Evil Dead II (1987)

Evil Dead II, also known as Evil Dead II:Dead by Dawn, is a 1987 sequel to Evil Dead. The film is as the previous film directed by Sam Raimi and stars Bruce Campbell, Sarah Berry and Dan Hicks.

Many people consider it a remake since it re-does it's predecessor in the first half of the movie in a different way, introducing the audience to only two characters (Ash,Linda), excluding the others from the first film. The reason for that was that Sam Raimi couldn't use any footage from the original movie because of legal issues.

Plot
This movie begins with a slightly off-beat recap of the first movie in which they don’t have the three other characters that existed in the first movie. Another thing is that the character Linda changes to another woman in this movie. As part of the recap they show the romantic sentiments that exist between Ash and Linda by showing off the necklace that he gives her in the first movie. The movie progresses to show Ash finding the tape recorder containing Professor Raymond Knowby’s findings of the "Necronomicon Ex-Mortis" (Naturon Demonto), aka the Book of the Dead. Ash plays the tape and quickly realizes that he made a grave error since the tape plays readings from the book that awaken an evil force in the woods. The sound of glass breaking and Linda’s scream from the next room are dead giveaways to Ash’s mistake. He arrives to Linda’s aid, but finds her missing. Distraught, Ash begins to search for Linda by going outside, but getting more than he expected. Linda pops out of the shadows, but she is not herself, she is possessed. Ash, startled by Linda, falls to the ground next to a shovel which he uses to decapitate Linda as she lunges at him. So just like in the first movie Ash buries Linda and marks her grave, but The Evil Force has plans for Ash. The Force comes after Ash through the cabin, busting through the doors, picking him up, throwing him through the trees, slamming him against a big one, and dropping him in a puddle.

This is where the new material begins with Ash coming up out of the puddle possessed by evil and screaming, but soon the evil realizes the sun is coming up and begins to go away. Shortly after the possession subsides from Ash he screams in terror and passes out. Ash awakens and looks around seeing a pair of eyes overlaying the cabin and a disembodied voice saying “Join us”. Suddenly Ash decides to get out of there as he rushes to his car and speeds off down the path out from the cabin. Ash quickly discovers that he is trapped by finding the destroyed bridge down the road and he also discovers that he is not alone and has slept most of the day. The sun begins going down and the evil force begins to chase after Ash as he runs to his car and speeds back towards the cabin, crashes his car, flies through the windshield, and continues to run. The force chases Ash through the cabin until he evades it, defeated it leaves the cabin and Ash comes out. After a while of solitude Ash is startled by boards falling off a nearby window, and upon investigation he sees his dead girlfriend Linda’s headless body dancing and after the dance she attacks Ash through the window. Ash wakes up to discover the attack was just a dream and relaxes. Ash’s relax is short lived as Linda’s head falls in his lap and attacks him by biting his hand. Ash takes the head to the work shed where he gets the head off but is attacked by Linda’s body wielding a running chainsaw. After defeating Linda again Ash returns to the cabin where he finds a shotgun or boomstick for the fans, but while loading it he sees a rocking chair in the next room moving and he confronts it to find that there is something invisible in the chair. Ash panics and tries to calm himself in a mirror but is attacked by his reflection. After the attack Ash’s hand becomes possessed and attacks him in a slapstick way much like The Three Stooges. Ash’s hand knocks him out and tries to get a meat clever to kill him with but Ash stops it and cuts his hand off with the nearby chainsaw.

This is where Annie Knowby and college Ed come into full swing in the picture. They are stopped on their way to the cabin by Jake and wife Bobby Jo who are out marking the destroyed bridge. Jake and Bobby Jo agree to take Ed and Annie to the cabin on foot. Clipping back Ash undergoes another attack by his hand that leaves him worse for the wear as he fires the shotgun at his hand and missing but the holes he shoot in the wall begin gushing blood almost like a fire hose covering him in blood. Then the blood starts retracting back into the wall, and Ash is stunned and falls through a chair. Shortly after hitting the ground the props in the room begin laughing at him such as a deer head on the wall, the clock, books, cabinets, lamps and the trashcan. Ash, in a short moment of insanity, laughs but soon realizes that he’s losing it and screams, but everything goes quiet when he hears a knock at the door. Ash believes this is another attack and fires the gun at the door. Suddenly Jake busts in knocking Ash to the ground and with Ed’s help knocks Ash out. Annie and Bobby Jo come in to discover the bloody chainsaw and assumes that Ash killed her parents, Raymond and Henrietta Knowby, so they throw Ash into the cellar.

