I LOVE Bruce Campbell. Of course, to anyone who knows me in the slightest, that’s no surprise. I have always held all three Evil Dead films close to my heart, and yes I get excited when either Sam or Bruce (or a combination of both) starts prick-teasing the fourth instalment. (Although I do believe it is never going to happen, I do however disagree with those who think that Bruce is now too old to play Ash! That’s crap!). The Evil Dead movies were notorious for re-inventing the previous films in the sequels and leaving out details, but apart from a few small differences in the beginning of the film, this one followed EDII nicely.

Poor ol’ Ash just can’t seem to get away from that damn Living Dead! They never seem to grow tired of the prospect of swallowing his soul. After being sucked into a wormhole at the end of EDII (Sorry if that’s a spoiler for anyone, if you haven’t seen Evil Dead II at this point in time you should be VERY ashamed of yourself.), Ash is transported along with his car, shotgun and chainsaw back to medieval England, where the Necronomicon is wreaking havoc on the locals. After being mistaken for one of Henry The Red’s men (sworn enemy of the peeps who captured him), Ash is thrown into the pit with, that’s right, you guessed it. The Living Dead.

Battling the Living Dead after the last 48 hours of his life is like just another day at the office, and after a handy assist from the local wise dude who believes that Ash is the chosen one prophesised to fall from the heavens and rid them of the evil; Ash escapes the pit, shotgun in tow. Soon all the other townsfolk are buying into the wise man’s story as well. Ash is their saviour! Now, if only he wasn’t such a cynical bastard!

Smart arse Ash is given the task of retrieving the Necronomicon from its resting place and bringing it back to the wise man so that he can stop the evil for once and all. In return, the wise man will grant Ash his only wish, to return to his own time. But this isn’t going to be just any trip into the woods to grab a little old book. Ash will have to face a bunch of violent skeletons, an army of mini Ash’s and ultimately, the evil half of himself. On top of that he is faced with the arduous task of remembering those three damn words that will remove the book from its resting place without awakening the army of deadites. Balls to that! The poor dude just wants to get home!

Ash’s character developed fantastically over the three films, almost realistically. Originally, Ash was our wholesome good guy, out to do what was best and save his friends and girlfriend. In the second film, we saw him go a little crazy with the situation (and who wouldn’t), and in this chapter we see him as arrogant, cynical and clearly sick to death of everyone and everything concerning that damn book. Poor Ash has just had enough. He doesn’t want to be anyone’s saviour. He just wants to get back to his own time and forget that any of this ever happened.

One thing I did disagree with though was Ash’s womanising in this film. He’s more than happy to pick up Sheila, but are we meant to forget that his chopped up his own girlfriend with a chainsaw less than 48 hours earlier? I’d still be a bit bummed about that actually, not thinking about hooking up with a medieval head case with a bad case of hairspray abuse. (Wow I just realised how insane that all sounds).

If you love Evil Dead and especially if you love Bruce you can’t go wrong with this film. A little lighter on the gore and a lot more comedic than its two predecessors it will provide a fun evening in if you just want to watch a highly entertaining no-brainer movie. I think that everyone needs to watch this film just so they can appreciate the awesomeness that is Bruce. What can I say? If you want to check out this Bruce Campbell fellow that everyone should be raving about, it’s a better option than Maniac Cop. Not that Maniac Cop isn't the shit also. 

A couple of things you might not know about Army of Darkness: There were two endings filmed for this movie: The S-Mart ending and the Slept too Long ending. Personally, I prefer the S-Mart. Ted Raimi plays 4 or so different characters in this movie. Ted is awesome. When Ash opens the trunk of his car, there is an issue of Fangoria in there. Much love for Fango!