The Army of Darkness
By the time of the third Evil Dead film, Army of Darkness, (1992), the balance had tipped so that the horror was virtually non-existent. Here Ash is cast back into the Middle Ages to battle more demons with his chainsaw and “boom-stick”. Despite the bigger budget and Campbell’s enthusiastic performance the splatter took a back seat. Still, that didn’t stop the square-jawed actor becoming deified by zombie fans for his effortless ability to dispatch hordes of zombie demons with a shotgun blast and a cry of “Groovy! Hail to the king, baby” It’s an enduring legacy that a remake was finally made of the original Evil Dead with a new cast and Campbell and Raimi acting as producers.
The blend of gory horror and gross humour the The Return of the Living Dead and the first two Evil Dead films precipitated harked back to the comic book splatter of Romero’
