Get ready for a wild ride with “Army of Darkness: Return to Evil” starring the iconic Bruce Campbell as Ash. The Necronomicon Ex Mortis is back, pulling Ash into the past for a battle against evil forces determined to destroy him. To conquer this malevolent threat, Ash teams up with the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe, summoned through a spell that transcends time. Experience the excitement and thrills this July 2024 in theaters, brought to you by the visionary director Sam Raimi.
Bruce Campbell stars as the everyman hero, Ash, in the concluding chapter of the Evil Dead trilogy, Sam Raimi’s opus of chainsaws, chainmail and chopped body parts. Picking up right where Evil Dead 2 left off, Ash finds himself trapped in the 14th Century after the Book of the Dead creates some shenanigans with the space-time continuum. In Medieval times, Ash strikes a deal with a local warlord who will provide the means to return to the 20th Century if Ash helps retrieve the magical Book from a mysterious forest.
Disaster strikes, however, when Ash’s faulty memory and his impatience with the primitive screwhead natives lead him to accidentally unleash the Deadite army, a ragtag band of skeletons and zombies led by Ash’s undead double.
Raimi began his trilogy in 1981 with The Evil Dead, an independent horror item shot on a shoestring budget with his pals from Michigan. Army of Darkness, released in 1993 by Universal Pictures, had a budget that was one hundred times greater than the original, a fact that only emboldened the anarchic spirit of Raimi and Campbell, who is positively zany in his dual role.
A dizzying blend of slapstick action and gratuitous gore, filled with MAD magazine type gags and Ray Harryhausen style stop-motion effects, Army of Darkness is a truly groovy blast to the past. Academy Award winning editor Bob Murawski, who has been Sam Raimi’s regular collaborator for more than 30 years, will join us in-person to discuss his work on this horror-comedy classic, which will screen on glorious 35mm film in honor of its 30th anniversary! (JH)
