The Good
This is one those films that is a cinematic landmark for a reason.
The Bad
I didn’t see a major jump from this disc’s Standard form to Blu-ray.
Describing Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn is a linear way would be like taking everything that makes your favorite song or movie special and boiling it down to this sentence “I like it.” So rather than do that imagine if you will the character of Ash (Bruce Campbell) going to a cabin with his girlfriend for a romantic weekend. Then Ash finds a Book of the Dead, his girlfriend gets possessed and Ash takes her head off with a shovel. Ash proceeds to be haunted by his dead girlfriend, as well as other spirits, and soon his hand gets possessed and tries to kill him. Then some people show up with missing pages from this Book of the Dead and that’s when everyones real troubles begin as they discover Henrietta’s fruit cellar.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
Now, I know that I probably left a lot out and that purists might jump all over me for boiling this sacred film down to a paragraph. However, know that I am a fan of Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn which is more than a movie, it’s more than a DVD, in fact, I don’t know if I really know what it is.
Features
Truthfully, this commentary track should have featured only Raimi and Bruce Campbell. These guys are the heart and soul of this movie and for some reason I just find that Greg Nicotero really bugs me (I think he talks too much during these things when he should just defer to the creators). It isn’t that everybody is talking over everyone else, but Bruce Campbell has that magnetic quality that always seems to control things. I enjoyed hearing about the origins and reasons for certain scenes, but for the most part I would have rather heard Raimi and Campbell just trade war stories and anecdotes.
Fast Film Facts
“Evil Dead II: Behind The Screams” Featurette and “The Gore The Merrier” Featurette
Video
1.85 Anamorphic - 1080p AVC MPEG-4 transfer. I was impressed with how well Blu-ray Disc seemed to contain this movie. At the same time, I didn’t really think that this film looked that incredible in this next generation format. I never thought that this movie looked bad here but I think it’s films like this that really underscore the problems with this format. Blu-ray Discs, at this stage of the game, only seem to look moderately better than Standard DVDs. While I think all of this stuff generally looks good, I don’t know that it’s necessarily worth the price hike.
Audio
Uncompressed 5.1 PCM - Dolby Digital 5.1. The sound on this movie was engulfing. I watched this film and was shocked at how much I heard that I didn’t hear previously. It seems as if the creators of this Blu-ray Disc have really gone through the audio, punching it up all over to give it its flare. On a really good sound system, I could see this disc being the kind of thing that users show off to guests in their home.
Package
Ash carries a chainsaw, his girlfriend is going crazy, and Henrietta is up to her old tricks on this colorfully animated front cover. The back gives users a description of this film, a Special Features listing, a cast list and technical specs. From what I can gather, this packaging is actually different from its standard counterpart, however, as I am not an ultra-fan I might be wrong.
Final Word
I remember seeing Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn when I was really young and, frankly, it was too much for me. This movie is so hyperkinetic, so viscerally charged, that I remember leaving the house where my friends were watching it because I just couldn’t keep up. Yet, as I was walking home I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I also recall being somewhat put off by Bruce Campbell’s acting. In later years I have had a change of heart and I understand what makes this movie great. The truth of the matter is that it is highly original. Evil Dead 2 isn’t simply one movie but a mix of movies, styles and genres. It asks a lot of questions of viewers as it only pretends to be a horror film.
If you are a collector of Blu-ray Discs or you’re just amassing a collection, I would highly recommend Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn simply for it’s rough and unafraid visual qualities.
Evil Dead II was released March 13, 1987.
