American Idiot in King Arthur’s Court: Revisiting ‘Army of Darkness’
The Evil Dead had its moments of comedy, without a doubt. Part of the charm of that original film is that it could go from offbeat humor to unrelenting horror at the drop of a hat. It was every kind of horror movie at once: funny, frightening, eerie, and outrageously gory, all in one big melting pot and I think — when looking at that original movie by itself — that’s a major factor as to why it has endured for the past 40 years. It was also a movie made for no money by a handful of people who simply wanted to see if they could make a film. The fact that they not only pulled it off, but managed to do so with such frenzied, mesmerizing camera work and outrageous effects is nothing short of astonishing. Evil Dead 2 somehow became an even bigger cult hit and amped up the comedy to the extreme. James Cameron referred to it as the first horror cartoon, and that’s a fairly apt description. Bruce Campbell’s character, Ash, the centerpiece of this trilogy, went on a wildly transformative arc over the course of that second film.
He goes from the nervous survivor of the first, to a physical one-man performance somewhere between Bugs Bunny and The Three Stooges as he is both mentally and physically assaulted by demonic forces throughout the second act, and the third act reforges him into the smartass hero that everyone knows and loves. The first movie ended on a shot of Ash screaming as the camera pushed in on him, from the evil force’s POV as it took possession of him. The second movie ended with Ash screaming as the camera pulls back from him, as he is stranded in the Middle Ages thanks to an incantation gone wrong.
That is where Army of Darkness finds our hero, condemned as a prisoner in the 1300s, in a miserable time when the evil dead were simply a part of every day life. The film’s tagline sums it up nicely as “Trapped in time, surrounded by evil, low on gas.” When Ash displays his proficiency at slaying Deadites (the evil dead are notably given that name here for the first time) his reputation quickly shifts from a prisoner condemned to death to the Chosen One who is fated to vanquish the evil and save their land. Of course, Ash screws up the simplest task and makes everything worse, and becomes responsible for an army of the dead launching a full-scale invasion on the castle, led by a doppelgänger of Ash himself. I am willing to bet, though, that I probably don’t need to tell anyone what Army of Darkness is about.
At least, that was how it felt in the early 2000s, when I watched this movie’s reputation grow in real time. Through high school, by the time I reached college, it seemed like any new person I talked to, even if they didn’t like horror, had seen Army of Darkness. Many, many people didn’t even know it was the third in a series and had only vaguely heard of Evil Dead. That’s the reputation this film has gained on its own. Army of Darkness pushes the humor to the brink. It is, by this point in time, a comedy first and foremost. The change in setting and time period allows for that to go down much easier than if it had been another film set in the same cabin. It absolutely stands on its own. Even the gore is almost entirely gone. There are some ghastly ghouls featured, particularly the Pit Witch and a flying demon that bears a striking resemblance to the Green Goblin that would later feature in director Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man, but for the most part, Ash is battling stop-motion skeletons.
That is a major part of the lasting appeal of Army of Darkness, for me. I am astonished that Sam Raimi got away with it. This was no longer a handful of college students shooting whatever they wanted at an abandoned cabin. This was a major studio release. This was a movie made (well, half-funded) on Universal’s dime. With that dime, Raimi made an update on Mark Twain’s oft-adapted A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, in which the “yankee” is a selfish idiot. He made a full-blown old-fashioned stop-motion sword and sorcery epic played to the tune of The Three Stooges. And above all else, he took all of these things, put them together and made it the third Evil Dead movie. It is certainly not a shock that it was a flop when first released. But it is a marvel that Universal said “yes” to any of it at all.
Ash has a great, if simplistic, arc in Army of Darkness. He just wants to go home. He just wants the nightmare to be over. He tried the hero thing and it got him here. This is not his time and these are not his people and he doesn’t owe them anything, apparently not even the most basic human decency. He sleeps with a medieval maiden probably a day after having to dismember his possessed longterm girlfriend, and when she gets attached, he passes it off as pillow talk. He doesn’t listen to anyone about anything, because he didn’t ask for any of this, he doesn’t want to be here, and thus not remembering the proper incantation leads him to be directly responsible for the army of the dead that rises to besiege Arthur’s kingdom.
He faces up to his responsibility and becomes a genuine hero without sacrificing any of his jackass personality to do it. Ash even proves himself smarter than he thinks he is in the process. He doesn’t just join Arthur’s forces in the fight against the army of darkness, he leads them. He teaches them modern fighting techniques, as well as engineering. Forgetting his arc through the less-than-continuity-conscious trilogy as a whole, it’s mesmerizing to watch him go from entitled dumbass to leading an army in the span of 90 minutes.
It’s perfect that the villain is also Ash, here dubbed “Evil Ash.” It builds organically from the fact that Ash was the only one to get possessed, fight it off, and get possessed yet again a few times in Evil Dead 2. It was clear that the demonic forces within the woods wanted him for some purpose. In this medieval tale, it turns out that Ash is the “Chosen One” for both sides. Whether the army of evil triumphs or the army of man beats them back, Ash is the one leading the charge. Ash has always been his own worst enemy and the films really make no attempt to hide it. Now we literally have two of the same guy leading armies against the other. It’s basically the case with any fictional hero, their biggest obstacle is always their own fear or insecurity. Here it’s as blatant as possible because that’s the kind of movie this is, and it works all the better for it.
There are two endings to Army of Darkness, one of which was notorious for a long time but was first released on DVD as the “bootleg edition.” That original ending saw Ash take a potion to sleep until he awoke in his own time, only to screw it up yet again and wake up in a post-apocalyptic future ruled by Deadites. I’ve always preferred the theatrical ending, where Ash simply returns to his own time, to the department store job he takes so seriously, telling the story to anyone who will listen even though nobody believes a word of it.
The arrogance and ego are still there, but at least now there are skills to back them up. Until the deadites show up, he’s getting nothing out of his bragging but boredom and bizarre looks, and yet he’s happy to keep telling his story all the same. That’s a kind of progress.
