Darkness was retitled from its working tittle, Medieval Dead, by Universal Pictures to lure newcomers to the theater without letting on that it was an Evil Dead threequel. For that initial theatrical release, the ending was also changed from director Sam Raimi's bitterly ironic one to a happy one, and the film was shortened from 96 minutes to 81. (The longer director's cut is reviewed here.) Fans had loved the ultra-gory low-fi original The Evil Dead and its slick, equally gory sequel (really a remake), Evil Dead II, and balked at the more humor-based approach of this third movie.

But Raimi has always been a fan of the Three Stooges as well as monster movies, and Army of Darkness is a joyous combination of those, plus everything else under the sun (maybe even the kitchen sink). There are swords, warriors, animated skeletons, horses, graveyards, winged beasts, castles, doppelgangers, chainsaws, rifles, a 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88, and even some romance. The visual and makeup effects are goofy and old-school—and still a lot of fun today. Campbell's fish-out-of-water performance is both heroic and inept, perfecting the droll braggadocio that made many of his line readings quotable classics ("You see this? This is my boomstick!"; "Gimme some sugar, baby," and many others). And Raimi's direction is joyously speedy, kinetic, and fluid, virtually unlike anything else around, except maybe Hong Kong action master John Woo (Raimi served as the executive producer on Woo's U.S. debut, Hard Target, that same year). Whether you're watching the theatrical cut or the director's cut, Army of Darkness is high entertainment for people with a certain sense of humor—or anyone with a taste for the outlandish.