Movie · 1992 · Fantasy, Horror, Comedy · 1h 21m · R · English
Curator score: 6.5/10 (327.1K ratings)
Trapped in time. Surrounded by evil. Low on gas.
Overview
Ash, a handsome, shotgun-toting, chainsaw-armed department store clerk, is time warped backwards into England's Dark Ages, where he romances a beauty and faces legions of the undead.
Ratings
Curator score: 6.5/10
Letterboxd: 3.72/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 68%
TMDB: 7.3/10
Director
Sam Raimi
Production
Renaissance Pictures, Introvision International, Dino de Laurentiis Communications
Cast
Bruce Campbell, Embeth Davidtz, Marcus Gilbert, Ian Abercrombie, Richard Grove, Michael Earl Reid, Timothy Patrick Quill, Bridget Fonda, Patricia Tallman, Ted Raimi, Deke Anderson, Bruce Thomas, Sara Shearer, Shiva Gordon, Billy Bryan, Nadine Grycan, Bill Moseley, Micheal Kenney, Andy Bale, Robert Brent Lappin
Curator Review
Verdict
A wildly inventive horror-comedy that turns a medieval undead siege into a showcase for Sam Raimi’s kinetic camera style and Bruce Campbell’s swaggering, self-mocking charisma. It’s goofy, quotable, and surprisingly polished for something this unhinged, with practical effects and skeleton gags that still land.
Best for
fans of fast, cartoonish genre-mashing
viewers who like quotable cult comedies
people who enjoy practical effects and creature work
audiences open to horror that plays like a live-action comic book
Skip if
you want straight horror with sustained dread
you dislike broad slapstick and one-liners
you prefer subtle humor over manic energy
you need a fully serious fantasy adventure
Overview
Army of Darkness is the rare sequel that fully commits to escalation as a philosophy. What starts as a splatter-horror premise becomes a medieval siege comedy with stop-motion skeletons, slapstick bravado, and a hero who survives by sheer attitude. Raimi’s camera is in constant motion, turning every gag and scare into a miniature set piece.
Worth noting
Bruce Campbell is the engine here, playing Ash as equal parts idiot, action star, and accidental legend. The movie’s charm comes from how confidently it swings between genuine monster-movie menace and absurd punchlines, often in the same scene. It’s not trying to be cool so much as gloriously excessive.
Bottom line
If you like your fantasy loud, scrappy, and a little deranged, this is a blast. If you want tonal consistency or serious stakes, it may feel like a prank. But as a cult spectacle built on practical effects, comic timing, and pure directorial personality, it’s hard to resist.
Top Letterboxd reviews
ciara (4★) · 5640 likes
don’t know what it was about evil dead and evil dead 2 that made sam raimi look back at them and decide the only logical conclusion to the trilogy was to send ash to 1300 AD to fight a skeleton army but i absolutely love where his mind was at
James (Schaffrillas) (4.5★) · 5249 likes
Probably my favorite of Raimi's trilogy because the main character is at his most entertaining here, and while I find this one's insane tonal whiplash and absurd out-of-nowhere concepts to be utterly at odds with the previous two films, they're silly and distinct and memorable and fun enough to make this film the most consistently engaging out of the three to me.
...but enough about Spider-Man 3.
SilentDawn (4★) · 3238 likes
76
"Don't touch that please, your primitive intellect wouldn't understand alloys and compositions and things with... molecular structures."
Bruce fucking Campbell.
coffee (4.5★) · 2622 likes
movies are so much better when they have claymation skeletons in them
Matt Singer (5★) · 2163 likes
“You found me beautiful ... once.”
“Honey, you got real ugly.”
1987 · Horror, Comedy, Fantasy · 1h 24m · R · Curator 8.2/10 (644.9K ratings) · Where to watch: AMC+, Philo, IndieFlix
The closest tonal and stylistic companion: more slapstick, more gore, and the same manic Raimi energy that made this franchise’s comedy-horror blend click.