The Evil Dead/Evil Dead II

I toyed with how to do this entry.  I didn't really want to watch the Evil Dead films back-to-back.  So I decided to do something ridiculous instead.  I'm watching both of these films at the same time.

In front of me, I have The Evil Dead playing on the television, and to my left, Evil Dead II is playing on my wife's Macbook.  You should see this; I look like an idiot.

See, Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II are basically the same film — the second one just has more money and seems slicker.  I joked with my in-laws about writing an entry for the first film and then copying and pasting the same entry for the second film.

In the end, that seemed like too much of a cheat — but the two films are so distinctly connected, I have trouble thinking of them individually.

I've watched the films back-to-back before, but not since I had the films on glorious VHS about ten years ago, so I don't quite remember everything.

Basically, the plot is this, both times: Bruce Campbell takes a girl to a cabin in the woods, and while there, he manages to bring forth evil, and he has to fight it off.

Of course, there are plenty of differences.  In the first film, he goes with a group of people: three women and another man.  In the second, he just takes a date.  Researchers and hillbillies play a role in the second film, as does Ash's chainsaw for a hand.

Still, the two films are too similar to not have a clearer connection.  That has always bothered me.  There are a some throwaway lines that could've been rewritten to really connect the films, but as is, the two films don't connect as well as they could, so I feel like I'm kind of watching the same film twice or something.

The flaw is in using the same actor to play the same character who has basically the same experience in the cabin in the woods.  No real indication is made as to whether the Bruce Campbell character of the sequel remembers the events of the first film, and if I've missed those indications, I just have one question: Why would he go back there?  If your answer is, "Because he killed the evil in the first film," then sadly, you are wrong.  I have a better answer for you.

If you assume Bruce Campbell's character either went insane or repressed everything after the events of the first film (which isn't much of a leap), then Evil Dead II works quite well as a direct sequel.  There.  That's all you need to do.  Just believe he went nuts or forgot. Easy!

Side by side, I'm realizing how full of shit I kinda am, because the two films actually don't line up all that well.  If they were made from the same script, wouldn't the events of the first film happen at pretty much the same moments in the second film?  I started them at the same time.  At the 26:00 mark, trees are attacking Ash's friend in the first film.  At the 26:00 mark of the second film, Ash's hand just went bad.  The differences go on and on. Nothing much lines up at all.

That leads me to an important conclusion that all Evil Dead fans should consider: Raimi didn't just re-make the first film with more money.  He re-envisioned the first film, using a bigger budget, more imagination, more humor, more over-the-top violence and gore, and more Bruce Campbell, who can't remember the events of the first film because the trauma made him insane (or something).

Now that I've watched them simultaneously, I see them differently.  Groovy.