Evil Dead II (1987)

Directed by

Sam Raimi

Genre

comedy horror, parody film, splatter film, zombie film

Country

United States

Runtime

1h 25m

Rated

R

Rating

7.5 of 10 from 3,545 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A man and his girlfriend go to a remote cabin where a recording from an ancient book unleashes demons that possess and torment him. The man must survive the night as the demons attack him and the cabin.

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What happens

Evil Dead II (also known in publicity materials as Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn) is a 1987 American comedy horror film directed by Sam Raimi, who co-wrote it with Scott Spiegel. It is the sequel to The Evil Dead (1981) and the second installment in the Evil Dead franchise. It stars Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams, who vacations with his girlfriend to a remote cabin in the woods. He discovers an audio tape of recitations from a book of ancient texts, and when the recording is played, it unleashes a number of demons which possess and torment him. After the critical and commercial failure of Crimewave (1985), Raimi, producer Robert Tapert, and Campbell began work on a sequel to The Evil Dead at the insistence of their publicist Irvin Shapiro. Having endorsed the original film, author Stephen King brought the project to the attention of producer Dino De Laurentiis, with whom he had been making his directorial debut Maximum Overdrive (1986). De Laurentiis agreed to provide financial backing, and assigned the filmmakers a considerably larger budget than they had worked with on the original film. Although Raimi had devised a premise set in the Middle Ages and involving time travel, De Laurentiis requested that the film be similar to its predecessor. Evil Dead II was shot in Wadesboro, North Carolina and Detroit, Michigan in 1986, and featured extensive stop-motion animation and prosthetic makeup effects created by a team of artists that included Mark Shostrom, Greg Nicotero, Robert Kurtzman and Tom Sullivan, the latter of whom returned from the original film. The finished film was released in the United States on March 13, 1987; due to its high level of violence, it was released through a pseudonymous distributor to curb an anticipated X rating from the Motion Picture Association of America. Much like The Evil Dead, it was widely acclaimed by critics, who praised its humor, Raimi's direction, and Campbell's performance; many have considered it superior to its predecessor and similarly as one of the greatest horror films ever made. Despite being given a somewhat limited release, it was a minor box office success, grossing just under $6 million. As with the first film, Evil Dead II has accumulated a large, international cult following. In 1992, it was followed by the direct sequel Army of Darkness, which utilized Raimi's original premise; in 2013, it was followed by standalone sequel Evil Dead; and in 2015, it was followed by the television series Ash vs Evil Dead, a direct sequel to the first three films. A fifth film in the series, Evil Dead Rise, was released on April 21, 2023. A sixth film, Evil Dead Burn, was released on July 10, 2026. A prequel, Evil Dead Wrath, is set to be released on April 7, 2028. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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