When Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell made indy horror history with the relentless low budget The Evil Dead, you knew it was only a matter of time before a sequel was to be churned out and in this case the sequel turned out to be almost more of a remake, than an actual follow up film – but who cares. Evil Dead II: Dead By Dawn is the most fun you're likely ever going to have with a horror film.

Bruce Campbell reprises his most famous as Ash, who heads on out into the woods with his girlfriend Linda to spend some time at a remote cabin. Once they get there, Ash finds a tape recording which he plays back only to hear some strange incantations coming out the speakers. This incantation opens up the pathway for evil to come pouring into the area and only Ash and the daughter of the archeologist who used to own the cabin can stop it once and for all. Linda gets possessed, Ash starts to have problems with his hand, and it all just hits the fan for our poor hero.

Before Sam Raimi helmed blockbusters like Spider-Man and before Bruce Campbell was a best selling author and merchandising machine, they cut their teeth on some very infectious and flat out fun b-movie projects and Evil Dead II takes everything that was good about many of those early experiments and pumps it up until it explodes. Bruce Campbell's masterful physical comedy is the real star of the show – showing what a serious glutton for punishment Bruce really is. Ash gets beaten up to such an extreme and takes such a licking but still manages to keep on ticking that you can't help but love him, even if he is a bit of a moron. The scene where Campbell wrestles with his own hand is handled so well that it's really amazing that Bruce hasn't gone on to bigger comedic roles in the same way that Jim Carey or Will Farrell have.

At any rate, the film manages to do what so few horror films can pull off successfully and that's blend humor with horror. Most of the time when you mix laughs and scares you end up with something very mediocre, a film that can't really work as either a horror film or a comedy, let alone both but Evil Dead II is one of those rare breed of genre films that is able to make it happen. Raimi's completely off the wall direction and wild cinematography perfectly capture Campbell's ludicrous performance and all that it entails. The supporting cast is there mainly to serve as fodder for Bruce's inspired lunacy, this is completely his show. The possessed characters are eerie enough and weird enough on a visual level (Ted Raimi as Henrietta is a sight to behold!) to be more than a little unnerving and Raimi throws in a few good jump scares to ensure that we're never too far from the edge of our seats at any give time.

Special effects wise, despite the fact that almost all of the arterial spray is any color but read, there's plenty of it on display in this film. The latex appliances used by the deadite characters are grotesque and macabre serving as a flat out weird contrast to Campbell's goofiness. A few nice in-jokes for horror fans make this one a blast to revisit, with references to A Nightmare On Elm Street and Psycho both placed in the movie.

The DVD

Video:

Anchor Bay's new 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is noticeably improved when compared to previous home video releases of the film, including the THX certified release that came out from AB a few years back. Grain and print damage has been almost completely eliminated from the picture and the edge enhancement that was noticeable on the last release has also been greatly reduced. While the last release gave you the option of watching the fullframe version of the film, this latest release is widescreen only but this is a top notch transfer. Black levels stay very strong and there's a surprisingly high level of both foreground and background detail present in the image from start to finish. Flesh tones look lifelike and natural and there are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts on this release either. Color reproduction looks more natural and more accurate on this release than it has in the past and some of the murkiness that was present in a few scenes is no longer an issue. This Divimax transfer, which was supervised by director Sam Raimi, is a very nice effort from Anchor Bay and there's really very little to complain about here.