Army of Darkness (1993)
By: Craig Villinger on March 11, 2002.
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| Anchor Bay (USA). Region 1, NTSC. 1.66:1 (16:9 enhanced). English DD 2.0. 96 Minutes |
| The Movie |
| Cover Art |
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| Credits |
Director: Sam Raimi
Starring: Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Marcus Gilbert, Ian Abercrombie
Screenplay: Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi
Tagline: Trapped in time, Surrounded by evil, low on gas.
Country: USA |
Cult horror icon Bruce Campbell returns as
Ash in this third instalment of Sam Raimi's Evil
Dead series. This time around Ash finds himself
sent back through time to the 13th century, but
even here he finds there is no escape from the
evil forces that plagued him throughout the previous
films. After gaining the trust of the locals with
some 20th century charm, Ash is given the task
of retrieving the "Necronimicon" which
will help send him back to his own time. However,
In the process of retrieving the book, Ash inadvertently
awakens the army of the dead and creates an evil
clone of himself who promptly sets about regaining
the Necronomicon in order to bring chaos and destruction
to the entire land. With the aid of his chainsaw,
shotgun and some 20th century know how, Ash must
attempt to right his wrongs by leading the people
in an all out war against the army of darkness.
This films has achieved a cult status amongst
horror fans, due mainly to the direction of Sam
Raimi and Bruce Campbell's fantastic performance
as Ash. The special effects are at times terrible
to watch and the film could perhaps of benefited
from a much higher budget, but that hardly matters,
as Bruce Campbell constantly delivers some of
the most quotable lines in horror film history,
and Rami's inventive camera trickery never fails
to impress.
The original release of Army of Darkness had
a running time of eighty one minutes. This DVD
release from Anchor Bay is Sam Raimi's preferred
"Director's cut" version and features
an additional fifteen minutes of footage, which
includes a different ending to the original theatrical
version and an extension of the films "windmill
sequence". Some fans may be disappointed
at the omission of the original ending, which
featured Ash uttering the classic line "Hail
to the king baby" and I personally would
have enjoyed seeing this included as an extra
feature on the disc. That said however, there
are still more than enough one-liners on hand
to keep everyone happy, and the newer alternate
ending does seem more appropriate given the conclusions
to the previous Evil Dead films. |
| Video |
| Army of Darkness is presented in a 1.66:1 aspect
ratio and is enhanced for 16x9 television sets.
The transfer is decent enough, although unfortunately
this only serves to highlight the poor quality of
some of the films visual effects shots. Almost all
of the scenes featuring techniques such as "rear
projection" appear very grainy, and there is
a noticeable difference in quality between the rear
projected footage and the foreground action. The
films climatic battle sequence suffers heavily as
a result. There is also a noticeable difference
in the quality of the extra footage that was not
included in the films original theatrical release
(particularly the extended "windmill sequence"),
which was obviously sourced from lesser quality
material. |
| Audio |
| The disc features a Dolby Digital 2.0 channel
soundtrack which gets the job done nicely, although
it is nothing to write home about. Importantly,
Campbell's constant stream of smart one-liners come
out with crystal clear clarity. |
| Extra Features |
| The selection of extra features on this disc is
fairly impressive. The highlight is undoubtedly
the informative and often amusing audio commentary
from Director Sam Raimi, Ivan Raimi and star Bruce
Campbell. Also on offer are four deleted scenes
with optional commentary from Raimi and Campbell,
"Creature Concept Drawings", and selectable
storyboards which play in the corner of the screen
as you watch the film. |
| The Verdict |
| This new release of the directors cut version
should be welcomed by fans, as it was previously
only available in the limited edition two disc set
from Anchor Bay which is now out of print and goes
for prices in excess of US$150 on eBay. The 15 minutes
of additional footage is a great treat, and despite
the sometimes below average image quality, this
disc is well worth picking up for those who were
unable to get their hands on the limited edition
release. |
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