Annie unable to find her parents plays her father Raymond’s tape finding out that her mother Henrietta had become possessed and her father had to kill her but could not completely destroy her but buried her in the cellar. Shortly after finding this out voices come from the basement and an attack by Henrietta begins. Ash makes it out of the cellar but Ed suffers from this attack as he is knocked out. Shortly after Ash explains what’s going on to Ed, Annie, Jake, and Bobby Jo, but he is interrupted by Henrietta trying to get Annie’s attention and tries to get Annie to let her out but she refuses and then Ed becomes possessed and then attacks the group. penis

Ash lays waste to Ed but time stops and strange noises flood the cabin. Annie and Ash begin to investigate to find a ghostly head begin to come through into their world. The head is Professor Knowby and he warns them and tells them of a way to defeat the evil that swarms the woods outside and fades back into darkness. Then Ash’s hand strikes once again by scaring Bobby Jo out of the cabin. Jake, distraught by this action, peers out for her but she is nowhere in sight. Annie shows the pages to Ash that will defeat the evil but one catches his eye; an illustration of a hero from the sky said to have defeated the evil in the time of the book, and this hero is garbed strangely like Ash. Jake, holding a gun, takes charge throwing the papers in the cellar and demanding that they all go out in the woods and search for Bobby Jo. While out there they don’t find Bobby Jo but they do find the evil force at work once again, but this time its moved trees so they can’t get out.

Evil Ash returns and attacks Jake first but Annie gets away, back into the cabin where its safe for the moment. Evil Ash pops up at the door and says “join us” to Annie, but she closes the door as Ash tries to get in, when he can’t get in he screams “Annie!”. Ash heads for the back door of the cabin, realizing this Annie heads to the back to lock the door. Ash realizes that he can’t get in and hides while Jake makes his way back to the cabin but upon getting in the door he is stabbed by Annie because she thought it was Ash. Annie drags Jake to the front room of the cabin but unknowingly lays him by the cellar door where Henrietta disposes of him. Annie backs away only to be attacked by Ash who lifts her up and throws her against the wall, but his evilness is short lived as he looks down to see Linda’s necklace on the floor with the chain laying in the shape of a skull and he comes out of his possession crying for his lost love. Ash’s Mourning only lasts a moment because Annie begins to attack Ash for fear that he is still possessed but he convinces her that he is fine and so begins the cooperation to rid the world of this evil but they need the pages out of the cellar to do it. Annie and Ash gather what ever weapons they can find and prepare for the final confrontation.

Ash cuts open the cellar door and kicks it in, he goes down and gets the pages and tosses them up to Annie. Annie begins to read them but gets distracted by an all-out attack by Henrietta. Henrietta makes it up before Ash and attacks Annie but Ash comes to her rescue and fights with Henrietta but he doesn’t seem to be able to gain an advantage. Annie distracts Henrietta long enough for Ash to gain the advantage and dismember Henrietta. Ash's victory is short lived and another attack by the evil force begins and Ash is forced to fight it off while Annie finishes the passages to dispose of the evil. Annie is almost cut short by Ash’s possessed hand that stabs her in the back but she finishes the passage just before dying, but the plan backfires slightly since Ash is pulled into the vortex that is taking away all the evil and sending it back where it belongs.

Ash is sent back through time to the time of the “Necronomicon”. Knights surround him when he hits the ground and they are just about to kill him when a demon comes flying in to attack them but Ash gets the upper hand and disposes of it with his trusty boomstick. The knights stand in awe as the demon is dead and the warrior still stands. The leader of the knights, played by Sam Raimi, raises his face shield and exclaims “Hail he who has come from the sky to deliver us from the terrors of the deadites!” Ash realizes his fate as the hero in the page illustration that he saw earlier in the movie, and is troubled by it and begins screaming “NO!” as the knights gather around him exclaiming “Hail!” as this movie comes to an end.

List of Deaths
List of deaths in the film, Evil Dead II

Cast

 * Bruce Campbell as Ash Williams