After my experience with Drag Me to Hell, it only made sense to give director Sam Raimi's earlier horror films a shot. I made my way through 2/3 of his Evil Dead series, Evil Dead and it's sequel/remake Evil Dead II.
I almost wish that I'd only seen Evil Dead II; it's essentially the same film as Evil Dead only the budget is roughly ten times larger. Both films suffer from the same weaknesses: a complete lack of characterization, amateur performances, and a bare semblance of plot. And both films have the same strength, a madcap imagination that fuels the inventive camerawork and wall-to-wall violence. Although the first film has some superb gross-out moments in its finale that its sequel can't hold a candle to, anything that Evil Dead can do Evil Dead II can do better.
But sometimes "better" isn't good enough, and while Raimi's "Three Stooges meets Night of the Living Dead" tone is awfully fun, there's very little reason to be invested in the films. The characters - stereotypes at best, redshirts at worst - are plopped into the woods and get possessed. Ash, the erstwhile hero of the films, is remarkably bland for someone revered as a badass by fans (perhaps the screenwriters inject some life into him in Army of Darkness). I'd say that these were just rookie errors, but I didn't care much for the plot or characters in Drag Me to Hell either. I'd love to see more of Raimi, but only as a collaborator. He's worked with the Coen Brothers in the past and if the three of them teamed up for a horror film I'd be there on opening night. When it comes to him as an auteur, though, I find the results sadly lacking.
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