The pReview retRo Re-viewing of..
Evil Dead II
CLICK THE TITLE TO VIEW THE TRAILER IN A SEPARATE WINDOW!
(it is highly recommended to view the trailer and THEN read)
(warning: Reaganomics.)
by Jeff Finck
written: 10/30/2012
Release Date: March 13, 1987
Deep within the woods of.. garbinshern..som..ton..(??) there lives something! Something evil! And something dead! Wait.. I mean, there doesn't live something.. Evil! Evil Dead! And due to some absolutely bad calls on the "Reading the Latin Phrases Out Loud" front, that very dead, very evil “thing” will spring to life. And then try to climb inside of this man's chin and kill everyone:
As I said, there are some ill-advised Latin speakers running around in the woods, reading things out loud-- Or in the case of the beginning of the trailer: Chanting unenthusiastically out loud. The disembodied voice of that guy who does disembodied voices for movie trailers disembodily voices over the trailer for this movie.. And he tells us the very bloody history of a particular cabin in a particular woods: Something, so frightening, so deadly, and so evil happened four years ago in this cozy cabin.. Wait a minute.. This guy is claiming that this cabin is cozy?! Yeah, I’m not buying it.. And because the cabin looks about as cozy as Ronald Reagan posing in his underwear, I already don't believe anything he's going to say. But I have two and a half minutes to spare, so I'll hear him out.
This "something" is something so frightening and so deadly that it causes a zombie hand to stick up and heil the cabin.. It’s something so frightening and so deadly that Vanna White in a banana shirt screams her balls off. It’s something so frightening and so deadly that Ash Williams (played by Bruce Campbell) falls asleep standing up against a wall only to have his axe-throwing alarm clock jolt him awake with axe thrown inspired awareness. Oh, and apparently something so evil happened that.. Uhmm.. Tree rape.
Oh, and then Ash cuts his girlfriend's head off with a shovel because.. Well.. You have to be sure. Be sure of what, you ask? I don’t really know but, well.. Sometimes.. You just have to be sure. Period. Luckily, though, that was four years ago! Things have changed since then! Now, Ash is back to living the good life.. Normal, everyday.. Ack! Fuck! A headless, chainsaw-wielding zombie! Quick thinking, Ash pulls a super reversal: Uppercutting the chainsaw with a crowbar so hard that the zombie cuts itself in half. In some circles, that's called "Pulling an Iran-Contra Affair."
The terror continues as Ash and a couple of people are trapped with a screaming woman who won't stop screaming. To get her to stop screaming, Ash leaps into the air and stomps down on a poor, defenseless, trapped evil demon head. This prompts one of its eye balls to escape its head and land firmly in the mouth of the aforementioned screaming screamy face. That'll shut her up! It should be noted that some unseen force is tearing ass through the woods towards the cabin. I assume that it’s the police.. Or the Army.. Or a wizard.. Or the Magical Tree Rapers come to save everyone from the horror unfolding inside. It may be too late, though, because some demon guy (who has no regard for human physiology or its own spine) reaches out and snaps some dude's neck like a flimsy twig.
The invisi-force finally makes it inside! Right as Ash is attacked by the monster stairs! Stairs so monstrous that they throw zombies at your legs through the slats! And a demon hand scurries across the floor, hell bent on.. Uhmm.. Whatever possessed hands are hell bent on! Pretty sure possessed hands are usually hell bent on murder. Hey! Someone should make a movie about that some day! They could call it something like "Lazy Hands" or "Bored Hands".. It's a work in progress. Oh! I know!
After the ambiguous force makes it into the cabin, it heads right the fuck back out of the cabin, presumably because that's where Ash is now. And then a clay-mation old man melts into a demon and hollers about swallowing your soul. Must be the new South Beach Diet or something, because then the gallivanting force crams itself into Ash's mouth and the next shot is a skeleton thin guy staring over its shoulder into our GI tracts, judging us for our gluttony and warning us that if we don't change our ways, we'll be dead by dawn.