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Evil Dead went on the same journey, more or less.

bee_rider 3y ago
At least they have the option to lean more toward the comedy.
tombert 3y ago
It did, but I would argue that Army of Darkness is just as great as Evil Dead 2, and substantially better than the first Evil Dead, so we at least got three classic movies instead of two. Though, I guess you could argue that Evil Dead 2 is much more of a "comedy slapstick remake" of the first one than a sequel.
- chongli 3y ago
  And Army of Darkness is a comedy slapstick action movie. Right up there with UHF. Fantastic film!
  - tombert 3y ago
    Oh it's definitely a great movie, arguably better than Evil Dead 2, but I will say that a part of me wished they had kind of pretended to take themselves seriously more. Let me explain: part of why I like Evil Dead 2 so much is because it does a great job of walking the line between "horror" and "comedy". At some parts it's pretty goofy, but always in a way that kind of feels like it could plausibly be in a regular horror movie. Stuff like the moose head laughing, or Ash cutting off his hand and replacing it with a chainsaw are silly, and even slapsticky, but still kind of works in the tone of a "regular" horror movie. Army of Darkness on the other hand is basically a just a comedy. It has no pretense of being anything else, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, but a part of me wonders what it would have been like if they had kind of kept the goofiness into "potentially plausible in an action movie" territory.
- dllthomas 3y ago
  > I guess you could argue that Evil Dead 2 is much more of a "comedy slapstick remake" of the first one than a sequel. I really can't imagine what else one might argue.
  - tombert 3y ago
    I had a friend swear up and down that it's a sequel, not a remake. His argument was that instead of a group of friends it was just a couple, so it's a different story, but both have Bruce Campbell as Ash, so it's the same universe. I didn't agree with him.
    - dllthomas 3y ago
      "It's too different to be a remake" seems tenuous, but not absurd. I'd probably call it a "reimagining" or something then, though. Sequel implies shared continuity which it obviously lacks.
- bee_rider 3y ago
  Army of Darkness seems to subvert the trend in two ways. There’s a strong parody element to the series, Ash is basically an idiot so it isn’t that annoying/unexpected to have him redo some character development. Oh he learned nothing in the previous movies? That scans. It also manages to continue raising the stakes by shifting to a new genre. In this case, a sort of weird… fantasy/sword-and-sorcery/post-apocalyptic(?) universe. It confronts the protagonist with a new type of challenge so it doesn’t feel like a re-do.

At least they have the option to lean more toward the comedy.

It did, but I would argue that Army of Darkness is just as great as Evil Dead 2, and substantially better than the first Evil Dead, so we at least got three classic movies instead of two. Though, I guess you could argue that Evil Dead 2 is much more of a "comedy slapstick remake" of the first one than a sequel.

chongli 3y ago
And Army of Darkness is a comedy slapstick action movie. Right up there with UHF. Fantastic film!
- tombert 3y ago
  Oh it's definitely a great movie, arguably better than Evil Dead 2, but I will say that a part of me wished they had kind of pretended to take themselves seriously more. Let me explain: part of why I like Evil Dead 2 so much is because it does a great job of walking the line between "horror" and "comedy". At some parts it's pretty goofy, but always in a way that kind of feels like it could plausibly be in a regular horror movie. Stuff like the moose head laughing, or Ash cutting off his hand and replacing it with a chainsaw are silly, and even slapsticky, but still kind of works in the tone of a "regular" horror movie. Army of Darkness on the other hand is basically a just a comedy. It has no pretense of being anything else, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, but a part of me wonders what it would have been like if they had kind of kept the goofiness into "potentially plausible in an action movie" territory.
dllthomas 3y ago
> I guess you could argue that Evil Dead 2 is much more of a "comedy slapstick remake" of the first one than a sequel. I really can't imagine what else one might argue.
- tombert 3y ago
  I had a friend swear up and down that it's a sequel, not a remake. His argument was that instead of a group of friends it was just a couple, so it's a different story, but both have Bruce Campbell as Ash, so it's the same universe. I didn't agree with him.
  - dllthomas 3y ago
    "It's too different to be a remake" seems tenuous, but not absurd. I'd probably call it a "reimagining" or something then, though. Sequel implies shared continuity which it obviously lacks.
bee_rider 3y ago
Army of Darkness seems to subvert the trend in two ways. There’s a strong parody element to the series, Ash is basically an idiot so it isn’t that annoying/unexpected to have him redo some character development. Oh he learned nothing in the previous movies? That scans. It also manages to continue raising the stakes by shifting to a new genre. In this case, a sort of weird… fantasy/sword-and-sorcery/post-apocalyptic(?) universe. It confronts the protagonist with a new type of challenge so it doesn’t feel like a re-do.