Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn [Evil Dead II] *** (1987, Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks) – Classic Movie Review 5030

For his bigger-budget ( $3,600,000) horror sequel to the 1981 cult favourite video nasty original The Evil Dead, co-writer/ director Raimi gives his horror fans exactly what they want – another exuberant dose of blood, shocks and film trickery.

Bruce Campbell returns as his hero Ash Williams to combat once again those grizzly flesh-possessing demons that are stalking the woods and possessing those hapless folk who enter a secluded cabin there. Ash travels with his girlfriend Linda (Denise Bixler) to the cabin, where they hole up with a group of strangers, and they find an audio tape recording of a professor and a book of evil, the Book of the Dead.

Despite the improved production through the backing of the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG), it is arguably a slight notch down from the 1981 original The Evil Dead. And some of it is as silly as it is gory. But there are still enough thrills, splatter, imagination and black humour to satisfy and excite most horror fans.

Also in the cast are Sarah Berry, Dan Hicks, Kassie Wesley, Theodore (Ted) Raimi, Richard Domeier, John Peakes, and Lou Hancock,

It runs 84 minutes, but it was cut to 81 minutes and even 70 minutes in the video nasty-fearing Britain of the Eighties. The TV version runs 91 minutes. 

It is produced by Renaissance Pictures, distributed by De Laurentiis Entertainment Group (DEG), written by Sam Raimi and Scott Spiegel, shot by Peter Deming, produced by Robert Tapert, scored by Joseph Lo Duca, and designed by Philip Duffin and Randy Bennett.

Sequel: Army of Darkness: the Medieval Dead (1992).

© Derek Winnert 2017 Classic Movie Review 5030

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